"Robert A. Metzger - Quad-World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Metzger Robert)

was a drink of water. A beer would have gone down just great.

I opened my eyes.

I was seated in a soft chair, with my elbows propped up on the table in front of me. I was in a room in
which the walls were covered with walnut paneling. A mental clutch, buried somewhere deep beneath my
frontal lobes, popped into first gear.

I was in the Walnut Conference Room.

I was not dead.

My joints were on fire. Bending forward, I let my head rest against the tabletop. The lacquered wood felt
cool. Sweat dripped down my face, gathering at the tip of my nose in large fat drops, until they fell,
splattering into the carpet.

I wasn't dead, but I was as sick as the proverbial dog. Hell, any dog that felt this bad would simply have
curled up and died.

That didn't sound like such a bad idea.

I must have been hit with one of those new-and-improved mutated flu strains that had floated in from
some Third World germ factory. Right now I was probably eyeball-deep in viral nucleic acids courtesy of
Katmandu, or some damn swamp in southwest Cameroon. Coughing something up from deep in my
lungs, I sloshed it around my mouth for a few seconds and then spit it out beneath the table. The janitors
would just have to earn their money this week.

If I had been sick enough to have passed out, it made absolutely no sense that I was still in the Walnut
Conference Room. My comatose butt should have been hauled down to Malibu Emergency. Right now,
some beefy nurse named Gretchen should have been sternly telling me that if I didn't quiet down and
keep the thermometer tucked under my tongue, she'd happily find another place to stick it.

Sitting up quickly, I watched the room tilt from side to side. I stood, and the joints in the small of my
back popped. It sounded like corks exploding from champagne bottles. The conference room was
darkтАФmuch darker than when I had first awakened. I glanced up, trying to ignore the stabbing pains in
my neck. The fluorescents were dead, with one entire bank dangling down, having crashed through the
overhead grillwork. Ceiling tiles littered the far end of the conference room table.

Someone's ass in plant facilities would fry for this.

Walking slowly, and taking shuffling steps so I wouldn't find myself facedown in the dusty shag carpet, I
moved toward the window.

A bloated orange sun sat on the horizon. The ocean was gray. I leaned against the window and,
shivering, listened to the buzzing insects that seemed to fill my ears. The last sliver of sun quickly vanished
beneath the water.

I blinked, squeezing my eyelids tight, trying to force my pupils to dilate. It was dark, far too dark. Staring
down the black coastline, I couldn't see a single light. Those multi-million-dollar beach homes, filled with
movie stars and Vid preachers, usually blazed as if lit with searchlights.