"John Varley - The Barbie Murders" - читать интересную книгу автора (Varley John)

Anytown, North Crisium. The best way to reach it, they found, was a local tube line which paralleled the
Cross-Crisium Express Tube.

She and Weil checked out a blue-and-white police capsule with a priority sorting code and surrendered
themselves to the New Dresden municipal transport system-the pill sorter, as the New Dresdenites called
it. They were whisked through the precinct chute to the main nexus, where thousands of capsules were
stacked awaiting a routing order to clear the computer. On the big conveyer which should have taken
them to a holding cubby, they were snatched by a grapple-the cops called it the long arm of the law-and
moved ahead to the multiple maws of the Cross-Crisium while people in other capsules glared at them.
The capsule was inserted, and Bach and Weil were pressed hard into the backs of their seats.

In seconds they emerged from the tube and out onto the plain of Crisium, speeding along through the
vacuum, magnetically suspended a few millimeters above the induction rail. Bach glanced up at the
Earth, then stared out the window at the featureless landscape rushing by. She brooded.

It had taken a look at the map to convince her that the barbie colony was indeed in the New Dresden
jurisdiction- a case of blatant gerrymandering if ever there was one. Any-town was fifty kilometers from
what she thought of as the boundaries of New Dresden, but was joined to the city by a dotted line that
represented a strip of land one meter wide.

A roar built up as they entered a tunnel and air was injected into the tube ahead of them. The car shook
briefly as the shock wave built up, then they popped through pressure doors into the tube station of
Anytown. The capsule doors hissed and they climbed out onto the platform.

The tube station at Anytown was primarily a loading dock and warehouse. It was a large space with
plastic crates stacked against all the walls, and about fifty people working to load them into freight
capsules.

Bach and Weil stood on the platform for a moment, uncertain where to go. The murder had happened at a
spot not twenty meters in front of them, right here in the tube station.

"This place gives me the creeps," Weil volunteered.

"Me, too."

Every one of the fifty people Bach could see was identical to every other. All appeared to be female,

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 The Barbie Murders

though only faces, feet, and hands were visible, everything else concealed by loose white pajamas belted
at the waist. They were all blonde; all had hair cut off at the shoulder and parted in the middle, blue eyes,
high foreheads, short noses, and small mouths.

The work slowly stopped as the barbies became aware of them. They eyed Bach and Weil suspiciously.
Bach picked one at random and approached her.

"Who's in charge here?" she asked.

"We are," the barbie said. Bach took it to mean the woman herself, recalling something about barbies