"MD Spenser - Humano Morphs 4 Air Morph One" - читать интересную книгу автора (Spenser M D)

I sighed. He had me there.
"Fine," I said. "And just what is the scientific method in this case?"
"There's only one thing to do," Freddy said. "We have to get a sample of that water so we can have it analyzed."


Chapter Eight

It was pitch black and raining hard as we approached the fence that surrounded the Nacirema Dairy Production and Research Center.
My hair was matted to my scalp. Rain dripped off my nose. My clothes were soaked clean through and they stuck to my skin like mud. I shivered.
I could not believe Freddy had talked me into this.
"C'mon, Freddy," I pleaded. "Look, there's no way in. Let's go home."
I might as well have been talking to a deaf person. Freddy made no response at all. He just continued as if he hadn't heard a word I had said.
It was after midnight. I knew that because our plan had been to meet in front of my house right at midnight, and then walk down to the milk plant together. I had fallen blissfully asleep, hoping that Freddy, who never really joked, had suddenly begun and was kidding about going on this little adventure.
I was still blissfully asleep at midnight, dreaming that I was the president of the United States and was negotiating with the president of Russia. I was so successful that we banned all nuclear weapons from the face of the earth forever.
Freddy, who had not suddenly begun joking for the first time in his life, had to throw pebbles at my window to wake me up.
Now here we were in the dark, soaked to the skin, creeping slowly along the fence outside the milk factory. We were looking, if you can believe it, for a place where the dirt was soft enough for us to dig a little tunnel under the fence.
Freddy had explained Ч and I had agreed Ч that if security inside the dairy building was so tight, surely the fence was wired to an alarm. Any attempt to slice through the fence with wire cutters would trigger the alarm. And probably any attempt to climb over the fence would trigger the alarm, too.
I could picture searchlights and sirens suddenly going off, and the police coming, and me riding off in the back of a police car. I'd be delivered home, a policeman dragging me firmly by the ear, to find myself saying, "Well, you see, Mom, it's like this..."
Only then, I was quite sure, no words would come.
I felt like whining at Freddy one more time, but I knew it would do no good. Besides, I thought, if I was going to be president one day, I was going to have to learn to show a little leadership.
I probed the ground along the fence, looking for a soft spot.
"Here," I whispered in a firm, leader-like kind of way. "Freddy. Psst. This is our spot."
Freddy came over and probed the area with the shovel he had carried under his arm.
"Good one, Melvin," he said. "I think this will do."
Before we started digging, Freddy said an Omaha prayer. It would not guarantee success, he said, but it always helped to have the spirits on your side, or at least to let them know you were thinking about them.
I could barely see him in the darkness. But I saw that he spread his arms wide and lifted his face to the rain as he chanted. I didn't catch the words, but somehow they comforted me.
We took turns with the shovel. It was hard work, even though the ground was soft. The rain had made the dirt heavy, and shoveling a big enough hole to allow us to crawl under the fence took a lot of time.
Plus, we had to be careful not to bump the shovel into the fence itself, in case it was equipped with motion sensors. And we couldn't just fling the dirt over our shoulders, either.
At my insistence, we piled it in one spot so that we could fill in the hole after we were done. I hoped no one would notice that anyone had entered the compound. The last thing I wanted was some big investigation.
That was one thing I had learned from studying presidents and their political techniques: Always cover your tracks.
I don't know how you can tell if you're sweating in the rain, but I sure felt like I was. My hands were sore and my back was stiff.
Finally, the hole seemed big enough for us to try to wriggle through.
My heart was pounding in my chest and I could barely breathe, but I went first. I had not thought up this whole plan, but future presidents do not just tag along. They lead the way.
I didn't want to dive face down in the mud, so I slid under the fence on my back. And a muddy experience it was.
Pushing with my feet, I slid through the ooze. I held my breath and sucked in my stomach, not wanting to bump into the fence. Then I climbed out of the hole on the other side.
Freddy shoved through the tote bag with our gear. I grabbed it. Then he slid through on his belly and emerged, muddy and smiling, beside me.
I waited for lights to flash on and alarms to sound and guards to come running.
But nothing happened. No light cut the darkness. I heard no noise but that of the raindrops slapping the grass. Nothing moved.
We were alone. And we were inside the compound.


Chapter Nine

Freddy opened the tote bag, took out a flashlight and turned it on.
"No!" I whispered in a firm, leader-like way. "If we use the flashlight, someone will spot us."
"If we don't use the flashlight, we might stumble straight into that poisonous lagoon and wind up dead, just like that little bird you saw," Freddy replied.
"Right," I said. "Let's use the flashlight." An effective leader always listens to good advice.
I took the light and led the way. After all, Freddy had not seen the lagoon, having been too interested in the science of milking to look out the window. He had no way of knowing where, exactly, the lagoon was.
We crept carefully across the field, walking in the general direction I thought would lead us to the water.
It's funny to think about it, looking back, but we both walked hunched over. There was no reason to do that: If someone spotted the flashlight beam waving around out in the field, well, then they had spotted us, whether we were hunched over or walking tall.