"Steve White - The Prometheus Project" - читать интересную книгу автора (White Steve)
- Chapter 2
full color. She was holding an odd-looking device about the size and shape of a paperback book. She
clasped it to her belt to free her hand. When she spoke, her voice was the only sound in the universe.
"It generates a field, large enough to encompass both of us, whichтАФ" she began. Then the first of our
attackers was around the corner of the building, moving like a figure in a silent black-and-white movie
in poor focus. I started to raise my gun, but she gripped me by the arm. "No! They can't see us or hear
us. Just stand still, close to me."
My jaw dropped. Clearly, she was nuts. And yet . . . the ghostly figures were running past us, looking
frantically around. One of them faced me, unseeing, from just a few feet away. Then their leader
mouthed some inaudible command, and they regrouped and proceeded on down the alley, checking
doorways as they went.
"As I was starting to say," she resumed, "the field bends light around itself a hundred and eighty degrees,
thus conferring invisibility. In theory we shouldn't be able to see out of it, either, but a partial
compensating feature is built in. Actually, it's two fields. The second one blocks sound waves, both
ways."
"Who are you?" I managed.
"That's not important at the moment. What is important is that we get moving. Anytime now, they're
going to pull themselves together and start looking for us with sensors against which this device is
useless. Fortunately, we have a shielded command post nearbyтАФit was lucky you picked this route."
"'We'?" I queried.
She ignored me. "Come on, and remember to stay close to me." She took my hand to emphasize the last
pointтАФa gesture totally devoid of affectionтАФand led the way back out onto Seventh Street.
A sheer sense of unreality kept me inarticulate as we proceeded north past the National Portrait Gallery
shades of gray, past dim people who could neither hear nor see us as we wended our way into
Chinatown.
The Friendship Archway, that exercise in wretched excess, hadn't been constructed yet. There was just a
squalidly picturesque district of exoticism and sinister menace that was largelyтАФthough not
entirelyтАФbogus, the whole effect comfortably cushioned by the knowledge that you were only about ten
blocks from the White House. We passed invisibly through alleyways behind restaurants you'd never
find listed by the AAA, where the by-products of their kitchens were disposed of. (No, you don't want to
know.) As soon as we were inarguably alone, "Miss Smith" touched the little device on her belt. With a
suddenness that was vertiginous for me but clearly no novelty for her, colors and sounds beat in on us as
the universe returned to normal. She matter-of-factly returned the device to her bag and motioned me to
follow her.
She led me to a laundry. (Yes, a laundry. I wouldn't dare make that up.) As we entered, the old Chinese
guy behind the counter met her eyes. She approached him and said something I couldn't catch. He
nodded. She motioned me to follow her to the right, behind a rack of hangers, rich with that freshly
laundered smell. We worked out way around behind it, walking sideways to fit through the narrow
spaces. She stopped in front of a segment of wooded wall that was distinguished only by a wooden
carving of a Chinese ideograph . . . or what looked like one. I'd had some exposure to the Kai, Tsing and
Tao scripts in the Army, but I couldn't place this one. She ran the palm of her hand over it. I spotted a
faint greenish glow around the edges of her hand.
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/White,%20steve%20-%20The%20prometheus%20project/0743498917___2.htm (4 of 7)28-12-2006 15:57:10
- Chapter 2
Soundlessly, a rectangular segment of the wall, large enough to admit one, moved back a couple of
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