"Richard Morgan - Broken Angels" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morgan Richard)

ground to Kemp's elite presidential guard. Evenfall continued to smoulder.
Like I said, I didn't miss much.
When I awoke in the re-sleeving chamber, I was suffused in a head-to-foot glow of well-
being. Mostly, that was chemical; military hospitals shoot their convalescent sleeves full of
feelgood stuff just before download. It's their equivalent of a welcome-home party, and it
makes you feel like you could win this motherfucking war singlehanded if they'd only let you
up and at the bad guys. Useful effect, obviously. But what I also had, swimming alongside
this patriot's cocktail, was the simple pleasure of being intact and installed with a full set of
functioning limbs and organs.
Until I talked to the doctor, that is.
'We pulled you out early,' she told me, the rage she'd exhibited on the shuttle deck tamped
a little further down in her voice now. 'On orders from Wedge command. It seems there isn't
time for you to recover from your wounds fully.'
'I feel fine.'
'Of course you do. You're dosed to the eyes with endorphins. When you come down, you're
going to find that your left shoulder only has about two-thirds functionality. Oh, and your
lungs are still damaged. Scarring from the Guerlain Twenty.'
I blinked. 'I didn't know they were spraying that stuff.'
'No. Apparently nobody did. A triumph of covert assault, they tell me.' She gave up, the
attempted grimace half formed. Too, too tired. 'We cleaned most of it out, ran regrowth
bioware through the most obvious areas, and killed the secondary infections. Given a few
months of rest, you'd probably make a full recovery. As it is . . .' she shrugged. 'Try not to
smoke. Get some light exercise. Oh, for fuck's sake.'
I tried the light exercise. I walked the hospital's axial deck. Forced air into my scorched
lungs. Flexed my shoulder. The whole deck was packed five abreast with injured men and
women doing similar things. Some of them, I knew.
'Hey, lieutenant!'
Tony Loemanako, face mostly a mask of shredded flesh pocked with the green tags where
the rapid regrowth bios were embedded. Still grinning, but far too much of far too many teeth
visible on the left side.
'You made it out, lieutenant! Way to go!'
He turned about in the crowd.
'Hey, Eddie. Kwok. The lieutenant made it.'
 Kwok Yuen Yee, both eye sockets packed tight with bright orange tissue incubator jelly.
An externally-mounted microcam welded to her skull provided videoscan for the interim. Her
hands were being regrown on skeletal black carbon fibre. The new tissue looked wet and raw.
'Lieutenant. We thought тАФ '
'Lieutenant Kovacs!'
Eddie Munharto, propped up in a mobility suit while the bios regrew his right arm and both
legs from the ragged shreds that the smart shrapnel had left.
'Good to see you, lieutenant! See, we're all on the mend. The 391 platoon be back up to
kick some Kempist ass in a couple of months, no worries.'
Carrera's Wedge combat sleeves are currently supplied by Khumalo Biosystems. State-of-
the-art Khumalo combat biotech runs some charming custom extras, notable among them a
serotonin shutout system that improves your capacity for mindless violence and minute
scrapings of wolf gene that give you added speed and savagery together with an enhanced
tendency to pack loyalty that hurts like upwelling tears. Looking at the mangled survivors of
the platoon around me, I felt my throat start to ache.
'Man, we tanked them, didn't we?' said Munharto, gesturing flipper-like with his one
remaining limb. 'Seen the milflash yesterday.'