"Williams,.Walter.Jon.-.Hardwired" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Walter John)

She sends the Weasel for his eyes, a straight-out strike like a flicker of lightning, but he's seen the movement out of the corner of one eye and manages to jerk his head around, and Weasel strikes a glancing blow to the cheekbone that leaves a red furrow... But the strike has brought his hands up high to cover, leaving him open for the thrusting kick she delivers to his midsection with all the force of her moving body. He staggers, his arms flailing. The ice-gleam of a knife reflects shards of light over the carpet, disappears into the darkness. Sarah retracts Weasel and takes a gulp of air, already spinning toward the guy with the baseball bat. Both of these boys, she realizes now, are shorter than she is; she'll take whatever reach advantage she can.
A glance over her shoulder for a rear kick into the knifeboy's midsection that helps to propel her forward and the knifeboy back, he landing on his tail with an eruption of breath while Sarah flies like a spear to the target; but pompadour's too fast. The bat's swinging in a hissing arc before the boy even sees what's coming at him, and Sarah's moving forward and knows she's going to be hit. She tries to buffer it with her arm but takes it almost full force in the side, her armored jacket spreading the impact but not enough. The breath goes out of her in a rush and she slams into the wall; but as she bounces she's already spinning inside the range of the bat. She can smell the lilac scent of the grease on the boy's hair as she goes for his eyes with her nails.
He drops the bat, which is what she wants, and grabs her wrists, bearing down, hauling her arms apart, crucifying her for the knife from behind. His tattoos ripple as he matches her strength. She tries for his groin with her knee but he turns a hip and takes the strike on his thigh. There is a grin on his face now, partly just the rictus of combat, but Sarah can tell that he's pleased he has a woman where he wants her, helpless, spread across his front.
She puts Weasel through his left eye and the grin becomes a bubbling scream. He falls, a bundle of random movements, blood welling up into the ruined socket-Weasel may have scarred part of the forebrain. Sarah's already retracting Weasel to strike again, spinning just in time to block a kick and a punch from the knifeboy, but another punch strikes her breast and she feels pain crackling up her all-too-efficient nerves.
He's wired-Sarah can tell that right away. The reflexes of a second dan or so implanted in crystal in his animal brain, hardwiring to boost his speed. But the reflexes of a five-foot-two Korean do not necessarily adapt to a six-foot Occidental without a lot of practice, and that kind of discipline is foreign to most of the streetboys Sarah has ever met... Sarah has interwoven her own reflexes with those of her chips, making the hardwired reflexes her own, integrating their patterns with Weasel.
Their fight is sharp and close, the blood from his cut cheek spattering her as they punch, grapple, butt. Weasel leaves bloody weals on his forearms as he tries to block its strikes. She comes in close and drives her forehead into his face, and then she is standing over his unconscious body as she fights for breath and listens to the sudden clamoring stillness.
Stars are flickering in the extremes of her vision. The pain that her fear had denied is having its revenge. Sarah massages her breast and ribs, breathing hard, leaning for a blessed moment against the mildewed wall. She finds the knife and baseball bat...and wonders, for a moment, what kind of message she wants to leave.
These are not Cunningham's people, obviously, just a couple of streetboys going for a reward, not fully understanding what league they were trying to play in. Vicious and stupid though they are, Sarah can't really bring herself to leave a pair of bodies here in the ruined hallway, but yet it might be politic to leave an example for other streetboys who might consider trying the same thing. A pair of high-visibility object lessons in plaster casts might work wonders.
The pompadour has lost part of his brain anyway, so Sarah settles for breaking his left arm with the baseball bat. The knifeboy will wake up with a pair of smashed collarbones. Sarah tosses the baseball bat through an apartment door, retrieves her pocketbook, and leaves with the keys to the Merc.
By the time Sarah climbs onto the causeway her ribs are throbbing with each step. The Mercury's seat is patched with duct tape and scorches her thighs with its baking heat. A Miraculous Medal hangs from the rearview mirror. She has to move the seat back to give room to her long legs.
She starts the machine and races up the causeway, heading for St. Petersburg, sweeping past the gutted shells of Venice. The sea breeze gusts through the window and cools her. She can feel the hardfire wearing away, her nerves slackening, the adrenaline wave teetering on the edge of a crash, and so brings the inhaler from her pocketbook and gives herself another rush to carry her across the waters of the bay.
In front of her a city is melting in the afternoon heat. She tastes the rushing wind as she arcs high over the water. Soon, Sarah knows, she will reach the peak, begin her fall. But not just yet. For now, she wants only to keep climbing.


