"Navarro, Yvonne - The Cutting Room" - читать интересную книгу автора (Navarro Yvonne)

brief moment. He nuzzled the top of Brian's head, breathing deeply of the soap
and baby smell, and wondered when he would see his family again. For an instant
he squeezed too tightly and the child squirmed within the tight circle of his
father's arms.
"Daddy," Brian said solemnly, "down."
He couldn't believe the kid had finally gotten it right.
The last thing Roger saw as they led him out the door was Miriam with Brian in
her arms, her face twisted in shock and indecision, sinking robot-like back onto
the couch to watch the rest of the newscast.



"What is this place?"
In spite of his fear, Roger was filled with awe at his surroundings. The two
officers had driven him to the Commonwealth Building and escorted him to a
secured elevator, then down to something called "Sublevel Six". There the
younger of the two officers had been replaced by none other than Director Virgil
Thayer himself. Now the three men stood just inside the entrance to a dimly lit
cavernous room, the size of which made Roger almost stutter. The place was so
big, in fact, that he could barely make out some kind of podium at the far end
of the corridor in which they now stood. Surrounding them were seemingly endless
shelves housing thousands upon thousands of videotapes. A closer scrutiny
revealed that the rows of shelves were really units placed end to end; beneath
his feet he discovered tracks in the floor that followed a grid pattern and
disappeared into the far shadows. None of the shelves were above reaching
height, and it was at this point that the light ended, giving Roger the
disconcerting impression that there really was no ceiling in the place-н just a
great, black void suspended a few feet above their heads. Scanning the shelves,
he saw that nothing was labeled and he wondered how it was possible that the
Administration could find anything. For a second he had the oddest notion that
the tapes were all the same, simple countless copies of the same topic.
He hadn't been hurt so far; no one had threatened or beaten him, there had been
no hint at behavior modification and he was starting to think that, in terms of
the bad things that supposedly could happen to a person, brainwashing was
nothing but one of the more vicious rumors. And beyond that, or perhaps a prison
sentence, what could happen?
Roger looked around with nervous curiosity. His fear had finally receded enough
so that he tried to take stock of his situation. There was nothing here, Roger
decided warily, that could bother him, at least not immediately. The one thing
that did strike him as a little odd was a metal door behind him slightly off to
his right, although he didn't know why the sight of the plain black door should
disturb him so. There was nothing to see about it beyond the opaqued glass
window across which were printed black block letters that read simply:
CUTTING ROOM
"This way, Mr Nadab," Thayer said. The older man headed toward the podium and
Roger followed obediently, the guard so close behind him that Roger thought the
guy might even be monitoring his prisoner's heartbeat. The podium might have
been a block away or a quarter-mile; Roger couldn't tell. The rows of shelves
seemed to engulf him and distort his sense of distance. When they finally
reached their destination, he saw that it wasn't a podium at all but a small