Готовый перевод Нова Проспект / Nova Prospect: Phantom Battle (Адам)

Phantom Battle (Adam)

* * *

The trap would have worked perfectly if the victim hadn't had a rebreathing implant and the interior walls weren't made of Chinese concrete. Leaving a half-meter-wide rift behind him, Adam burst out of the room that was rapidly filling with poisonous gases.

Red Bank was writhing in digital agony. The siren squeal was interrupted by system error messages; turrets fired indiscriminately. This played to his advantage: a patrol rushing to the noise found itself wedged between the blocked doors. The delay gave Adam time to escape into the ventilation labyrinths.

Now what? He tried to remember if he'd ever been in a worse situation.

Yeah, that's right. That's the day he got shot in the head.

A couple of minutes of crawling on his hands and knees would have made a non-augmented person's muscles cramp up. He found himself at a hatch overlooking one of the observation centers. Bent in half, Adam stared through the SS-AP5 scope at the back of the guard's head, who was having an unusually shitty Monday morning.

"Alert on level two. Southeast Wing, Sector B3," the man mouthed, standing in front of the screens in a tense pose. "No, sector B5! What the fuck?!"

The nervous voice, amplified many times over by the powerful speakers, echoed through the building, but it was too late: the image of the named area had turned into a blue canvas. Adam tried in vain to find Ciri on the monitors that occupied the entire wall.

The man jerked as if he could feel the crossed lines at the back of his head, though he had no way of seeing the threat hidden by the glass shield.

"Lay," he shouted to the aide who had decided to grab a coffee at the wrong time, "do something about that fucking drone!"

A sleepy Chinese man in a gray uniform froze confusedly in front of the robot. The drone was trying to break through the wall, confused by its trajectory and flashing red LEDs randomly.

When the guard stopped dictating sector names and dropped his head helplessly on his hands, Adam gently squeezed the trigger, grouping out of habit. Atavism. With reflexes perfectly sharpened for any recoil, he had no use for it.

The man collapsed onto the control panel and slowly slid to the floor. Security guard was a profession as dangerous as it was underpaid. Not that Adam himself was paid enough for all the crap that went on around him. He jumped silently to the floor, glancing at the rapidly fading images on the screens.

Lay, who was trying to fix the drone, didn't have the slightest chance of not fending off the blade but of noticing the blow.

It's hard to get completely used to the ability to take a life with a movement imperceptible to the eye. Adam remembered the phrase Taggart had thrown out, the one he'd half-heartedly heard on TV at the Shanghai clinic. //"That kind of power turns a man into a monster." That's the kind of thing people who've never held a gun in their lives like to rant about.

Leaving the two breathless bodies on the floor, Adam sat in the vacated chair. Instinctively, he touched the hex board under his skin as the hacker module joined the cameras. The metavirus snapped the program nodes like peanuts.

The surveillance system merged with the visual interface - the cameras became his eyes. The owl's angle of view was slightly nauseating.

On the lower levels, the space was divided into narrow corridors filled with cables and pipes. Each of them ended with a door, behind which there was a cramped room. It's a typical layout of prisons and offices.

The guards were searching the rooms for Ciri, who, judging by the way the cameras were off, was doing a heck of incomprehensible shit. Why hadn't she teleported to the quantum vault right away?

//"Because she's a girl from the Middle Ages that you stuck in the thick of it," the voice of reason answered him.

Because she has no idea how to behave during the operation.

Because you're both in deep shit.

Adam drummed his fingers impatiently on the desk, waiting for the virus to take over the program unit responsible for accessing the doors. In buildings where everything was designed to prevent anyone from entering, it was easy to set up a trap from which no one would get out.

He was still hypnotizing the screen when the cameras in the quantum computer vault malfunctioned.

"Clever girl, Ciri," Adam exhaled, "what a clever girl you are."

++"Access granted."

