"Stross, Charles - The Midlist Bombers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

Jonathan considered for a moment. "Get drunk," he suggested. "Then think about it. Maybe we should see if Dave can come up with something."
"Right, chum," said Dave. "You're on. Care for a jar?"

t minus 0.05 hours 02:00 a.m.
London at two in the morning was a strange and beautiful organism layed out at their feet; like a fractal snapshot of sodium-lit hell, an author's hallucinatory hopes for future royalty payments. Lydia shivered. "Well?" she asked.
"Soon," said Victoria Bergdorf. "Soon. Let's just wait for the accountants to arrive."
"Fine," said Dave, standing close to the edge. He peered over the parapet of the building; a gargoyle shaped like a parrot seemed to leer back at him, and wink.
The fire door opened and Dave stepped out. "Hi there," he said cheerfully. "I've just checked with the launch computer and everything's hunky–dory!"
"Uh-huh," said Victoria. She shook her head regretfully. "I wish it hadn't come to this, you know."
"It was inevitable," said Lydia. "Uh, what else could we do?"
Victoria gazed into darkness. "How long?" she asked tensely.
"Three minutes," said Dave. He sat down on the safety railing and began to whistle quietly. "Launch window in three minutes, folks. Just dig the fireworks!"
"You've secured the plute?" asked Dave, quietly.
Dave nodded. "Somewhere safe," he said. "Don't worry about it. And the fuel."
"Where are they gonna watch it from?" asked Lydia.
Jonathan arrived, panting breathlessly. "Hi, folks," he said. "Boy, did I have problems getting away from that meeting!"
"They wanted you to watch with them?" asked Victoria.
He nodded. "Esme was rather insistent, but I got away eventually. They'll be watching it from the S-D office block roof, as scheduled. At least that's where I left them half an hour ago."
"Two minutes," intoned Dave: "this is one giant leap for publishing-kind, one small step for offset-web lithography ... "
Victoria yawned. "Did you find a buyer?" she asked Jonathan.
He nodded. "Yeah. Those thugs we bought it from didn't have a clue how much plute is worth! I found a buyer, okay. If this works we'll be set up for life; we'll make the Great Train Robbers look like second–rate pick-pockets."
"One minute," said Dave. They fell silent, listening to the beat of some cosmic heart, waiting for the timer-driven missile launcher in a derelict warehouse to torch off, lofting three tons of solid-_fuel boosters and sinister warhead into the night–time sky over London –
"Is that it?" asked Lydia, pointing; "I hope you got the guidance parameters right!"
"No problems," said Dave, absent-mindedly tapping his hearing aid. The fiery streak rising from the far horizon seemed ominously close, almost near enough for them to reach out and touch; then the fire died as the warhead vanished into the cloud base.
"Twenty seconds," said Dave. "Who did you sell it to?"
Jonathan shrugged. "It was kind of difficult to figure out anyone I'd trust with it," he said. "Hey, look – "
They looked.
Across the city a meteor was falling, glowing white with the friction of its passage; a futuristic bullet fired with the imagination of a group of threatened writers, falling towards an encounter with –
BANG
"Jesus Christ," said Dave. "I hope the cleaners had time to get out."
They watched in silence as, on the other bank of the Thames, the walls of the Spart-Dibbler building bulged outwards as if under the impact of some ghostly hammer; the mirrorglass flanks distorted strangely before they burst apart, showering the nearly-deserted street below with the wreckage of the accountants nuclear dream.
Victoria shook her head. "I wonder what would have happened if it had worked?" she said. "I mean, if book sales really had taken off ... "
"Don't," said Dave. "This way we get to keep the money with a clean conscience."
"Bravo," said Dave, clapping. Lydia turned her back on him, rudely; he could be very crass at times, applauding his own ingenuity.
"It's still not right," she said. "I mean, what now ..?"
"We go back to being poverty stricken publishing people, I hope," said Victoria. "But one thing still puzzles me," she added. "Jonathan. Just who did you sell the plute to after you stripped out the warhead?"
He smiled widely. "A very small record company ..."


First published: Farpoint, 1992

Version History

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Ver 1.5 - 30/7/2003 - Anarchy Publications, HaVoK - This version was originally downloaded from the #bookz channel on undernet using mIRC. The final proof was done with Atlantis by Rising Sun Solutions.