"Jo" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barreiros Joao)

the katana he inherited from his great great grandfather, who was cremated
in the Tokyo Bay bombing. He may have a laser implant in the little finger
that was cut off by the Yakusas, but to me he's still a cretin who
couldn't get to level thirty in the AIDS hunt game. Even so, I obey him,
as do my comrades. The truth is, I hate these subversive carols. I hate
all this talk of peace when the only thing they really want is to lead
your children astray, if you have any. So I touch my wisdom tooth and,
with a single bite, switch off the voices from the other side of the
universe. And here I am in total silence (the horror, the horror) with the
wind blowing in from the other side of the cabin, my arms crossed, my
stomach churning, as I wait for touchdown.
Up front, in the cockpit, the pilot yells, "Origamis, origamis." The
lieutenant replies, "Push on! Push on! The attack menu must be implemented
to the letter!"
I'm in the first row next to the pilot's cabin so I can see what he sees.
Suddenly the increasingly intense grey of the dawn sky fills with
fluttering scraps of coloured paper. They are flocks of fragile brightly
coloured paper birds, grasshoppers, butterflies, griffins and phoenixes.
They stick to the windscreen with damp cellulose suckers. More and more
and more, layer after layer they come, like a plague. They blot out the
pilot's field of vision, who by force of circumstances has neither radar
nor an automatic pilot to assist him. "We're going to crash", the pilot
comments dully, as he merely confirms the inevitable, "pine trees ahead,
crash positions ..." I bend at the waist, put my hands behind my neck and
bend my knees ready for impact. Our idiot lieutenant does the same,
singing out the Corporation Anthem at the top of his voice, as do all of
us, brothers-in-arms, while we plummet towards the kiss of gravity.
Have you ever trashed a car? Have you felt the compression of time as a
wave of adrenaline courses through you veins? Have you ever felt things
slow down so they never seem to stop? To crash like this, blindly, inside
the belly of a glider, into terrain studded with pine trees, is a similar
experience. It's an ecstatic feeling, like the apparent death syndrome.
Technological breakdown is always orgiastic. Bang, BANG, BANG, goes the
moulded plastic belly of the glider as it scrapes treetops, snow and
rocks. The wings retract to lessen the impact torques. The aircraft's
structure collapses to absorb the multiple impacts. Air bags inflate into
our faces like vast mushrooms. In the cockpit, the pilot is yelling his
head off until there is a sharp CRACK and then he yells no more.
Finally, when the glider comes to rest, oh miracles of miracles, just one
more among the many others on this numinous day, I find myself alive,
intact and fit. Our pilot isn't so lucky, he's been skewered through the
midriff by a branch, like some vampire from another story. The branch has
punctured the polymer shell of the cockpit and pierced the hull from side
to side. I get up, my legs trembling, I release my safety belt and deflate
the air bag. Little festive lights glitter near the pilot's burst chest.
Reflections dance on the blood spattered glass balls which adorn the
fronds of the invading branch. Little stars twinkle at the end of each
frond. "Shit," comments Adelaide, a veteran of seven missions. "We're too
late! The fucking trees are already decorated!"
"Out, out, out", orders the lieutenant, somewhat obviously. "Cock your