"FWLS29" - читать интересную книгу автора (A Future We'd Like to See)

and into the fountain, where she gurgled a bit before finding
something hard and lumpy in her hand someone had dropped in the
fountain.

Pulling herself to the surface, she examined it.

"GIFT CERTIFICATES?" she wondered aloud.

The entire wing fell silent, as a few thousand pairs of eyes
turned on her. Not on her, specifically, but on the plastic gift
tokens valid through next year. ShopperVision(tm) only cared
about these; Chrissy herself registered as just an obstacle in
the way to the tokens.

Several dozen shoppers pounced on her, displacing a great
deal of water. All Chrissy could remember was the sight of
twenty eyes, wide in insanity, gazing down in capitalistic greed
as various blades, blunt objects, and bullets were slammed into
her.

*

Her vision recovered before her brain did, which is
fortunate, because the sights around her weren't pretty.

At first she thought she had gone deaf, but this wasn't the
case. There simply wasn't any sounds to be heard. All around
her lay the corpses of the dead, with their bloody bags (now
empty, as no gift is laid to waste) clutched in iron grips of
death. Sunlight was streaming in from the overhead windows, and
the muzak could faintly be heard playing a strangled version of
'Jingle Bells'. Church bells from across town could be heard
ringing in blissful harmony. It was Christmas morning!

"Rise and shine, kiddo!" Jobe said, moving into her frame of
vision. "Boy, that took awhile. One Baby Burpee left in stock.
Had to chase this guy halfway around town, but I finally got it,"
he grinned, showing her the somewhat battered doll. It burped.

"Gurgle," she gurgled.

"Don't try to move," Jobe said, applying more bandages to
her. "You're lucky all the healthkits weren't purchased. You're
really quite a mess. Had to pump the water out of your lungs,
stop the excess bleeding, and all that... took two kits or so to
patch you up when I found you here a few hours ago. Don't worry,
the store's medical plan will pay for resettings, transfusions,
plastic surgery, etc. No need for alarm. Just keep breathing.
Say, you know what the funny bit is?"