"Lane Pollock - The Slow Kill" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pollock Lane)

The Slow Kill
by Lane Pollock
Mr. Pollock says of himself...

I have two degrees in English. The first is a B.A. from Texas Tech and the second is a M.A. from the
University of North Texas, and I don't seem to using either of them except to turn out an occasional story.
What I am doing is working as a LAN Administrator for a property company in Dallas, Texas. Don't ask me
how you get sidetracked from a future teaching career to a career in LAN administration. I could not tell you
the answer. Besides that, I am immensely enjoying the company of my one year old daughter and wife of five
years.

Blood: There was blood everywhere. It splattered the white walls of the hotel bathroom and
dripped from the porcelain sink to pool up in the floor. It was messier than Julian Skeller
liked to do things, but he was in a hurry. And more than anything else, he had wanted out of
the damned Self-Sustaining Body Mask. It made him look fat and slovenly, something
Skeller couldn't stand. He was proud of the body he had built through years of athletics, not
to mention his pampered blond curls.

The blood was synthetic. It had come out of the SSBM. The SSBM was a thin layer of
artificial flesh that allowed an agent to disguise his entire body. The synthetic blood
circulated in it to keep it looking smooth and real in the event that it must be worn for a long
period of time.
There were neater ways to remove the SSBM, but the opponent was on Skeller's trail so he
simply tore the suit open at the chest and pulled it off. The blood had flown. Who knows, he
thought, it might even confuse those bastards and give me a few more minutes to escape.
He kicked the discarded skin into the shower and hustled into the bedroom.

To one shin he strapped the waterproof package containing the stolen documents, and to
the other an eight-inch, double edged blade. They couldn't be seen under his baggy gray
trousers. A shirt of common print and typical worker's coat completed his new disguise. The
only other thing he carried from the room was the Slow Kill, or Choice Maker as others
called it. He left all of his luggage. It would only slow him down, and besides, he chuckled,
the company would pay for it. They always paid.
The elevator hurtled down the two-hundred and sixty four floors with amazing comfort
considering it reached the lobby in just over five seconds. It was dinner time and the lobby
was unusually empty.

Skeller spotted the tail the second he exited the elevator. He was a completely average
looking man, typical of the profession, dressed in a business suit. Skeller grinned and
walked right in front of him. They were still looking for a fat, middle aged man. The tail was
left waiting for his back-up that would come too late.

Unlike the lobby, the moving sidewalks were packed. Skeller shouldered his way into a
small space and ignored the sneers and profanity he received from jostled travelers. He
would have preferred a skycab to this crammed mode of travel, but another tail would be
watching the skycab's landing pad. It never hurt to be cautious, even if the result was
dreadfully slow.
Finally, after twenty minutes at that snail's pace, Skeller hopped off the moving sidewalk at
the entrance to the subway. The dinner crowd was backed up to the bottom of stairs, waiting
to shove itself onto the subway. Another intolerable wait of eight minutes passed before the