"Allison Sinclair - Assassin" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sinclair Allison)

can't see each others' moods in lights and couple through a computer. I think
it's been good between us, and I'd like to keep thinking it's been good, so
leave if it's not enough, but don't try and trample my memories on the way out!"

"If it's your work--"
"It's not my work," I said, before I thought better of it, but I'd got so far
into the habit of being truthful with this man that I'd only just started not
regretting the things I hadn't told him. Fortunately he was not listening.
"Forces in Chicago and LA interface; they've got security circuits nobody could
touch. This is a backwater here--but things could change, if people like you
stop resisting--"
"People like me."
"D'Inde's people. He's been the fanatic about keeping cops clear of the
interface. Now he's gone--I'm sorry, Lester, but he's gone; I know you loved the
Old Man--he was your mentor and father figure, but he's gone, and the situation
he based his opinion on is history, and when people's opinions are based on
history, they just become prejudice."
"Not prejudice," I said, suddenly exhausted. "We're investigating a
suicide--possible assassin virus. Something came through the ThrillNets,
scrambled this woman's implants, and she took a dive off her balcony. Maybe
she's not the only one."
And then I was very glad that my net of beads hung dimly in my hand, for I
surely would have responded to what I saw in his. Just for an instant they
turned white, under powerful emotion--fear? anger?--and then back to yellow. His
face showed nothing; quite possibly he did not know what had happened.
"Who's on it?" he said. "Who picked it up?"
But for that flash I would have told him it was Glad. "Somebody new; a real
bright pixel. Jepthe Levin. You'll be hearing about him."
He smiled. "I'd watch your back, then."



Glad called me in to an interview booth on Friday--soundproofed, screened and
monitored.
"We've known each other a long time," she began, seeming at a loss. She was
beadless; her face was strained, looking down at interlocked hands which pulled
against each other. "If it had been anyone else but you, I wouldn't be doing
this, but we've worked together and we're friends, and maybe there is another
explanation--" She stopped, gathering herself.
"Remember you asked about the assassin and I told you I had nothing; I was
lying--" another deep breath, "until I could decide what to do. Then I thought
there are two people who could use that node, and if it weren't you, you had to
be warned. And then I started checking into your records more closely, and I
didn't know what to think--"
"You've left out something I need to know before this makes sense."
She glanced at me again. Finding me too calm, I thought.
"Oh." She said, "Yes--I think I found the thread for the assassin, and traced it
back. One of the originating nodes was your home PC."
On actually hearing it, I felt much less surprised, and much sicker than I
thought I would. The sickness showing in my face made Glad relax slightly.