"Robert A. Metzger - Planet of the Dolphins" - читать интересную книгу автора (Metzger Robert)

“Yes!” screamed Herman. “I’m the one, the goddamned Messiah who will
save the world.” He slammed his fist against the tabletop. “But it’s not my choice.
You know it. You’ve heard it all before. Same old record. I can’t leave, can’t get out
of Vegas and escape it. I’m a Messiah with a gun held to his head. Ishmael won’t let
me go, always translating me back here whenever I try and get out of town.”

Dr. Cutler nodded. “Excellent,” he said. “You’ve admitted to the delusion
much more quickly than you normally do. Perhaps you’re finally ready to move past
it, to see what is real and what is not.”

Herman turned around and walked back to the window. He stared out at
Aqualand and the still-burning pools where the dolphins swam.” That’s real, you
stupid son of a bitch,” he said quietly.

“Exactly,” said Dr. Cutler.

“It appears to be getting worse.”

Herman leaned back in his chair. He’d resigned himself to talking to feeding
Dr. Cutler the psychogruel that he appeared to so desperately need. it passed the
time.

“A lot worse. Just a few years ago I could have walked right into Aqualand
without them making a move. But now I can’t get within a couple of miles of it. Just
last month, a Bottlenose in a trench coat and shades tried to chomp me when I was
panhandling at Caesars.”

Dr. Cutler scribbled notes in a tight, controlled scrawl.

“I spotted him though, smelled the tuna on his breath just before he tried to
take off my head.”

Scribble.

Scribble.

Herman grinned. He hadn’t smelled a thing. The first he had even known
about the Bottlenose was when Ishmael had stepped through the side of a
Greyhound bus and inverted the damned dolphin.

“And I assume that it was Ishmael who saved you?”

“Always,” said Herman. “He’s got a bigger stake in this than any of us. The
future, the human future is his. He comes from a billion years down the line, and
pops back here just to make sure that everything stays on track, that I do what has to
be done.”

“Which is?”