"Charles Stross - Red, Hot and Dark" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

She shrugged. A certain tension had gone out of the interrogation; now it was more like a
conversation. "It's a living. I have no papers, as you may have noticed ..."

"That can be remedied." She blinked rapidly, surprised by a stab of resentment.
Trapped. "But first, it would help if you would answer a couple of questions. Strictly on a
cooperative basis; it makes it look better on the record."

"Like what?" she asked, forcing herself to relax. The sense of being caught in a trap
intensified.

"Like beginning with when did you last see your brother?"

"Huh." She snorted. It would have been a laugh if she'd been human. "He wrote to me
until a year or two ago; I burned the letters. He always knows where I am; where he is I
don't think even the KGB know." She stared at him. "Do they?"
"Really!" The kin who was also a militia lieutenant shrugged. "Hey, don't look at me like
that. The word has gone out from on high that people like you don't exist. So what are
you going to do about it?"

"Why should I do anything about it?" she asked, feeling a chill run up and down her spine
as she met his gaze. This was what she'd been afraid of for a long time, since the icy
nights so long ago: the loss of her freedom of action. "I'm doing very well as it is."

"No you're not." He had stared at her until she was forced looked away. "You're ill.
Your shit-head of a pimp is cutting your fix with chalk, you know that? Your apartment
has slime on the walls and the residents hate you -- that's why you're here. You were
fingered."

"So what business of yours is it, how I go about destroying myself?" she asked, mustering
a calm as brittle as her paper-fine skin; "why do you want to stop me?"

The cop reached out and took her hand -- gambling that nobody would be watching this
interview, that it was not a hidden test of some kind -- "because you're one of us and
you've been hurt by those fucking animals," he grunted. Her eyes flickered left and right,
but she didn't pull away. She could feel his pulse against her skin, fast, like any other of
her kind. "How long is it since you had a proper meal?"

"What's one of those?" she asked. "Hey, don't lay that shit on me!" Now she pulled
away. "I can look after myself. What are you after?"

The lieutenant glanced at the ceiling, abashed. "Nothing," he said after a moment. "I don't
want anything from you. At least nothing you can give me. I just thought --"

She reached out and touched his hand. "Okay," she said. "Comrade. So that's what it
is?" She looked at him askance. "That's all it is?"

"And a full list of all your partners in crime," he added; "but that's no reason to run away
from me. I'm not a monster. I'll settle for just the humans."