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

When you get right down to it, we were concerned mainly about keeping ourselves alive.
Each of us pulled on a pair of gloves. Then Freddy withdrew from the bag a small mayonnaise jar.
He had washed it twice and rinsed it thoroughly before we came. He said we didn't want the sample contaminated.
He unscrewed the cap and handed it to me.
He crept up to the edge of the water and squatted down, putting one gloved hand on the ground to balance himself. With the other hand, he tipped the glass bottle on its side, dipped it into the lagoon, and filled it with water.
He stood up and extended the jar toward me. I screwed the cap on. Tight.
Rain pelted our faces. Lightning flashed so brightly that for a moment it lit the landscape bright as day. We felt like two thieves who had been stealing something from the middle of a major league baseball field when someone suddenly turned the floodlights on.
It fell dark again; the thunder boomed and echoed over the landscape. Freddy and I grabbed the tote bag and hightailed it for the edge of the compound.
I practically dived under the fence. Freddy shoved the tote bag through for me to grab, then dived under himself.
I held the flashlight while he filled in the hole in the ground. Rain slanted down hard, splashing our faces and washing the mud from our hands.
I grabbed the light and the bag, Freddy tucked the shovel under his arm, and we lit out for home as fast as we could go.


Chapter Eleven

The sign on the door said "J.C. Cumberton, Ph.D."
Inside, behind a desk where I would have expected a secretary, sat a young man with tortoise-shell glasses and neatly combed black hair. He looked like a model from a magazine ad.
"Uh, we're here to see Dr. Cumberton," I said.
"Fine," the man said. "I'm Dr. Cumberton's secretary. Please have a seat."
Then he disappeared into the inner office. I looked at Freddy and raised my eyebrows. Secretary, I was thinking. That doesn't look like any secretary I've ever seen. But Freddy seemed too preoccupied with our little project to even notice.
In a moment, the young man returned and smiled at us.
"It will be just a few minutes," he said, and started typing something on his computer.
Freddy and I sat quietly and waited. I felt stuffed up and achy, and I was dog tired from having run around all night in the rain. Freddy had dark circles under his eyes, so I knew he was tired, too.
I leaned forward, propped my chin in my hand, and darn near fell asleep right there.
I had not gotten home from our little adventure at the milk factory until nearly 3 a.m. that morning.
I had opened the door as quietly as I could, turning the knob as slowly as a safecracker trying to determine the combination to a bank vault. I tiptoed up the stairs, peeled off my wet clothes, and, shivering, slipped between my sheets. I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
It seemed as if I had been asleep for only about two seconds when my alarm went off.
I was in the middle of a dream about being out in the rain and the dark on the grounds of the Nacirema Dairy Production and Research Center. I thought the ringing of my alarm clock was some kind of security system going off, and I was about to be arrested or something.
But soon I realized that my situation was even worse than that. It was morning, I had gotten only four hours of sleep, and I had to go to school.
My nose was running, I felt achy all over, and the idea of falling right back to sleep seemed really, really appealing.
At breakfast, my mother heard me sniffle and asked if I was sick.
"You look terrible," she said, and felt my forehead.
For once, I actually tried to hide the fact that I was sick, even though it was a school day. Sometimes I try to pretend I'm sick so I don't have to go to school, but this was the first time I had ever pretended that I was well.
The thing was, I had to get to school to see Freddy and continue carrying out our plan.
"Mom!" I said angrily, batting her hand away from my forehead. "I'm fine!"
I staggered through school half-asleep. In geography class, the teacher called on me and asked me to name the capital of Texas.
"Nacirema," I said sleepily, and the whole class laughed at me.
After classes ended, Freddy and I held a conference. In other words, I asked him what the next part of our plan was.
He said he knew of a chemistry professor at the local college, Dr. J.C. Cumberton, who could analyze the water sample for us and tell us what kind of poison it contained.
"Good idea," I said. "I approve."
A good leader always delegates responsibility, so I told Freddy it was his job to call Dr. Cumberton to arrange an appointment. When he got off the phone, he said it was all set, and we could walk over there that afternoon.
The college was only about a mile and a half away. Fortunately, the rain had stopped, but thick clouds loomed overhead and the sky looked dark and angry.
At the college, we had to ask directions about five times, and turn down about six different corridors, but finally we found Dr. Cumberton's office. And here we sat, falling asleep with our chins in our hands, with the mayonnaise jar of mysterious poison in the tote bag at our feet.
A buzzer went off on the desk of the young secretary-man, startling me out of my sleep.
The secretary picked up his phone. "Certainly, Dr. Cumberton," he said, and hung up.
"You can go in now," he said, and smiled. I guess secretaries are always supposed to smile, whether they're male or female.
I picked up the tote bag, looked at Freddy, and opened the door to the inner office. Together we walked in.
I had expected Dr. Cumberton, being a chemistry professor, to look like Albert Einstein. You know, an old guy with a gray walrus mustache hanging over his mouth and wild white hair sticking up all over the place.
Dr. Cumberton had gray hair, but it was neatly trimmed and combed. And she was a woman.
"Oh, my goodness," I muttered in spite of myself. "A woman professor with a man for a secretary. Weird."