"Sean Williams - The Perfect Gun" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Sean)

in the city--had conquered the stars and could afford to reflect on the past
through rose-coloured glasses if it wanted to.
So, if Wallace Derringer's genome differed from that of the castes, the
descendants of the sports, then that meant that he was a new mutation. And a
new mutation suggested new viruses, and a return of the Trouble.
No wonder, I thought, that someone was going to a lot of trouble to cover him
up. If word got out, there was no telling what could happen.
 All this flashed through my mind in about five seconds.
"Wait," I said, more to myself than to her. "We're making a mountain out of a
molehill, here."
"Maybe not, Court. Think about it. All it takes is for someone to stumble
across a cache of the virus that the clean-up overlooked; some leftover from
the Trouble--a missile warhead, perhaps, floating in orbit or further out. It
breaks loose, infects someone, and --"
"No." I raised a hand to silence her. "I don't buy it. You could never keep it
secret. We would have heard something, surely . . ." I stopped in
mid-sentence, stunned by a sudden thought. "Oh, shit."
"What?" Marilyn waved her hand to attract my attention. "What is it?"
"Something the Zealot said. It might be nothing, but --"
Before I could finish, the screen blacked-out. Frowning, I thumped the phone's
casing and poked the Receive button.
"Marilyn? Can you hear me? Marilyn?"
Dead. Not even a disconnected signal. I tried calling another number, but that
didn't work either. And when I stood to check the cables leading to the wall,
I noticed that something else was missing.
The Hess machines were silent.
Instantly alert, I scrambled across my study to my holster and fished out the
revolver I'd carried for years and never used. I never intended to either, but
just holding it made me feel more secure, although the wooden grip in my
sweaty palm reminded me again of the song.
The Perfect Gun is perfect sadism, at least as a method.
Only my heartbeat broke the silence as I inched through my apartment to the
door that led onto the roof. There I turned out the lights in the kitchen and
waited for my eyes to adjust.
Outside, the night was dark and still, lit only by the lights of the 'scrapers
above and on every side. One of the Hess machines cheeped, and was answered by
others, and gradually the night reassumed its usual, reassuring ambience. But
the fact remained that something had made a noise in the yard; something had
scared the Hess machines into silence.
I slowly swung the back door open with my left hand, holding the gun before me
in my right, and took a step outside. I took a second step forward and closed
the door behind me.
In the corner of my eye, something moved. Before I could flinch away, a
numbing blow knocked the gun from my hand, sending it spinning across the
concrete path. Another pushed me from the door.
As I stumbled, I turned to face my attacker--but saw no one.
A third shove sent me sprawling heavily to my hands and knees on the grass. A
boot pressed me further down. I rolled over when the pressure eased, and
caught a subtle movement to my left: little more than a shadow among shadows,
visible only as a distortion in the air as it passed in front of the 'scraper