JК
Ribofunk :: Филиппо Пол Ди
Страница: 56 из 156If I have to take someone out, I do it temporarily, with a shocker. All you need is an inch of bare skin to deliver a patterned jolt of current that overloads the higher neural functions, such as making the decision to kill a harmless PI.
I slapped the gun Hamster passed me to my hip, where its biopoly barrel mated to the holster-patch on my pants. It would be there when I needed it, coming free at the touch of my hand alone, thanks to onboard sweat-vetters. I opened a desk drawer and took out my boot unit and a pad of fluorescent-orange adhesive stickers. I slipped them into an outer pocket on my vest, where I could reach them easily. Then I headed for the airport, Hamster tagging along. In my mind, I was already spending the EC money Geneva was going to pay me.
Once at Logan, I headed straight for the cab stand. I was betting that a plug with von Bulow's tastes wouldn't have taken mass transit.
Sure enough, the third cab I questioned was the one he had ridden in. It was a Turing Level Two and had all the quirks of its kind, including a high redundancy factor.
"I must see authorization first. If you have authorization, I must see it. Please show your authorization."
I fed my credentials into a slot. The cab seemed satisfied and spat them out. "Yes, sir, I picked up the human you describe. Here is his picture."
The cab flashed a view of von Bulow that matched the digitals Geneva had shown me: dirty blonde hair atop a craggy profile and dangerous lilac eyes. Handsome the way a purebred basal dog like a Borzoi is and likely just as neurotic and skittish. Some of those frigging European aristocrats are so inbred, especially now that they can fix up any little congenital trouble like leukemia or hemophilia, that they make the king of England look like a mongrel. This was not going to be an easy boot, I could feel it all the way down to my mitochondria.
"Here is his pedigree, as read by my chromosniffers, sir." Wave after wave of numbers and metagrafix rolled across the screen.
"Okay, give me a hardcopy of both." The pedigree would be handy if von Bulow changed his looks. But I wasn't betting on that, as he seemed a self-satisified type, too obsessed and complacent to imagine anyone might be after him.
"Where'd you drop him?"
"Drop, sir? I am not allowed to injure humans-"
"What was his destination?"
"The Copley Plaza."
I should have guessed. It figured he'd vector for the biggest casino in town.
I drove so fast back into the city that my car's shell could barely keep up with the aerodynamic changes, shifting shape a dozen times a second.
I slapped the gun Hamster passed me to my hip, where its biopoly barrel mated to the holster-patch on my pants. It would be there when I needed it, coming free at the touch of my hand alone, thanks to onboard sweat-vetters. I opened a desk drawer and took out my boot unit and a pad of fluorescent-orange adhesive stickers. I slipped them into an outer pocket on my vest, where I could reach them easily. Then I headed for the airport, Hamster tagging along. In my mind, I was already spending the EC money Geneva was going to pay me.
Once at Logan, I headed straight for the cab stand. I was betting that a plug with von Bulow's tastes wouldn't have taken mass transit.
Sure enough, the third cab I questioned was the one he had ridden in. It was a Turing Level Two and had all the quirks of its kind, including a high redundancy factor.
"I must see authorization first. If you have authorization, I must see it. Please show your authorization."
I fed my credentials into a slot. The cab seemed satisfied and spat them out. "Yes, sir, I picked up the human you describe. Here is his picture."
The cab flashed a view of von Bulow that matched the digitals Geneva had shown me: dirty blonde hair atop a craggy profile and dangerous lilac eyes. Handsome the way a purebred basal dog like a Borzoi is and likely just as neurotic and skittish. Some of those frigging European aristocrats are so inbred, especially now that they can fix up any little congenital trouble like leukemia or hemophilia, that they make the king of England look like a mongrel. This was not going to be an easy boot, I could feel it all the way down to my mitochondria.
"Here is his pedigree, as read by my chromosniffers, sir." Wave after wave of numbers and metagrafix rolled across the screen.
"Okay, give me a hardcopy of both." The pedigree would be handy if von Bulow changed his looks. But I wasn't betting on that, as he seemed a self-satisified type, too obsessed and complacent to imagine anyone might be after him.
"Where'd you drop him?"
"Drop, sir? I am not allowed to injure humans-"
"What was his destination?"
"The Copley Plaza."
I should have guessed. It figured he'd vector for the biggest casino in town.
I drove so fast back into the city that my car's shell could barely keep up with the aerodynamic changes, shifting shape a dozen times a second.