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

the laser's origin, a gun muzzle threw a stream of pellets so
fast and so frequently, there seemed to be a brown shaft of light
right behind the laser.
A deep rumbling sound reached Rudy, quaking the floor under
his feet and vibrating the windows. He had the impression of
thousands of small explosions occurring in the slit opened up by
the lasers.
As Rudy moved to turn on the radio on his desk, the lights
went out.
#
 Abby Tersa had left Grand Central Terminal and was on her
way to the United Nations General Assembly Building when the
traffic lights went off. Normally she enjoyed the six-block
walk, but today she stood on the sidewalk in front of the
Chrysler Building and backed against the wall as the crowd roared
and the car honking intensified, as if to fill the gap caused by
the sudden absence of subway sounds and the hubbub from freight
elevators and exhaust fans.
Abby had never seen a power failure since she'd moved to the
Bronx three years earlier. It made her nervous.
She edged along the base of the building, feeling the urge
to get to work quickly, but knowing that without power for
microphones, amplifiers, recorders, and lights, she wouldn't be
needed for much translating. She was wondering if the power
would return anytime soon when she saw the black craft move from
behind the tall slab of the U.N. Secretariat Building. The
craft aimed its laser down toward where the East River met the
Manhattan shore.
Fighting down the panic, Abby began sprinting toward the
U.N. Fifteen years ago she had been in training for the
Olympics. In a timed run during physical education in junior
high, she'd been surprised to learn that she was the fastest
runner in her class. Encouraged by her parents, who saw running
as a good thing to balance out all the hours that she spent in
her room studying, she went out for the track team. At first she
had rationalized the activity partly because it was one more way
she could exercise her foreign language skills, but she grew to
enjoy the running itself, finding that when she hit her stride
she could block all her worries. This time she found herself
unable to block the image of that strange ship.
#
Arsenio Hecher pulled into the right lane fast, finding a
spot that wasn't directly behind a delivery truck. His fare, a
white couple with a kid, didn't complain. Out-of-towners were
quieter than the natives.
Arsenio kept watch in the cab's rear-view mirror as the
vehicle moved onto the Brooklyn Bridge, heading northwest into
lower Manhattan. The traffic moved fast for rush hour, but it
was never fast enough. Sometimes Arsenio thought about finding
someplace less congested so he could really move, but when it