"Dafydd ab Hugh, Brad Linaweawer DOOM: Endgame (english)" - читать интересную книгу автора

four Fred rays; she took me to the nearest one, leaving
me to drag the torso behind.
Turning my head away, praying to avoid vomiting
and completely humiliating myself in front of my
friend and subordinate, I balanced the torso on a
neutron-repellant backdrop, the only thing that would
stop the beam. The body fell over, and I set it up
again. Then I stepped back and cranked the weapon
around to point at the Fred's chest, where it stored its
brain.
"Man, I don't like doing this," I muttered.
"Fly, he's been trapped dead underneath that rub-
ble outside for forty years. One eye was openЧ
remember?"
"So?"
"So for four decades, Sergeant, Rumplestiltskin
stared unblinking at the ground or the sky or the sun,
knowing his entire species had been wiped out in the
wink of an eye by an alien race they were going to
enslave. Fly, he's suffered enough; don't trap him
inside that corporeal bottle."
My hands started shaking as I inserted a jerry-
rigged pair of chopsticks into the holes to press the
levers, simulating a Fred hand.
Arlene put her hand on my shoulder. "You want I
should do it?"
I shook my head firmly. "No, A.S., didn't you read
Old Yeller when you were a little girl?"
"No, I was too busy reading Voyage to the Mush-
room Planet and The Star Beast."
"When your dog has to die, Arlene, you've got to
shoot him yourself. You can't get someone else to
shoot Old Yeller for you."
I pressed the lever, completing the connection. As
usual, we saw nothing. That was the part that both-
ered me the most: as destructive as this neutron beam
was, you'd think you would see something, for God's
sake! A blue light, a lightning bolt, fire and
brimstoneЧsomething. But the beam was as invisible
as X-rays in the dentist's office, and as quiet; all I
heard was a single click, and suddenly there was a
huge hole through Rumplestiltskin's chest. Within
three or four seconds, its body was boiling, the flesh
vaporizing instantly wherever the beam touched.
I slowly burned away the entire torso. The Fred ray
was a gigantic eraserЧeverywhere I pointed, flesh
simply vanished. A minute after turning on the beam,
I clicked it off; nothing remained of the Fred but an
invisible mist of organic molecules in a hot ionized
plasma state. My guess was the interrogation was