"ab Hugh, Dafydd & Linaweaver, Brad - Doom 03 - Infernal Sky 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (ab Hugh Dafydd)

floor. We had a twelve-story head start, so we
booked."
"Story is right!" thundered Mulligan. "I've never
heard so much bullshit!"
For one grim moment I wasn't at all sure I'd be
getting my second beer.
3
"Hold on," said Mulligan, guarding his
small ocean of beer as the larger ocean sent armies of
waves to die on the beach, "I'm not buying it. When I
was a kid, I was in the Boy Scouts. I carried the
heaviest knapsack on camping trips. I won all the
merit badges. I was a good scout, but other kids still
beat me up and teased me all the time. Do you want
to guess why?"
"Why?" asked Arlene, genuinely interested and not
the least bit annoyed by the mysterious direction the
conversation was taking.
"Partly because I was a chunky kid, but also
because I loved comic books. They thought I was
gullible or something. They thought I'd believe damn
near anything. But I'm telling you, Fly"—he turned
those cold blue eyes on me—"this story of yours is
bullshit."
"You believe the part about his starting to lose his
mind while he was on the rope, don't you?" asked
Arlene.
"Well. . ." Mulligan began.
"I left nothing out of my gospel rendition," I said.
"Especially not the verisimilitude," Arlene threw
in.
"Huh?" came the response from both Mulligan and
me.
"Still sounds bogus to me," concluded the master
gun, inhaling the rest of his brew.
"That's because it didn't happen that way," said
Arlene. "I'll give you the authentic version—for an-
other beer."
"Yeah, right," the sergeant said morosely, but he
handed her a beer, and she started her engines.
"With one mighty leap . . ." she began.
George Mulligan groaned.
"Flynn Taggart, bring me some duct tape from the
toolbox, an armload of computer-switch wiring, and
the biggest goddamn boot you can find!"
He looked at me like I was crazy, but he did it. The
scaffold was our ticket out of there, but first we had to
get over to it. It made sense for me to go first because I
weighed less. The ledge was narrow and the chains
and ropes were sufficiently out of reach so that a