"K. W. Jeter - Bladerunner 02 - The Edge of Human" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jeter K. W)

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Blade Runner 2
The Edge of Human
by

H. W. Jeter


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
After.....




Living and unliving things are exchanging properties . . .
Philip K. Dick
A Scanner Darkly


Los Angeles - August, 2020

1.....


When every murder seems the same, it's time to quit.
"That's good advice," Bryant told himself. "I'll drink to that." A hard swallow, and jellied
gasoline spread across his ulcer; he could barely breathe as he set the small glass back down
on the desk and poured another shot. "That's why I went to a desk job."
The sticky-backed slip of paper, with its words of wisdom, floated at his vision's limit.
He had pulled open the bottom drawer to fetch the square bottle out, and the past had clung
to it like his own half-shed snakeskin. Every brilliant thought, 3 A.M. illumination,
unacted-upon suicide note, he'd pitched in there. Until the drawer held a shifting dune of
yellow scraps, the residuum of his entire goddamn cop career, that plus enough cash in the
pension plan to blow his nose on. The drawer's slips of paper, some carefully folded, some
wadded up, were an exact replica of the contents of his skull; if the police department's shrinks
ever looked inside either one, they'd ship him out on a permanent psychiatric leave so fast . . .
"Bastards." Between one thought and another, the glass had drained itself again, without
him noticing. Bryant dug a finger into the loose wattle of his throat and tugged his necktie
loose. The station's oxygen, soured with pheromones of fear and despair, trickled into his
lungs. The fan on top of the filing cabinet struggled to move the dust heavy air.
Under his feet, through the soles of his dumb-ass cop shoes, the earth shivered. In an
unlit tunnel, the rep train slid along its iron rails, carrying its silent, watchful cargo to another
darkness. He tilted the bottle, liquid brown splashing over the glass's rim.
"You drink too much."
Bryant knew that wasn't his own voice. None of the voices inside him would ever have
said anything that stupid. He squinted to bring the distant side of the office into focus. By the
fall of shadow across cheekbone he recognized the other person.