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

transplant, Revenant mocked the American legal system by planning and
executing a series of crimes…"
Revenant held a hand up. "Alleged crimes."
Colonel Constitution looked at him, then sank his fingers into the edge of
the copper-covered prosecution table. The Advocate bowed her head, her
short auburn locks sweeping forward to half hide her face. ' 'Alleged crimes.
Revenant did willfully break and enter into the Blessed Haven
compound…"
"I'll agree to entering, but I did no breaking."
Hummingbird, barely visible behind the microphone that was as big as he
was, darted over to within six inches of Nemesis's face, then across to
Revenant and back behind his microphone in two seconds. "Mr. President, I
have a question."
"Proceed."
"How can you say you did not break, when there was a
Michael A. Stackpole
ten-foot-tall fence with razor wire on the top all around the place?
Glacier and I installed it three days before you… allegedly entered the
Blessed Haven sanctuary." His wings humming, he rose above the
microphone, his arms crossed over his chest. "You can't fly, so how did you
get in?"
"Trees."
The Advocate frowned. "Trees?"
Revenant nodded. "I climbed a tree, walked out on a branch and went over
the fence. The fence later went down when Mr. Force-of-Nature hit it."
 The Advocate did her best to speak over Glacier's grumbling.
"Regardless, you stole a terrified little boy away from his mother, coerced
him into criminal action, then assaulted duly sworn officers of the law in the
course of their duty."
***
Coming across the Blessed Haven compound, Revenant conceded to
himself that organized religion did serve a purpose. He chose Wednesday
night for his penetration of the commune because he knew the adults would
all be at services. He knew, from the handful of articles concerning
Reverend Sunnington and Blessed Haven, that all children would be in their
rooms studying or praying before lights out at 8:30 P.M.—the commune
had its own school, and classes started promptly at 6:30 in the morning,
every morning.
Actually locating Nathan Hopkins within the 100-acre compound had
presented a problem, but Revenant managed to narrow down the
possibilities. An old map of the compound run in the Manchester Union
Leader had showed a set of new buildings under construction and a picture
accompanying the same article depicted the construction site as having all
the plumbing and electrical fixtures one would need for simple
apartmentlike housing units. A later map indicated the same buildings were
used for "storage," but the article was talking about Sunnington's "Satanic
Sacrifice Succor" program. That meant that Jeanette Hopkins and her son
would probably be in the new units—labeling them storage seemed to be a
clearly transparent effort at misdirection.
It did occur to him that the new map, which had appeared only two weeks