Adam blocked the doors between the lower and upper floors, cutting off the guards' path upstairs. As he was about to send a message to Ciri over the speaker, he caught a glimpse of movement on the camera at the main entrance.

Group of soldiers with patches on their lapels, logo in the form of a stylized bull skull. "Belltower. Rapid response team. But not so fucking rapid to stop an invasion in less than half an hour after infiltration. Especially not a facility with a two-hundred-kilometer radius of corporate waste scorched earth.

They were set up. Or hunted down. Or both. It was expected, but not so fast! How could Wintermute have guessed they'd make it in that time...

Adam blinked. The leader of the mercenaries appeared on the screen. A predatory expression on his face, cybernetic muscles exposed outward like in an anatomical theater. There are very few fanatics in the world who hate nature so much. A sharp barking voice with an Israeli accent immediately surfaced in my subconscious.

Bastard.

It was extremely difficult to forget the man who had fired a bullet into your head. Adam hadn't forgotten the swarthy woman who'd followed the commander with deadly grace. Nor what she'd done to his coworkers. Civilians. Scientists. Friends.

Adam sent the images to Pritchard.

How are the mercenaries who attacked Sharif Industries connected to Tai Yun Medical? How could they have located them so quickly? And most importantly, how can he get Ciri out now?

//"Jensen," Pritchard's sharply hoarse voice came through the Infolink. - Jaron Namir. Yelena Fedorova. Tyrants. Get out of there, Jensen! The Sharif would be bankrupt to put you back together again."

What would Adam do without his tactical advice? Though if Pritchard's worried about him out loud, he's already buried him in his head.

On the screen, a figure waddling under escort flashed. What the hell is he?! Eragon? What was he doing here? Judging by the broken nose and black bruises on his neck, he was certainly no goodwill ambassador.

Adam took a deep breath and picked up the submachine gun. Where's Ciri?

The answer came to him in a most undesirable way.

As Namir slowly withdrew his hand, pointing to the right, something flickered beside him, shimmering green like an oil slick on the water, and a thin figure materialized straight out of thin air.

The image is gone.

Adam rushed out of the security station more on instinct than plan: his imagination pictured Namir tearing Ciri to pieces, bodies burned beyond recognition, and fire engulfing the lab. Survivor's Guilt Complex, one of the most annoying characteristics on his record, hit him full force.

When the lights went out and the doors clicked open, Adam regained his composure. He couldn't help anyone dead, and it was hard to imagine a more pathetic sight than a panicked cop.

Think. If she teleported next to Namir, the mercenary should be knocked out as badly as he was knocked out on a rooftop in Detroit. If they left the elf alive, they'd leave Ciri too. If they didn't leave with the loot right away, they needed him.

Adam slowly made his way down the hallway toward the Tyrants, listening for footsteps. He needed to separate them at all costs.

The infolink vibrated. Pritchard has a knack for picking the right moment.

//"Hey, buddy," came an unfamiliar voice in his head, belonging to a man hiding under the nickname wintermute, "don't be in such a hurry to meet the Lord God. Your princess is already in another castle."

Adam had only heard such a strong accent in Scottish sketches. The laryngeal hard R's were interspersed with a certain artificiality. Who leaked his Infolink data to the hacker? Appleby?

Wintermute sent him a picture of the rocky bank of the East China Sea. Judging by the time stamp, it had been taken exactly one minute ago. Adam suspected the guy was out of his mind, but not so crazy to send postcards.

"Listen, buddy, Wintermute, or whatever your name is," Adam hissed, "you picked a really fucked up time to make jokes.

"Open your eyes, buddy," his unseen interlocutor sighed.

Adam zoomed in on the image. The low resolution made it impossible to distinguish anything but the outline of two figures: a small, apparently female figure sprawled on the ground, and a large, male figure looming menacingly over her.

Such a scene immediately ignited a cold fury in him.

"Got it? - Wintermute asked contentedly. - Be so good as to run out of here before the Tyrans get to you first."

