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

Implants, I thought; just as illegal as mine but no doubt a thousand times
more powerful. For all I knew, they had already broadcast a plea for help. He
would be sure to do so himself, when he eventually awoke. Exactly how much
time I had, I didn't know, but I knew it wouldn't be long. I had to get out of
there.
I delayed long enough to don the cloak--which, thankfully, was a size too
large rather than a size too small--and down-load the data pertinent to the
case into the phone's detachable personal digital assistant. Then I shrugged
an overcoat over the cloak, slipped the PDA into a pocket, reloaded the gun
and slipped out of the building by the back entrance.
Out on the street, I kept to the shadows. It wouldn't do, I knew, to be picked
up for possessing illegal tech by some passing cop. No one in their right mind
would believe my story. Hi-tech assassins lurking in roof-top gardens, Marilyn
kidnapped, a non-existent man committing suicide, and the possible return of
the Trouble--even I wasn't convinced. To make a reasonable case, and to find
Marilyn, I needed more information.
And there was only one place in the city I could be sure to find it, albeit at
a price.
The alley behind the "Jack-in-a-Box" was deserted, as always. I waited
nervously for the Zealot's automated sentries to go through their routine, and
reluctantly handed over the gun to get through the inner door. When it finally
opened, I burst into the inner sanctum like a man on fire.
The Zealot turned to face me. "Courtney Welles, back for more. What are you
now, a conspicuous consumer?"
"I need your help," I said. "They've got Marilyn."
He frowned. "Who have?"
"Kamen & Subsidiaries, or whoever the hell they really are. That space junk
you were telling me about must have been some old warhead, left behind after
the Trouble." I handed him the PDA. "There's a genetic code on there. A
mutation. I gotta know what it's all about so we can --"
"I already offered you a price," interrupted the Zealot, raising his eyebrows.
"You did?" Then I remembered: the lottery figure. "You knew about this?"
"Some, not all. More than you, obviously, if that's what you believe." The
Zealot shifted in his seat. "I didn't know, however, that you had recently
acquired such a valuable piece of clothing."
I glanced down at the cloak that covered my extremities, recognizing the
hungry look in the Zealot's one good eye. "You want it? It's yours. Just help
me find Marilyn, or tell me what's going on."
"The latter I cannot do. But the former . . . well, that depends on how well
they've hidden her. Where was she when you last saw her?"
I thought back to the call. The background had been blurred, but familiar.
"Her office. The Genotek building."
"How long ago?"
"An hour and a half, maybe more."
"Hmm." The Zealot leaned over the mess of equipment and screens that acted as
his desk. He closed his eyes, using implants to process instructions and data
much faster than any mechanical interface could. "The building was evacuated
eighty-five minutes ago. A fire on the forty-seventh floor apparently; no
casualties."
Despair and exhaustion rolled over me in a wave. "They could have gone