"Kim Newman - Tomorrow Town" - читать интересную книгу автора (Newman Kim)

He searched through his pockets, finally turning up the special tickets. They
were strips of foil, like ironed-flat chocolate bar wrappers with punched-out
hole patterns. The guard carefully posted the tickets into a slot in a metal
box. Gears whirred and lights flashed. The gate came apart and sank into the
ground. Richard let Vanessa step through the access first. She seemed to float
off, arms out for balance.

"Best not to be left behind, Mm," said the guard.
"Mm," said Richard, agreeing.

He stepped onto the special platform. Beneath his rubber-soled winkle-pickers,
a knitted chain mail surface moved on large rollers. It creaked and rippled,
but gave a smooth ride.

"I wonder how it manages corners," Vanessa said.

The moving platform conveyed them towards a giant silver bullet. The train of
the future hummed slightly, at rest on a single gleaming rail which was raised
ten feet above the gravel railbed by chromed tubular trestles. A hatchway was
open, lowered to form a ramp.

Richard and Vanessa clambered through the hatch and found themselves in a
space little roomier than an Apollo capsule. They half-sat, half-lay in
over-padded seats which wobbled on gyro-gimbals. Safety straps automatically
snaked across them and drew tight.

"Not sure I'll ever get used to this," said Richard. A strap across his
forehead noosed his long, tangled hair, and he had to free a hand to fix it.

Vanessa wriggled to get comfortable, doing a near-horizontal dance as the
straps adjusted to her.

With a hiss the ramp raised and became a hatch-cover, then sealed shut. The
capsule-cum-carriage had berths for eight, but today they were the only
passengers.

A mechanical voice counted down from ten.

"Richard, that's a Dalek," said Vanessa, giggling.

As if offended, the voice stuttered on five, like a record stuck in a groove,
then hopped to three.

At zero, they heard a rush of rocketry and the monorail moved off. Richard
tensed against the expected g-force slam, but it didn't come. Through
thick-glassed slit windows, he saw green countryside passing by at about
twenty-five miles per hour. They might have been on a leisurely cycle to the
village pub rather than taking the fast train to the future.