"Lois Gresh - Termination Node" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gresh Lois)

Where physical distances—banks in Switzerland or Aruba or wherever—were irrelevant. Where she
was everywhere, and nowhere, at all hours of the day.

She pressed together the Velcro straps on her Rollerblades, then cruised into the parking lot. Always
alone, but at least she had freedom. She'd never work full-time for anyone. Even if it meant all-nighters
forever, hunched over a netpad, as TerMight. Life was too short to play head games with the normal
people, listening to their phony friendliness, returning their false smiles. Life was too short to be
imprisoned in concrete walls.

3

Rollerblades glinting, the street a blur of gray; Judy crouched low for maximum speed and tilted her body
to the left, stared at the pavement as her blades flashed around the curve of Laguna Crescent. White gulls
flapped their wings, eyes startled, heads cocked, and rose out of her way. She passed them, still hunched
low, their caws reviving a distant memory of Mom getting on her case when she'd toyed with her laptop.

Mom. The word made her go faster, as if speeding down me Crescent would somehow help her escape
the thought.

She flashed by a startled man in bathing trunks holding a green hose that dribbled water. A waft of roses
billowed, then was gone.

Judy swerved around a pothole, warm air pressing her ears and stinging her eyes. One turn up ahead,
past the red Ferrari, then an upward lift of her body, a spin of her skates, and a dip of her blades into the
grass. She was home.

A shimmer of hair, auburn shot with gold and brown, cascaded down her face to her waist. She tossed it
back, turned her head toward the sky, and shut her eyes. What a rush.

Judy dropped to the grass, ignoring the crunch of snail shells beneath her shorts, her legs long and tan and
shadowed pink from the bougainvilleas hanging over the tiny fence. She wanted to stay right here,
basking in the early-morning warmth.

But first, a quick call to Jose about the Helraze nightmare. Then, after a shower, a long nap on the beach.

Looping her skates over her shoulder, Judy climbed the stairs to the front porch. Once inside, she
checked her mailbox, then started up the three flights, around the tiny landings, to her apartment.

At each level, four wooden doors sheltered residents from intruders. As if the doors would do any good.
They were as thin as cardboard and offered about as much protection.

Hardly anyone was home this time of day. Trev LeFontaines door, number 1-4, was half ajar, and a
radio was blaring inside. Trev's voice, deep and full of vibrato, was singing to the music—some tune
about dead flowers and lost dreams.

But there were no dead flowers in southern California,

Just a lot of dead and lost people. Like Trev, the superintendent who did nothing but putter around all
day, fixing plaster and painting walls. Trev, who thought of nothing except surfing the waves at
Hunt-ington and Corona del Mar, and sometimes where the tides slammed the lagoon at Doheny down