"Nyx Smith - Fade to Black" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Nyx)

"Estd bien," the elf said. "Entre."
Gordon climbed the steps up into the narrow space directly behind the flight crew. Both pilot and
copilot wore helmets with full, nonreflective visors that masked their features completely. The pair sat like
statues, facing their controls and the broad forward windshield of the chopper, never once turning their
heads.
The door to the rear cabin swung open. Gordon stepped through. The elf followed.
The cabin was ostentatiously appointed in black and red and gold-crushed velvet on the walls, full
carpeting, lush drapes. A pair of men in black mirrorshades and sharply cut gray suits waited to the left and
right of the door. One was big enough to be an ork bodybuilder, the other looked Asian and had the build of
a sumo wrestler. Impassive faces, casual postures. Nothing Gordon hadn't expected. Nothing he'd not seen
before.
The woman seated in the captain's-style chair at the rear of the cabin looked Spanish. She had her
sable hair drawn back sleek and flat from her brow. The gold wire lead of a datawire hung from her right
temple. She wore black visorshades, a sparkling red jacket adorned with swirls of black, tight black slacks
and gleaming scarlet boots. Her name was Sarabande. She was kuromaku, a fixer. She motioned casually
to the chair facing her from across a small oval table. Gordon accepted the offer and sat down. The subtle
thumping of the chopper's rotors grew louder as the craft ascended, swinging out over lower Manhattan
and across the Hudson, toward the blighted regions of Jersey City and Newark. Gordon glanced at the
drape-covered windows and guessed at the chopper's movements. He also checked his watch: 01:18 hours.
The upper stories of Tower Five would be back on-line by now, fully illuminated and operational, while
some slag down in Facility Control would be wondering what the hell had happened. "Your business?"
Sarabande said. "On chip."
"Muy Men."
 Gordon opened the synth-digit replacing the end of his left pinkie and drew out an optical chip couched
in a wafer-thin plastic carrier. He held out the chip-carrier. The elf examined it and passed it to his master.
A compact console rose from the center of the table. Sarabande slotted both carrier and chip into a
receiving port. Several minutes passed. Gordon waited.
"A very complete dossier," Sarabande said finally. "The work to be done will require extensive
preparation and will entail a high risk. What price will you pay?' Gordon replied, "Whatever it takes."
"I will require an immediate advance of three hundred thousand nuyen."
"I want multi-level back-up and I want the job expedited."
"Five-hundred thousand nuyen."
"And you guarantee completion." Sarabande showed no reaction. "The work will be attempted by
competent parties taking all reasonable steps to ensure success," she said. That is your guarantee." Gordon
nodded. It would do.
2
The bar was little more than a counter jammed into an alley between a noodle bar and a booth selling
bootleg simchips. The silver-eyed trog behind the counter had a set of snap-blades strapped to -his right
forearm and a Remington Roomsweeper bolstered low on his left hip, He didn't take nothing but certified
cred. The tequila he served was synthetic, lousy and cheap. So was the soykaf. For the price of a drink or a
kaf, you got to elbow in between the other "clients" and stand there under the awning and watch and wait.
Rico ordered a shot and a kaf, then stood watching the throngs cramming the alley, shuffling by,
sometimes near enough to brush his front.
This was Sector 3, Newark metroplex. Free zone. SIN-less territory. No passes, no badges, no
restrictions. No System Identification Numbers. No straight suits. The people who lived here couldn't hack
it in Manhattan because they had no corporate connection, no background, no SIN. No official anything.
Every slag and slitch had their program for survival. Those who walked the razor knew the rules of
the game. Here in Sector 3, if you wanted to live, you carried metal, heavy metal, and you didn't make no
secret about it. If you had implanted chrome, you made sure everybody knew it, or at least had reason to
suspect it. If somebody met your gaze and held it, you didn't look away for even an instant, because an