"John Varley - Anthology - Super Heroes - Various Authors" - читать интересную книгу автора (Varley John)

avert our immediate crisis."
 "The bomb in the plant," he stated.
"Yes. All you have to do is bring this transmitter into the plant itself.
That's all. A helicopter is waiting to escort you to the plant. You will be
lowered down to the ground by a tow-line so as not to risk damaging the
transmitter. All you have to do is disengage yourself from the line, walk into
the plant, through the contaminated puddles, and set it down here."
Kirschenbaum pointed to a room on a blueprint that had conveniently
appeared on the teleprompter.
"You see," he added, "it's no more than a hundred paces from your
drop-off point."
"And that's it?" asked Meteor Man.
"That's it," said Dr. Kirschenbaum. "Then all you have to do is walk on
out, come back here, and we can work on filling in the gaps in your
memory."
"Once again, the Earth will be saved, by mankind's only hope," said the
annoying Parker.
"Right," said the tolerant Meteor Man.
"This is the transmitter. It is always on, so you don't have to do anything
to it," instructed Kirschenbaum, putting the device into his patient's hands
and escorting him to the door, saying, "Your helicopter awaits."
As they were leaving the room, Meteor Man noticed a black
Time for a Hero
beret on a chair by the door. He paused for a moment, picked it up, and
was about to put it on and see how it looked in the mirror, when
Kirschenbaum gently snatched it out of his hands.
"I don't think that would be a good idea. Some of the members of the
team that subdued the terrorists may be around, and they might consider it a
bit callous considering their lost buddies, who were not, how shall we say,
invulnerable."
"I understand," said Meteor Man, who left the room and continued down
the corridor to the awaiting helicopter.
***
Kirschenbaum looked at the beret in his hand.
"That was a close call," said psychopharmacologist Parker. "Seeing
himself in the beret might have brought back a few too many conflicting
memories. After all, no matter how many doses of pharmacologicals we
inject, it's still impossible to effect a complete past erasure and
restructuring."
"Yes," said psychologist Kirschenbaum.
"At least his task is simple enough. He probably won't even notice any
adverse effects until he makes it back here. By then the crisis will have been
averted, and he'll be in isolation."
"Where we will let him die in peace," muttered Kirschenbaum.
"Yes, far from the questioning eyes of John Q. Public," continued Parker.
"I really have to hand it to you setting up this program. If anyone had told
me that we would be able to make your average, everyday soldier believe
that he was invulnerable, I would never have believed it. The faked
computer-enhanced newscast, the Kevlar body suit, breakaway saw blade.
One question: how did he manage to catch the bullets?"