"Mary Rosenblum - Search Engine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rosenblum Mary)

around.

He paused at a clean-looking stand built in what had been a parking strip, and bought a glass of
vegetable juice, made in front of his eyes in an antique blender. The woman washed the vegetables in a
bucket of muddy water before she chopped them into the blender, but he smelled chlorine as he leaned
casually on the counter. Safe enough. His vaccinations were up to date, so he took the glass without
hesitation and drank the spicy, basil-flavored stuff. He didn't like basil particularly, but the smiled at her.
"Has Daren been by today?" He hazarded the runner's real name on the wild chance that he was too
naive to have used a fake. "He was supposed to meet me here. Bet he overslept."

Her face relaxed a bit, her smile more genuine. "Of course." She shrugged, relaxing. "Doesn't he always?
I usually see him later on. Like noon." And she laughed a familiar and comfortable "we're all friends"
laughter.

He was using his real name. Aman sipped some more of the juice, wanting to shake his head. Little kid
with his head under the friendly sofa cushions. A figure emerged from a small, square block of a house
nearly invisible beneath a huge tangle of kiwi and kudzu vines and headed their way, walking briskly, his
hand-woven, natural-dyed tunic as noticeable as a bright balloon on this street. Loose drawstring pants
woven of some tan fiber and the string of carved beads around his neck might as well have been a neon
arrow pointing. "Ha, there he is," Aman said, and the woman's glance and smile confirmed his guess.
Aman waited until the runner's eyes were starting to sweep his way, then stepped quickly forward.
"Daren, it's been forever." He threw his arms around the kid, hugging him like a long-lost brother, doing a
quick cheek-kiss that allowed him to hiss into the shocked kid's ear, "Act like we're old friends and
maybe the feds wont get you. Don't blow this."

The kid stiffened, panic tensing all his muscles, fear sweat sour in Aman's nostrils. For a few seconds, the
kid thought it over. Then his muscles relaxed all at once, so much so that Aman's hands tightened
instinctively on his arms. He started to tremble.

"Come on. Let's take a walk," Aman said. "I'm not here to bust you."

"Let me get some juice…"

"No." Aman's thumb dug into the nerve plexus in his shoulder and the kid gasped. "Walk." He twisted the
kid around and propelled him down the street, away from the little juice kiosk, his body language
suggesting two old friends out strolling, his arm companionably over the kid's shoulder, hiding the kid's
tension with his own body, thumb exerting just enough pressure on the nerve to remind the kid to behave.
"You are leaving a trail a blind infant could follow," he said conversationally, felt the kid's jerk of reaction.

"I'm not chipped." Angry bravado tone.

"You don't need to be chipped. That just slows the search down a few hours. You went straight from the
hack-doc to here, walked through the Belt because you couldn't take the rail, you buy juice at this stand
every day, and you bought those pants two blocks up the street, from the lady who sells clothes out of
her living room. Want me to tell you what had for dinner last night, too?"

"Oh, Goddess," he breathed.

"Spare me." Aman sighed. "Why do they want you? You blow something up? Plant a virus?"