"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Coolhunting" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

to an extra five, and she could afford it. She could afford anything if she
were willing to spend credits instead of accumulate them.
Somehow, knowing how fast tastes changed, made her unwilling to commit
to her own.
She ate the rest of the dog, nearly swallowing the last piece whole.
Maybe it had been two days since she'd eaten. Maybe only a few hours. She
couldn't remember. She'd been hunting.
It always took all of her energy.
As she picked up the second dog, he handed the plastic back to her.
"I won't do it again," he said.
"Your loss." She sprayed a bit of bun at him, and automatically covered
her mouth with her left hand. "Sorry."
He shrugged, turned away. A lot of basically honest people did that
when she asked them to violate their own rules. Made her ashamed sometimes.
Made her realize how different her world was from theirs.
She had the luxury of eating the second dog more slowly, then cleaning
her mustard-covered hands and face in the stand's laser wipe. She grabbed a
napkin and wiped for good measure: public cleaners always left her feeling a
bit gritty.
"Good dogs?"
 She hadn't seen the guy approach. She glanced up as he spoke,
registered him as someone she'd seen before, and a shudder ran down her back.
He wasn't young like most of her subjects, but then her early subjects weren't
young any more either. Still, his clear gray eyes slanting in a coffee-colored
Slavic-feature face looked familiar.
The wrong kind of familiar.
She shrugged, kept it light. "Dogs are as good as any these days."
"You ever had the old ones?" He brushed a hand over his silver suit.
Three weeks old, worn Detroit style, with a red cummerbund instead of a tie
and pierce chain. "The ones they made of sawdust and pig's feet?"
"That's not how they made 'em," she said and stepped away from him.
For a minute, she thought he'd keep up, but he didn't. He stayed at the
stand, bought himself a dog, and watched her walk away.
Maybe that was how her subjects felt when she watched them. As if they
were suddenly on public display, as if their entire selves were being exposed
to the world.
Watchers shouldn't be watched.
She rounded a corner, then slipped into the park.
The air was fresher here, the trees budding. Tulips bloomed in special
garden circles maintained by a crew of city employees who were determined to
make Central Park look as cultivated as possible. She liked to spend spring
here. It made her feel alive.
It also allowed her to watch the cools bloom.
She went to her bench. It was newly painted -- green this time -- to
give the illusion of newness despite its great age. Around her, couples threw
balls for their dogs, and kids went by in groups, deep in conversation.
She watched:
Clothes.
Shoes.
Jewelry.