"Charles Stross - The Concrete Jungle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

Copyright © 2004 by Charles Stross.
Reprinted with permission from The Atrocity Archives
Golden Gryphon Press, 2004, ISBN 1-930846-25-8


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.


The Concrete Jungle
by Charles Stross
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/



The death rattle of a mortally wounded telephone is a horrible thing to
hear at four o'clock on a Tuesday morning. It's even worse when you're
sleeping the sleep that follows a pitcher of iced margueritas in the
basement of the Dog's Bollocks, with a chaser of nachos and a tequila
slammer or three for dessert. I come to, sitting upright, bare-ass naked in
the middle of the wooden floor, clutching the receiver with one hand and
my head with the other — purely to prevent it from exploding, you
understand — and moaning quietly. Who is it? I croak into the
microphone.

Bob, get your ass down to the office right away. This line isn't secure. I
recognize that voice: I have nightmares about it. That's because I work
for its owner.

Whoa, I was asleep, boss. Can't it — I gulp and look at the alarm clock
— wait until morning?

No. I'm calling a code blue.

Jesus. The band of demons stomping around my skull strike up an encore
with drums. Okay, boss. Ready to leave in ten minutes. Can I bill a taxi
fare?

No, it can't wait. I'll have a car pick you up. He cuts the call, and that is
when I start to get frightened because even Angleton, who occupies a lair
deep in the bowels of the Laundry's Arcana Analysis Section — but does
something far scarier than that anodyne title might suggest — is liable to
think twice before authorising a car to pull in an employee at zero-dark
o'clock.

I manage to pull on a sweater and jeans, tie my shoelaces, and get my ass
downstairs just before the blue and red strobes light up the window
above the front door. On the way out I grab my emergency bag — an
overnighter full of stuff that Andy suggested I should keep ready, just in
case — and slam and lock the door and turn around in time to find the
cop waiting for me. Are you Bob Howard?