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

inches and slid aside. She passed through. I followed. The wall closed again.
We were in what looked like an empty closet, barely large enough to accommodate the two of us, lit by
a dusty forty-watt bulb.
I was trying to frame a question when I felt a very faint vibration through the soles of my feet, followed
by an equally faint sensation of descending, like an unusually slow and soundless elevator.
"Miss Smith" turned to face me. She held a small tubular gizmo, pointed at my midriff.
"Sorry," she said, without any deep conviction.
The next thing I remember was awakening on a cot.
***
It was a very nondescript cot in a very nondescript roomтАФwindowless, walled with some material I
thought of as "plastic" in my inability to identify it. The door had a perfectly ordinary knob.
I got to my feet, and almost fell back over. It wasn't nausea, or vertigo, or anything except a stiff
sensation of having lain unmoving for too long. I established my equilibriumтАФSpecial Forces training
has its usesтАФand walked carefully to the door. I tried the knob. It was locked, of course, but I'd had to
try.
I looked around more carefully. There was an obviousтАФif advanced-lookingтАФvideo pickup near the
ceiling, in the corner to the right of the door. I had no objection to that. Indeed, the ability of whoever I
was dealing with to observe me offered some hope that they wouldn't just leave me to rot, now that they
knew I was awake. Just to hasten the process, I made a rude gesture with the middle finger of my right
hand in the direction of the pickup.
I was considering the pros and cons of mooning the pickup when the door finally opened.
"Miss Smith" entered, dressed exactly as she'd been when I'd last seen her. (Or at least I think she was.
I've never been a particularly insightful observer of women's clothing, as all the women in my life have
made clear to me.) A youngish man followed her, but stayed in the background, keeping his hand close
to the opening of his jacket. I didn't even bother trying to calculate my chances of taking himтАФnot when
I had no idea of where I was, or how to get out of it.
"How are you feeling?" asked "Miss Smith" in a tone that passed for cordial with her.
"Never better. And now that we're among your friends, and I'm completely helpless, could you please
tell me your real name?"
She blinked with surprise. "Well, I suppose it can do no harm. I'm Renata Novak. And I'm as
humanтАФand as AmericanтАФas you, in case you'd wondered."
"Actually, I hadn't." This was trueтАФsurprisingly, inasmuch as I was something of a science-fiction fan.
If I'd been a real hard case, maybe my mind would have strayed into wild speculations. Fortunately, the
completely prosaic aspect of everything about Renata Novak except her hardware had kept me anchored
securely in what I still fancied to be reality.
She resumed briskly. "At any rate, Mr. DevaneyтАФ"
"Ah, so you know my name."
"Of course. As I was saying, we find ourselves faced with the problem of what to do with you."
"You seemed to know just what to do with me, in that elevator."
"Do I detect a note of resentment? I should think you'd be more appreciative. I could have simply

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 - Chapter 2

activated the privacy field for myself in that alley, after you had gotten me safely to it, and left you
behind to deal with those who were following us."
There seemed no good answer to this, so I contented myself with my best glare. Irritatingly, she seemed
not to notice, but continued without a break.
"So you see, Mr. Devaney, we're not without some concept of ethics. But you've seen things you have
no business seeing, and become involved in matters whose importance you can't possibly imagine."