"Thomas Easton - Organic Future 02 - Greenhouse" - читать интересную книгу автора (Easton Thomas A)

robbing?

Muffy?

The thought struck him like a blow. His knees sagged beneath him for just
a second, but he quelled the involuntary response, looked upward as if he
thought he could see through all the floors and walls between him and their
apartment. Then he took a deep breath and ran up the stairs.

The first floor apartments were closed, their doors intact and
undisturbed. The same was true on the second floor. But on the third--the door
to Tom's apartment was open. Beyond it, a throw rug had been kicked into a
heap. A chair lay on its side. A spray of dirt told him that a fallen
houseplant lay just to the left of his field of view.

He stilled his panting long enough to cry, "Muffy?"

When there was no answer, he repeated his call. Finally, he tested the
door's knob. The latch was broken.

He entered the apartment. "Muffy?"

The broken houseplant was an amaryllis, an "Alice" so gengineered that its
blossom resembled a human face. It had just the one blossom, for the
gengineers had merged the four large blooms typical of an unmodified
amaryllis. They had also removed the amaryllis's yearly rhythm, so that Alices
needed no winter dormant period and indeed would produce new blooms as soon as
the old ones faded.

At the moment, this one's bloom, its face, looked as if, if only that were
possible, it would cry. It had fallen from a dresser beside the door, along
with a book, a photograph, and a small pottery dish in which they had kept odd
coins. The dish was as shattered as the downstairs door. The coins were
scattered on the floor.

Tom Cross picked up the photo and turned it over. It was of Muffy, one he
had taken at the art museum. She was standing in front of a pointillist
rendition of a human head formed by a cloud of gengineered gnats. What they
pictured changed constantly in expression, sex, and apparent age; the camera
had caught a fatherly figure, beaming proudly down upon Tom's mate.

He set it back on the dresser. Where was Muffy? He called again, and again
there was no answer. He searched the apartment, but it was small and it did
not take him long to be sure she was not there. Nor, by the time he had
finished, did he wonder what had happened. The bedroom was in perfect order.
So was the kitchen. The back door was intact. The intruders, whoever they
were, had broken in the front door and caught her immediately. She had
struggled, but the signs were all here, in the living room. And then they had
taken her away. But why?