"Chalker, Jack L - G.o.d. Inc. 2 - The Shadow Dancers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

"I won't let you risk it. Not alone!" Sam said as soon as Bill was out of the
room.
"We're good, Sam. We proved that."
"Yeah, we're good. As a team. He was painting the best damned picture of this
cockeyed plot he could and he still made it sound like a sure march to the
guillotine. And even if it worked, the odds are you're gonna get beaten or raped
or all of the above. The only thing worse than losing you would be having you
come back looking the same but not there inside. This is the kind of guy who
trims your fingernails starting at the knuckles when he needs a few laughs, and
he's surrounded by hordes of like-minded individuals. We're doing good now."
"Yeah, now," I echoed. "But not if we say no and you know it. We're makin' more
now than we ever dreamed we'd have, and we're in hock up to our neck and you're
workin' twelve-hour days and I'm a kept woman with nothin' to do on her own and
less and less to do with the business. And don't give me no bullshit about my
bein' a vital part of the business. It ain't true and you know it. I was happier
and felt more like a real, useful person when we was in the damned slums
starvin' to death, 'cause it was a real partnership and we was together, damn
it. You got what you want now, but this is my chance to break out without losin'
what we already got."
"You really think this thing has a chance? That you do?"
"I don't know," I admitted. "I only know that we been lucky for two born losers.
Every time one of us sunk, somethin' happened in the nick of time to save us and
make things better. You remember what we found out. There's hundreds of us out
there, someplace, but none of us are havin' this talk now but you and me. I'm
the only Brandy that married you. I'm the only one that didn't wind up some
whore or junkie or dead. Just you and me gettin' together at the right time, and
hittin' it off, or Little Jimmy showin' up and offerin' us that case, or gettin'
stuck in a siding world that just happened to be between one world and another
so the Labyrinth opened up and we saw and heard it and got out. What's the word?
Implausible. Unbelievable. All of it. Everybody's got all sorts of shit in their
lives that changed them for better or worse and they're all implausible,
impossible, unbelievable. That's what this whole parallel worlds thing is about.
I'm the one so far who done everything right. The only one."
He stared at me. "But those things just happened, one at a time. This is
different. This is a clear choice of very high risk and for you alone. The other
times, it was both of us."
"Well, you sure as hell can't get in the way I can, and probably not any other
way, neither. I wouldn't risk my toenail for the damned Company and to hell with
any threats, real or not, but this is a big score, Sam. Look, say we get outta
here and I get hit by a car out front. What you got?"
"Ten grand from Home Beneficial Life Insurance. Okay, but the odds against that
are a lot better than the odds here, and you wouldn't jump in front of the car."
"Maybe not. Know what I done while you was off in Pittsburgh? Went down and
scored some high grade pot and sat around that apartment starin' at the walls
and keepin' high as a kite and eatin' a ton of chocolate candy and I was still
depressed. Now gimme that million and we hire on 'nuff people to take the
caseload and we get us a big, fancy house way up the Main Line with lots of room
'n trees 'n luxury, and we get some kids and we enjoy life a little. Maybe I
even set up my own business."
He looked at me hard. "Things really that bad for you? I knew you had some