"Steve Perry - Aliens 03 - The Female War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Steven)

What have you got there?"

The boy stared at her. He shook his head. "It wasn't anybody important," he said. He tossed the
present at the shiny copper ash bucket his aunt kept next to the antique wood stove.



In the gym, Wilks shook his head again. Jesus. Some of those old tapes were real fucking hard to
get rid of. He stared at the boy. "Hey, kid, you won't build any muscle sitting on your butt like that."
 The boy looked at him, like some kind of big-eyed bird.

"Here. Let me show you how that machine works."

It wasn't much, but it was something Wilks could do. Nobody had ever done it for him.

The smile on the boy's face was worth a million, easy. And it didn't cost Wilks anything at all.



2


Amy and the old man stood in front of a tunnel covered in alien secretion and littered with debris.
The tunnel led off into thick darkness.

The old man ran a shaky hand through his dirty white hair and put his arm around the adolescent.
Amy smiled up at him. She was a pretty girl, in spite of her grimy skin and tattered clothes. Her nervous
smile made her look much younger.

"They're using the underground to move beneath the city," he said, keeping his voice quiet "The
tunnels and grids are still here, but changed. Transformed." He and Amy walked forward a few steps.
The lighting was weak; long

shadows danced and re-formed beyond them as they moved through the silent cavern.

The old man continued:

"It'sтАФit's difficult to be sure, but the tunnels appear to converge into a central locusтАФlike spokes
on a wheel."

The dark, ropy alien construct surrounded them completely now. The walls were embedded with
long-dead humansтАФa mostly rotted arm hanging down from above, a half skull jutting out to their left. To
the right was something that might have been a dog once.

Amy moved closer to the old man.

"As far as I can tell, the creatures keep to one area at a time, use it up, and move to another. Our
camp is set up nearby." He put a shaky hand on Amy's shoulder. "The aliens are a few klicks from here,
as far as I can tell, so we're as safe as we can be."