"02 - They Came and Ate Us - Armageddon II- The B-Movie 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rankin Robert)

'Are we in security?' asks one. It doesn't matter which.

'Free from bio-scan?'

'The monitors read out at zero.' Heads nod. Cheek­bones are brought into play. All this is being viewed from above.

'Gentlemen.' The first speaker again. 'You have all had time to view the tapes. You have all been at the press conferences. You all have intimate knowledge of the problem at hand.' More sombre nods. Some papers are moved slightly.

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'I can see no alternative but to put the plan into operation. Any delay now could prove disastrous, with the talks coming up.'

'You have run this through the appropriate channels? It can be done? It will actually work?'

'With the present situation being what it is no-one will suspect anything. We are responsible for security. The measures are purely protective.'

'Then Project Wormwood has a green light.'

'There is no other alternative?'

'None.'

'And you are certain that the public will not suspect?'

'We have already run two pilots.'

'But what about infiltration? My sources tell me that pirates have penetrated the outer networks.'

'That is being dealt with.'

Heads nod all the way round the table. At least they know what's going on.

'Are we talking total body prosthesis?' someone asks. Which leaves all but a very few as much in the dark as when they came in.

There now comes a similarly unexplained cut to the year 2060. It might be Earth, but it sure as Hell looks like paradise. Grassy knolls, languid rivers, a copse or two, or they might be thickets, it's often hard to tell even close up. Arcadian glades. Plenty of those. And panning slowly across, some rude dwellings. Peering more closely one is able to make out certain signs hanging above the door­ways. One says Ye Blacksmith, another Ye Miller. Another still, Ye Keeper of Cattle. On a somewhat larger hut at the far end a sign reads Ye Ministry for Develop­ment, Land Registration, Monetary Control and the Reinstatement of the Status Quo.

In the doorway of this hut stands a tallish, broad-shouldered, whole-headed sort of a body. He stares into the sky and suddenly catches sight of something which may or may not be an enormous ballpoint pen.

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'Rambo,' he cries out excitedly to someone within the hut. 'Quickly, it's us. We're back on again.'

'Eric, me old bucolic muckamuck,' a voice replies. 'I trust that you are not piddling windward.'

'No Rambo, honest. The biro is back. I can almost make out the exercise book and the tobacco packet. It's Rankin, he's in the pub again and he's writing.'

'Well, glory be.' Rambo Bloodaxe, for it is indeed he, thrust his head out through the hut opening and joined his bestest chum. 'Then if that's the way of it we're really going to make good this time.'

'And not before time, Rambo. All these meek who have inherited the Earth are really getting up my olfactory organ.'