The hacker highlighted the emergency exit on the virtual map.

"You know what I really don't like? - Adam asked. - Charity. What do you need?"

He made his way to the place he had indicated. From the corridor to the right came the muffled shuffling of footsteps of a man who mistakenly thought he was making less noise.

Without taking his eyes off the schematic of the building in front of him, Adam reached around the corner and silently fired several bullets. He heard the thud of a fallen body and the thud of a weapon rolling across the floor.

"I won't let the girl go to the Illuminati," Wintermute replied. - They have big plans for her, and I'm not about to hand them the keys to a wonderful new world.

What? Adam knew his luck wasn't his strong suit, but running into a conspiracy hacker was just out of line. Illuminati, damn! As if elves, terrorists, and magicians weren't enough. If he believed the bullshit they were telling him, he'd go insane.

"Look at those legs! - Wintermute changed the subject as if nothing had happened. Adam saw the image of the ultra-long legs, which, judging from the angle, had been captured by the drone's camera. - You could kill for those!"

In the background, Adam caught a glimpse of Namir. His cybernetic muscles were twitching in painful spasms, and the mercenary looked as if he were about to give his soul to Yahweh.

But even so, they still have a whole army left.

"I'd say you should," Wintermute muttered as Yelena's legs were hidden by a reflective shield. "The devil knows where it's taken her."

Behind the next door was a hall lined with long rows of ant-like cubicles. A hastily abandoned open space. The coffee cups were still steaming, and the printer was chirping happily, throwing out white sheets at breakneck speed.

A twenty-first-century ghost ship.

A gray glimmer flashed across the room, immediately noted by his subconscious. Reflexes told Adam of the threat before he realized it, and his hands swung the gun toward the enemy. The electromagnetic field dissipated with a sudden pop, and the woman hiding beneath it shuddered slightly.

Toward the enemy. At least a dozen of Belltower's thugs burst into the open space with Elena.

Adam decided that today was an extremely bad day to die. Before a barrage of bullets could hit him, he knocked over a heavy armored cabinet and ducked into the makeshift shelter. If it hadn't been for the noise filters, Adam would have been deafened by the rumble. One of the bullets grazed the carbon fiber of his right leg and ricocheted into a coffee cup on a nearby table.

He fired from cover almost blindly, guided only by the terahertz sensor. The bullet was followed by a muffled wheeze. Even if it was a death rattle still, too many enemies. This sucks.

++"FIRST DOOR ON THE RIGHT, DATA CENTER." - The message flashed before my eyes in a red line, like the credits in a horror movie.

Adam cast aside his doubts about Wintermute and sprinted in that direction. The camouflage wouldn't last thirty seconds at this sprint.

Yelena, who had rushed after him - the only one who could catch up with him - didn't stop firing. The two submachine guns burst out in a flurry of merging bursts.

Thirty seconds was enough. Pushing open the heavy door with his shoulder, Adam found himself in a data center that looked like a temple to a neon god, with servers instead of columns. The monotonous whirring of machine units sounded like a prayer.

...And two portable turrets at the very entrance. Twenty-millimeter automatic cannons - enough firepower to take down a small plane.

God bless Steiner-Bisley.

Adam jumped over the turrets. They were trapped in a tight rectangle, its edges outlined by the shimmering blue of the server racks.

Yelena threw up a leg topped with a sharp blade in a balletic lunge. It whistled a centimeter from Adam's face, scratching his skin. His predatory smile turned into a grimace as he retaliated with a kick to his exposed side. The tip of the nanoblade went through the bulletproof jacket, and Yelena howled more from rage than pain as she hit the server blocks.

And disappeared.

He needed at least a minute for the batteries to recharge so he could respond with the same. Adam stepped backward toward the turrets, firing a burst of machine gun fire where Elena should be hiding. The bullets ricocheted off the machine blocks, hitting the reflective shield. From the outline - she was about to make a slashing motion that would have severed the man's tendons.

