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

longer. His couch, with its chrome legs that swooped into uncomfortable arms,
and orange plastic seat, ran in the range of several thousand credits.
She slipped through the remodeled arch doorway into his dark and dingy
kitchen. It smelled of oranges. Peels littered the floor. Her boots made small
sucking sounds as she walked.
Leo hunched over the oak table he'd inherited with the apartment, using
a wielding tool as old as his couch to sauter some metal together. She watched
him work, seeing the small shield before his face shimmer in the old fashioned
light.
Then he shut off the torch, turned and the shield faded to nothing.
He grinned. "Been a while, babe."
She knew his name, but he didn't know hers. She liked it that way; he
didn't mind. She suspected he wasn't named Leo at all, suspected it was as
much an affectation as the rest of the place.
She shrugged. "Been busy."
With a wave of a hand, he raised the lights. They didn't cut the gloom,
but they illuminated his face and hers. His was mid-forties, careworn, no
enhancements or lines. His eyes were a faded blue, his lips painted a pale
maroon.
"Whatcha got?"
 She was clutching the chip in her hand, and had been since she left the
park. He didn't need to know about the nip pouch.
She came closer and opened her fist. The chip case gleamed in the odd
light. "A man gave this to me. Said it was important."
"And you took it?" Leo raised a scarred eyebrow. He leaned over her
palm, stared at the case, then reached behind himself and grabbed a tweezers.
He picked the case up using the tweezers and set it on a clear sheet of
glass.
"You should know better than to touch something like this, babe," Leo
said.
"I do," she said.
"But he gotcha, right? What'd he do, tell you it's full of credits?"
"No," she said, unwilling to say anymore.
Leo shook his head. "I'll check it out for you. Want me to siphon the
information off it?"
"Tell me what's there first," she said, "and if it's booby-trapped."
He grinned. "You give me all the fun jobs."
She shrugged. She'd never given him a job like this before.
"Head into the main room, wouldja? And can you wait? This might take
some time."
"I can wait," she said, and left the kitchen.
The main room of his apartment overlooked Riverside, but the windows
were so streaked with grime, she could barely see through them. His vid
equipment was old and obviously for client use.
She sat on the couch, put her hand in her hair, and found the shoelace.
She yanked it out, let her hair fall into her face, and wrapped the lace
around her fingers. It was worn and old, fraying on the sides. Like the laces
of the first pair of tennis shoes she'd had when she was a child.
KD had loved those shoes.
_Big people shoes,_ she had said, wistfully.