"DEAD" - читать интересную книгу автора (Howard Joseph)

I'd changed my location a few times, my name and my friends. It was
hard letting them go, seeing them die so young.
I found the stairwell, 31 flights to ground. Opened the door.
Someone coming up. No lights.
No! Not this soon!
Not daring to use the flash, I ran blindly. By dead reckoning I found
the other stairwell. Down three flights, located the steel door to the
maintenance closet, unlocked it, went in.
No use locking it again. It wouldn't stop them.
I controlled my breathing, my pulse, my sweat, my shaking, my brain
waves. Find me now if you can.
Minutes ago I must have been asleep, a bee buzzing in my dreams.
Minutes.
How long does it take someone on a respirator to die? In a hospital?
At home?
My God, they're killing my city. There must be thousands suffocating.
On respirators, and in underground rooms and tunnels with forced
ventilation.
There must be people on elevators screaming in panic. Cars running
downhill without power steering and brakes, with little women at the
wheels who don't have the strength to control them.
How long have the lights been out? Minutes? Hours?
"Damn you! They can't help the way they are. They're frightened and
frail enough without you adding to their burdens. Do you know what it's
like to fear disease and crime and death all the time? Leave them alone!"
I burst through the door of my priest-hole, threw away my pack, ran
up the stairs, falling, hurting myself. Through the fire door into the
hall.
There they were -- Klaurum - faintly luminescent creatures resembling
slugs with foliage. They don't need light. I hadn't seen such for 70
years.
"Stop!" I yelled as they turned my way. "Kill the drain field. You're
killing my city." My tongue found a language it had not spoken in decades.
The sound fell strangely on my ears.
"You're giving yourself up?"
"Yes, yes, yes!" I threw them my weapon. "Turn off the drain field."
The hall lights came on. Someone looked out a door and quickly closed
it.
"Do you know how many people you've killed?"
"Do you think he's rehabilitated?" said one Klaurum to the other two.
"Yes. I think so."
"Answer me!" I yelled.
"Still very assertive, isn't he."
"Answer me!"
"We've killed none. The drain field was local to your apartment and
parts of this building. We put a sound- and light-sink field next to your
window.
"See for yourself. The city's in no panic."
I ran to my apartment, to the bedroom window. All the night light was
there. A bus growled away from a stop 31 stories below.