Black choking smoke billowed from the walls.

In time to anticipate the movement, Adam jumped, knocking Yelena to the floor and pinning her down. Holding her was like trying to catch an invisible snake: she bucked under him with inhuman strength, trying to escape by any means necessary. Adam stabbed at random, trying to hit her neck, but the blade sank into the stone floor.

When will the camouflage finally come off?!

Elena "helped" him pull the blade from the floor, imprinting her iron fist into his ribs and throwing him off of her. At the edge of Adam's field of vision, chest warning signals flickered. The system was pumping adrenaline into his bloodstream in powerful doses and the pain was fading into the background. That blow had cost Helena too much strength, and Adam saw the beaded beads of sweat on her half-shaven head.

Now it was his turn to play hide-and-seek. Losing sight of Adam, Helena jumped to her feet and scrambled backward, trying to guess where he was, wasting machine gun bullets mindlessly. The blades on her feet scraped across the floor like knives on glass.

Adam ducked down, pressing himself against the wall. The camouflage was enough until Yelena needed to reload. Taking advantage of the hitch, Adam jumped up, pointing the submachine gun at her. He shouldn't have underestimated the length of her legs - Elena growled deafeningly, knocking the weapon out of Adam's hands with her foot, leaving a deep, cut in the carbon fiber.

She should have been a goddamn ballerina, not a killer.

Yelena took another step backward, stumbling into the neon-blue wall, bumping into a bare, gunshot-damaged wire.

The second of electric shock was fleeting but sufficient.

Adam lunged forward, more successfully this time, swinging in a downward strike. The blade slashed across his neck and Adam's face was stained with blood. Elena tried to cover the gushing wound with the palm of her hand, sliding slowly down the wall, but not even a Health Guard could deal with a wound that quickly.

She coughed, and a dark trickle came out of her mouth. Yelena tried to disappear but to no avail. For the first time, instead of a hunter's gleam, there was a flicker of quite human fear in her eyes. Which, as you know, is a damn bad counselor.

The air is starting to heat up. Is she crazy?! Adam had used the Typhoon enough times to know what launching it looked like. It would destroy them both, and billions of taxpayer dollars at the same time.

"Stop!" he shouted at her. "I won't kill you if..."

Yelena grinned like a cornered animal. That "if" would never come.

Adam tore back toward the turrets before the fragmentation grenades went flying in all directions, burying Yelena beneath the masses of servers.

The blast wave threw him back onto the bullet-riddled bodies. The stifling odor of blood and burning synthetic components was in the air.

Rising to his feet, Adam saw what was left of Belltower's squad. Wintermute had locked the tungsten steel doors, trapping the mercenaries in the corridor between the open space and the data center. Alone with the turrets.

Adam's never caused a massacre like this before. It was, uh.

"Cool, buddy! Now will you finally get out of here?" - Wintermute's voice sounded unnaturally loud in the ensuing silence, broken only by the faint background groans of the wounded.

Adam stepped over the bodies, breaking into a sprint. Moans echoed in his skull. If he had to kill, he did it in such a way that his victims didn't have to suffer an extra half hour with a torn belly.

Farida's soft voice reported the coordinates. She had landed a kilometer north of Red Bank. He wouldn't need Wintermute again. Adam had locked down the Infolink data.

* * *

When Adam saw the angular and squat flying machine from afar, he realized that Sharif had increased their budget. It was a stealth model - the pilot in the windowless cockpit was guided by video cameras and laser sensors.

As Adam climbed into the passenger compartment, Farida, dressed in her unchanged orange jumpsuit, jumped up from her seat as if she wanted to hug him, but limited herself to a hand on his shoulder.

"Adam, thank God!" she blurted out and added hastily: "What happened to your face?"

Farida greeted him after each mission as if she never hoped to see him again.

"Tomato juice knocked over," Adam grinned, wiping his face with his fist. "It's good to see you, Malik. Go."

