"Walter Jon Williams - Wolf Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Walter John)

Alien pharmaceuticals, tonnes of them, shipped down under illegal cover. The network had been huge,
bigger than Reese, from her limited perspective, had ever suspected, and now the L.A. heat had
everything. Police and security people everywhere, even in the space habitats, were going berserk.

All along, she'd thought it was friends helping friends, but her friends had jacked her around the same
way she'd jacked around Steward. The whole trip to L.A. had been pointless--they had been stupid to
send her. Killing Steward couldn't stop what was happening, it was all too big. The only way Reese
could stay clear was to hide.

She ordered another drink, needing it badly. The shuttle speakers moaned with the same tuneless
synthesized chords as had the speakers in the hospital room. The memory of Steward lying in the bed
floated in her mind, tangled in her insides.

She leaned back against the headrest and watched the shuttle's wings gather fire.

****

Her career as a kick boxer ended with a spin kick breaking her nose, and Reese said the fuck with it and
went back to light sparring and kung fu. Beating the hell out of herself in training only to have the hell
beaten out of her in the ring was not her idea of the good life. She was thirty-six now and she might as
well admit there were sports she shouldn't indulge in, even if she had the threadware for them. The
realization didn't improve her mood.

Through the window of her condeco apartment, Reese could see a cold wailing northeast wind drive
flying white scud across the shallow Aral Sea, its shriek drowning the minarets' amplified call to prayer.
Neither the wind nor the view had changed in months. Reese looked at the grey Uzbek spring, turned on
her vid, and contemplated her sixth month of exile.

Her hair was black now, shorter than she'd worn it in a long time. Her fingerprints were altered, as was
the bone structure of her face. The serial numbers on her artificial eyes had been changed. However
bleak its weather, Uzbekistan was good at that sort of thing.

The last person she'd known who had lived here was Steward. Just before he came to L.A. and blew
everything to smithereens.

A young man on the vid was putting himself into some kind of combat suit, stuffing weapons and
ammunition into pockets. He picked up a shotgun. Suspenseful music hammered from the speakers.
Reese turned up the sound and sat down in front of the vid.

She had considered getting back into the trade, but it was too early. The scansheets and broadcasts were
still full of stories about aliens, alien ways, alien imports. About "restructuring" going on in the

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policorps who dealt with the Powers. It was strange seeing the news on the vid, with people ducking for
cover, refusing statements, the news item followed by a slick ad for alien pharmaceuticals. People were
going to trial--at least those who survived were. A lot were cooperating. Things were still too hot.

Fortunately money wasn't a problem. She had enough to last a long time, possibly even forever.