"Richard Paul Russo - Just Drive, She Said" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russo Richard Paul)

"You can't lose them?"
She shook her head and tapped the console. "These damn things leave a
trail in the wake of the probability waves. Make enough shifts and you can
make the trail faint, but a good hunter will always be able to pick it up
eventually."
Hunter. And I was traveling with the hunted.
Victoria did talk about bringing me back to my own universe. First couple
of times she mentioned it I didn't say anything. I was thinking about it.
But I liked the idea of staying with her.
"I don't want to go back," I finally said to her.
It was dusk. Victoria was driving through the outskirts of a haze-filled
city, blue flashes of light bursting silently and sporadically high above
us. The streets were nearly deserted.
"You don't know what the hell you're talking about," she said. "You can't
just stick around for a while and then change your mind, get a plane
flight home."
"I realize that."
"You realize shit." She turned onto a busier street. Lights were coming on
in buildings, and the blue flashes were increasing in frequency. "Just
look for a goddamn motel, all right?"
Neither of us said anything for a while. The street seemed to be headed
for the city center, and it got busier and more crowded, brighter and
louder. A couple of miles along, Victoria pulled into the parking lot of a
run-down motel set back in the concrete pilings of an overpass. She drove
into a slot, switched off the engine, and turned to me.
"Look," she said. "The farther we get away from your universe, the harder
it'll be to get back. We get far enough away, it'll be impossible. You'll
be stuck out here somewhere, no way back. And traveling with me isn't the
safest thing you can do. I've had people hunting me for two years. Some
day they're going to catch up with me. You aren't going to want to be
around when they do." She paused. "I've been on my own for years, and
that's the way I want it. I like your company, but I'm not about to make
this permanent. You're holding me up, for Christ's sake. You can't handle
more than two shifts a day. On my own, I can do five or six before it hits
me that hard." She paused again. "You understand what I'm saying?"
"I'll get used to it," I said.
"Not soon enough for me."
"I don't want to go back."
"Christ." She turned away from me, opened the door, and went to check in.

Three more days. Traveling, shifting, no resolution, no final decision.
Then, one morning, driving slowly through the heart of a city, we shifted,
and dropped into the middle of a war.


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We went from bright afternoon sunshine to gray skies darkened by clouds of
ash. From laughter and shouts and purring traffic to screams and sirens