"John E. Stith - Manhattan Transfer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stith John E)

bench. Someone must be in one shoe, because a lone sneaker with
its laces still tied rested in a corner. An expensive video
player had been left behind, along with a few coin-sized disks
that by now would have footprints on them. A half-eaten sandwich
wrapped in a deli bag lay flattened on the dirty floor. As they
passed the lead car, Matt understood why the motorman had been no
help. He was dead, smashed against the glass by the sudden stop.
Matt and the others were able to walk without jarring the
injured man too badly, and they began to head up the moderate
slope as quickly as they could without risking further injury to
the victim. Steam rose slowly from a grate somewhere ahead. A
couple of other people stayed close to them, holding cigarette
lighters and matches in turns so the group could see a little of
their surroundings. The woman carrying one corner of the
raincoat got a couple of offers to have someone else take her
place, but she turned them down. Ahead of them, the other
passengers seemed to be taking it all in stride. Matt supposed
living in New York required people to be adaptable.
Matt kept walking, trying to jostle his passenger as little
as possible, as he wondered what they would find when they got
out of the tunnel.
#
Rudy Sanchez got a second cup of coffee from the machine in
the hall and took it back to his office. The hall was dark. No
one else was in yet, and Rudy liked to savor the feeling of being
in before the rest of the offices began to fill. He got twice as
much done when the building was calm and quiet as he did when
office hours began. Beating the morning rush enhanced the
feeling.
He glanced out the window at the stream of cars coming
across the Brooklyn Bridge and sat down, ready to get back to
planning the replacement for the old generator on the upper east
side. He'd been thinking about how to start the next phase when
he realized something about the sound of the city had changed.
He went back to the window.
At first everything seemed normal. Traffic was a little
slow, but that was hardly surprising. As Rudy watched, his eyes
widened as a black shape of some kind came out from behind the
Chase Manhattan Bank Tower. What the hell? It seemed to be some
kind of craft, paralleling the coastline, and as it moved, it
directed a dim red pencil of light through the dirty air, toward
the ground. Where the pencil touched land or water, destruction
followed.
In awe Rudy put down his coffee cup and stared. What the
hell was going on? He put his face nearer the glass and looked
to both sides. Another identical black ship was moving along the
coast farther to the north.
Both black, windowless craft flew an even course as they
slanted what had to be high-power lasers toward the Manhattan
shoreline. Rudy looked at the nearer craft. From just aft of