"John Ringo - Sister Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ringo John)

people in her profession but, despite its drabness, it did tend to trigger a certain wistfulness for a world
she'd never really gotten to know. Still, it was eerily silent, beyond the muted traffic sounds coming
through the hole in the window, and that was creepy enough that she'd be glad to leave it. She was
careful to touch as little as possible as she shrugged off her gear and went rummaging through for the
props for the next stage of her mission.


If the stealth suit was high-tech and inconspicuous, the little black dress she pulled from her back pouch
was neither. The only modern convenience was the very light anti-wrinkle coating that enabled the
minimal silk sheath, with its skirt that flared out below her hips, to look as perfect as if it had just been
pressed. Still, the dress was tight and she had to wiggle a bit to shimmy into it and get her ample cleavage
positioned for maximum effect. She frowned down at her chest, grumbling a bit about the
over-endowment she'd gotten stuck with when they'd lost the slab in the Bane Sidhe split..


Her employers had steadfastly refused to surgically alter them, pointing out the futility as it was
hard-coded in her body nannites and they would only grow back inside a month. Besides, the doctors
were unwilling to afflict her with the scars such primitive field surgery would undoubtedly leave. She
harrumphed at them silently as she pinned her silver-blonde hair into a smooth chignon at the nape of her
neck and spritzed it with good old-fashioned hair spray. She slipped a gold and diamond torq-style
watch, which was unusual in having a digital instead of an analog readout, around her wrist.Damn, gotta
hurry. Not quite a minute until the guard reaches this floor again.


In the past few years, rejuv had gone from being a mark of social shame to an outlet for conspicuous
consumption among the glitterati. Hence, all but minimal makeup was out of fashion. Chances were very
good thatshe would be taken for an authentic twenty year old. Most black market jobs were incomplete,
missing at least the individual fine-tuning that was necessary for the full effect. They left subtle signs that
the gossips were quick to notice and comment on. Her rejuv, done in better times, was perfect. A light
coating of lip gloss, a pair of clear galplas high-heeled sandals that looked like cut crystal and felt like a
medieval torture device and she was ready to go. Well, almost. She tucked a small egg-shaped device
with a pull ring into her cleavage. The body her own DNA originally built never would have been able to
hide it.I swear I could hide a truck in there. Geez. Not like I really needto be able to blend in with a
crowd or anything, not like sticking out like a sore thumb with this attention-getting look isn't a
mortal hazard for an assassin. And thank God my "real" work has been light enough since I came
back to work that they can divert me more often to fluff missions like this one.


Her rappelling gear and other nonessentials got bundled into the pack and clipped onto the line outside
the window. She looked down, and down, and down to the street below and shuddered.And Tommy
wanted me to exfiltrate the same way? Hell, no! Crawling around outside some skyscraper like a
freaking fly was bad enough once, I'm not doing it twice in one night. She pulled her eyes away
from the dizzying downward view.God, that's a long drop. Besides, who tries to catch party-crashers
leavingthe party? And this way I spend about half as much time slinking around places in the
building where a party guest, even a lost and tipsy one, has no business being. Okay, and I don't
get out much. Sad, Cally, really sad. Maybe I ought to make time next month to take the girls up
to Knoxville to the zoo. Maybe I ought to get back into character and get my mind on the job.She
shook herself slightly and got back to work.