Chapter Five

Arnold is a young panzergirl with wiry, muscled arms and dark hair cut short around her sockets. She's got a good reputation, has been running free-lance for years. For the last two days, she's been a member of Cowboy's party.
It's been a ten-day celebration, a series of binges up and down the Rockies, filled with a revolving-door succession of panzerboys, mechanics, thirdmen, retired deltajocks who could never learn the new technology...the large, loose, migratory network that likes to think of itself as the underground. They've been toasting their new legend, the man who opened Missouri to their midnight traffic. The party's current location is the bar of the Murray Hotel in Livingston, Montana, and it will probably stay here for a couple of days while people move in and out, buying Cowboy drinks and trying to absorb a part of his legend.
Cowboy's panzer is sitting in a hidden barn in West Virginia. It's too dangerous to bring it back, even on a legitimate run on the highways without cargo, so Cowboy took the bullet train west from Pittsburgh to Santa Fe, and since then he's been careening in his Maserati up and down the mountain states from one panzerboy watering hole to the next.
Talking to people, mostly. He's got reasons.
"Your last run had problems, right?" he says.
Arnold grimaces into her bourbon/rocks. Country hob thuds from the dance floor, where panzerboys and local ranchers are putting more energy into sizing each other up than into dancing. Some little blond girl has laser earrings that are tracking red fire on the walls and the other dancers, on the surprised face of the bartender. Cowboy can catch glimpses of her among the dance crowd.
"Two runs ago," Arnold corrects him. "One of the Sandman's fuel trucks didn't make the rendezvous. Had to hide the panzer in a fucking coulee for two days. With a town just over the next ridge. I could've been taken by a farmer in broad daylight."
"The Sandman ought to have paid you a bonus for that."
Her look is scornful. "Him? You kidding?"
"Someone," Cowboy says quietly, "ought to've made him."
The bourbon pauses en route to Arnold's lips. She puts the glass down and looks at him. "Who did you have in mind, Cowboy?"
The blond dancer's laser earrings track a dancing spot of crimson light across Arnold's cheek. Cowboy feigns nonchalance and signals the bartender for another round.
"Maybe we ought to've," he says.
She seems surprised by the notion. "The two of us?"
"The two of us. And some others:"
Arnold glances over her shoulder, sees no one, and lowers her voice anyway. "What are you getting at?"
"Just that this business is getting real organized. The thirdmen have their networks on both coasts. They bribe people run labs; work through cutouts. Hire people to hijack the stuff for them. They're not on the line themselves. The distributors all work for one another. The Orbitals have half the laws in their pockets. What risks are any of those people taking?"
"None," says Arnold. Just like Cowboy wants her to.
"We put ourselves on the line, Arnold," Cowboy says. "For piecework. We're work for hire. Sometimes we have agents working for us, like the Dodger, but if the Dodger cuts a deal that isn't enforced, he can't do anything about it. We're weaker than these other people, and sometimes we pay for it. You spent two days hanging your ass in a damn coulee, and none of it was your fault."
The bartender brings the new round. Arnold looks over her shoulder again. "I don't know if I should listen to this, man," she says. "I'm in it for the ride, not the cargo."
"I'm just suggesting that the people who take the risks ought to have something to say about what goes on."
"You're talking union."
"Nope. An association of independents. Just to keep the thirdmen up to the mark. To remind them that if it weren't for people like us, they wouldn't have their limos, their mountain homes, their cryo max." Cowboy jabs a finger into the bar to help make his point. "We're the ones in the field making legends while the thirdmen are knocking back cinnamon vodka in their padded bar chairs. "
Arnold grins at him. "Cinnamon vodka? Cryo max? You got a particular thirdman in mind?"
Cowboy figures she isn't ready, just yet, for what he has to say about Arkady. "Not me," he says.
She shifts closer to him, leaning her elbow on the padded bar. "If it weren't you saying this, C'boy, I'd turn around and walk right out of this bar. "
He smiles. "Lucky it's me, then."
Her artificial eyes look into his. "How many people have you told about this?"
"Maybe half a dozen. I'm not broadcasting it."
"You better not be. Shit." She tosses off the last of her bourbon, then reaches for the new glass. "I still think I ought to walk out of here."
"Walk then."
She looks at him again, bites her lip. He holds her gaze for a long moment. She drops her eyes.
"I'll think about it," she says. "That's all I'm saying."
"Think about it as long as you need to. Think about it next time you have your ass on the line in some coulee."