"Steve White - The Prometheus Project" - читать интересную книгу автора (White Steve)

cover behind the overturned truck. Taking advantage of that moment, I pulled her around behind the car.
There were no shots. I shifted the Colt to my right hand and risked a peek over the car.
Shots rang out, and bullets whined off the car. But that wasn't what bothered me. As I snatched my gun
hand back, something happened to that armтАФit felt as though the arm had instantly gone to sleep, but

file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/White,%20steve%20-%20The%20prometheus%20project/0743498917___2.htm (2 of 7)28-12-2006 15:57:10
 - Chapter 2

with an added numbness. Unpleasant as hell. I cried out in shock and dropped the Colt.
"Miss Smith" seemed to recognize my reaction, and she went pale.
"Paralysis beam," she gasped. "It must have brushed your arm only fleetingly. They're actually using
something like that right here on a city street!" That aspect clearly concerned her more than my well-
being.
I scooped up the Colt with my left hand while trying to shake some feeling back into my right arm, and
glared at her. "Listen, whatever-your-name-is, I want to know just exactly what the hell is going on here,
and who these people are, and how they knew where we'd be, andтАФ"
"There's no time for that now," she snapped. "We've got to get in there." She pointed to a narrow alley
between two buildings on the right-hand side of Seventh Street.
"What?" A renewed fusillade of shots sent us crouching deeper, and elicited new screams from the
bystanders who still huddled behind whatever shelter the sidewalks afforded, too terrified to run. I didn't
return fire, not wanting to risk a repetition of what these guys had just done to my arm. Besides, I
wanted to conserve the four rounds left in my magazine. It was, I reflected, one of the reasons the police
continued to prefer revolvers: in a situation like this, you could spend your spare time "topping up."
"Look," I told her, "what we need to do is sit tight and hold them off. The cops will be here in a couple
of minutes."
"No! You don't understand. I can get us to safetyтАФI have the means. I just can't use it here, in public,
where there are witnesses."
To this day, I'm still not certain why I let her take the lead, when I was supposed to be the professional
in charge. Maybe I was just very rattled at encountering things that I didn't understand but which she
evidently did. Whatever the reason, I reached down and drew the Beretta.
"Do you know how to use one of these?" I asked.
"Not really. You, uh, pull the trigger, right?"
"No, you squeeze it." I released the safety and handed it to her. She took it gingerly. "It doesn't have
much kick. Just hold it in both hands like this." I demonstrated with the Colt, for the feeling was
returning to my right hand. "Empty the magazine in the direction of the bad guys while you're running.
Ready?"
She nodded jerkily.
"All right. . . . Run!" As I shouted the last word, I rose up and started shooting.
She sprinted gamely toward the alley, firing away. She hadn't a prayer of hitting anything . . . but they
didn't know that. Also, they must have been stunned by the sheer unexpectedness of this move. They
kept their heads down until we'd almost reached the alley. As the shots finally began to ring out behind
us, I anticipated the same tingling numbness I'd felt before, only worse. But then we were around the
corner and into the alley. "Miss Smith," gasping for breath, dropped the empty Beretta and started
getting something out of her bag.
I detached a fresh magazine from the holster belt and slammed it into the Colt's butt. Then I positioned
myself between "Miss Smith" and the alley entrance, in firing stance.
That was when the world abruptly went blurry and gray and silent.
I didn't even know how to react. It was too unexpected, and too foreign to ordinary experience. I turned
to face "Miss Smith," who was standing very close behind me. She, at least, was still in sharp focus and