"Weiner-PurplePill" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weiner Andrew)

"You all right?" she asked.

"Fine," he croaked. "Now."

He turned back to the hatch. It was fading out rapidly now, so that he could
discern beneath it the outlines of the front door.

"Don't," said the voice of the computer. It was slurred and indistinct. "Open.
That. Door."

"Did you hear that?" he asked the cleaning woman?

"Hear what?" she asked.

The voice was gone. It was all gone: the echoing corridors, the exit hatch,
Harper . . . There was only the door that led back to his real life.

He pushed firmly on the door and stepped out on to the avenue.

TWELVE

The sun had gone down hours ago, but it was still oppressively hot, another
greenhouse effect summer. The air was stale and smelled of exhaust fumes, with a
lingering undertaste of garbage, the remnants of a spring municipal workers'
strike.

The sky was full of light. Neons flashed up the avenue. No stars were visible.

Sirens wailed in every direction.

A man lay sleeping on the sidewalk in front of the building. Another man
approached him, hand outstretched, a wild expression in his eyes. He gave the
man his spare change, then crossed to the curb to hail a cab.

As the cab pulled up, he glanced back toward the building. For a moment, he
could see the great starship hanging against a backdrop of stars. He took a
half-step toward it. And then it was gone.

"Shit," he said.

He got in the cab.

Author's Note: As long-term SF readers may have realized, this story was
inspired by Rog Phillip's story "The Yellow Pill" (Astounding Science Fiction,
October 1958) which I first read in one of Judith Merril's wonderful Best SF
collections.