"Wen Spencer - Ukiah 3 - Bitter Waters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Spencer Wen)

have funneled down into this pipe."
Lying in the water, Ukiah reached in as far as he could stretch, questing with his outstretched
fingers. His fingertips found the ragged edge where the pipe turned down, water pouring over the lip,
washing away any sign of the boy.
The rain started to come down harder, moving from a light patter to a quickening drum.
Max swore. "If he's down there, this is going to get ugly fast. This is part of Nine Mile Run."
Sometime in the past, several creeks had been routed completely underground in concrete culverts that
converged to form Nine Mile Run; it was a deadly labyrinth they had dealt with before. "Damn, if the
airline hadn't lost our luggage, we could snake one of the minicams down the drain to be sure."
"I'll call for a rescue team and look for a manhole," Ari offered, seeming anxious to get away
from the narrow pipe.
The rill of water coming down the hill was already deepening. Ukiah flashed to another child in
the storm drains, a maze of swirling dark waters and an unhappy end, when Max was forced to pull him
out half-drowned. "Max, I don't want to do that again—wander around lost while the kid drowns. We
should see if we can find a map of the system."
"The rescue team can deal with the storm drain," Max said. "All we need to do is convince them
that he's really down there. Are you sure?"
"No," Ukiah had to admit. How he could squeeze into the pipe and see if Kyle was actually stuck
in the pipe? If he was younger, closer to Kyle's age, he could fit.
It occurred to him there was a way to be smaller.
Ukiah dug his Swiss army knife from his pocket and made a deep cut across his wrist.
Max swore in surprise and caught Ukiah's shoulder. "What the hell? Ukiah? What are you
doing?"
"I'm going to make a mouse." Ukiah caught the flow of hot blood in his palm. "And I'm going to
use it as an extra set of eyes."
Max released him. "Okay. Just keep it out of sight. I'll keep Ari distracted."
Ukiah clung to the memories of the boy as the rest of the day drained down into his hand. The
blood stopped as the wound healed shut. He concentrated on the blood cupped in his hand, urging it to
take form instead of seeping back into his body, merging with him again. It formed a quivering sack.
Bones took form, a racing heart, and then finally the dark fur of a black mouse.
"Thank you," Ukiah breathed, and carefully placed the mouse as far into the drain as he could go.
"Go on, find the boy."
He leaned his body against the pipe, and thought only of the mouse as it skittered fearfully along
water into the darkness.
 … cold wet steel, undulating in frozen minihills, a rushing river of muddy water, a vast
curving ceiling echoing back the white noise of water, something huge ahead, the growing smell
of blood, the edge of a great hole, clinging to the edge, trembling with fear …
Ukiah tried to send comfort and encouragement over the fraying link. He could create the mouse
because he was in truth a collection of independently intelligent cells acting as a whole. Whatever method
his cells used to communicate, endowing him with telepathic abilities with his mice and those closely
related to him, depended much on mass. The smaller the collection of cells, like the mouse, the shorter
the distance he could communicate with it.
If he had been reduced down to hundreds of mice, none of them would venture down the
terrifying drop. They would be too hard-wired by instinct to follow that course. They would flee to a safe
dry place, and eat until they had energy to merge into a larger, stronger creature, hopefully human,
hopefully with enough of his memories intact to return to being Ukiah. Thus, only with Ukiah's human
mind directing the mouse remotely, did it overcome its fear and carefully pick its way down the rusty cliff.
… brown curly hair, a male human, a chilled cheek, closed eyes …
"It's him," Ukiah whispered.
"Unfortunately," Max's voice came over Ukiah's headset. "The nearest manhole is way down