Adam plumped down in the uncomfortable passenger seat. He really hoped the Tyrans had worn the elf down enough that he wouldn't try to teleport to his magical land.

"We need to fly along the shoreline," Adam commanded.

What he liked most about Farida was that she never asked unnecessary questions.

As the helicopter hovered over the shoreline, Adam jumped down. The impact on the ground sent pebbles flying in all directions, and a small storm of stone chips rose around him. By the sea itself, amidst the bags and plastic bottles, lay the corpse of a seagull.

No one else was there.

Damn!!!

But they were here, judging by the traces of blood on the stones and a couple of ashy hairs that only a mechanical eye could distinguish on the ground. Adam picked up the pistol that had been tossed aside with an empty magazine. He was burned at the thought of Ciri trying unsuccessfully to defend herself.

She'd saved his ass by sacrificing her own, even though no one had asked her to. Trusted him, counted on him, and now... Adam walked along the shore twice, looking for something unknown. Farida was getting nervous, which she reported on the Infoline.

Will he even be able to save anyone?

+"There's no one here," Adam reported dryly. - Release the rope."

The cockpit of the helicopter suddenly felt hotter and more cramped. Adam patted his pockets, hoping that cigarettes would magically appear there. Where the hell was magic when you needed it?

"Adam," Farida said quietly, "don't blame yourself."

How does she know? Did he have it so clearly written all over his face? Adam leaned back, slumping his shoulders helplessly, and mumbled something unintelligible.

The cabin shook. The helicopter was flying so low that no radar could detect it, repeating all the contours of the coastline. It didn't make for a smooth flight.

"I've got Royal Hellhounds in the glove compartment," Farida sighed. "I thought you were broke."

Adam reached for the indicated locker, turning over all of its contents. Pulling out a pack, he shook out a single cigarette.

"What would I do without you," Adam flicked his lighter and inhaled the smoke with relish.

Farida smiled weakly and concentrated on piloting. Hell knows how long she'd been at the wheel, but she had dark circles under her eyes and gray skin. He'd have to get her a special vacation from Sharif.

Where did Eragon take Ciri? To the land of the elves? Adam imagined lacy turrets on a schizophrenic green background, but he didn't look like a fairy tale character. Adam preferred not to answer the question of what the elf was going to do with Ciri in this country, even mentally.

"Where are we going, Malik?"

" Hong Kong," Farida wiped the sweat from her forehead. "There are automated border controls there, but the facial recognition system has failed, and instead of control, it's a mess. We'll get through!"

In Sharif's team, Farida was the only one distinguished by an unbridled infectious optimism, or, as Pritchard would say, a pathological inability to assess the situation.

There he is.

"Sharif will be in touch in half an hour," Pritchard had already forgotten the mortal danger he'd just passed and was once again speaking to him as if Adam owed him money. - He's eager to discuss your dizzying progress."

Does he ever sleep?

+"In half an hour? - Adam was totally reluctant to report on the most failed mission of the last six months, and rubbed his beard irritably. - It's four in the morning in Detroit."

++"You haven't heard yet? - Pritchard marveled. - Sharif has canceled sleep, common sense, and after-hours pay since the beginning of the operation. Welcome to capitalism, Jensen!"

The longer it was before payday, the more the commie in Pritchard raged. Putting his cigarette on the first object, which more or less resembled an ashtray, Adam returned to the passenger seat. He closed his eyes, wondering how best to wrap the shit in a colorful wrapper.

Yes, that's exactly the kind of hopeless cases he uses CASIE for.

If Sharif said half an hour, it meant exactly half an hour and not a second later or earlier, so Adam doomedly turned on the video link at the appointed time.

Against the nighttime backdrop of Detroit, dressed in a perfectly tailored Italian gray suit, at two fucking o'clock in the morning, Sharif managed to look like he'd just returned from Hawaii. Gold cufflinks were visible on the immaculate white cuffs of his shirt. Adam had even wiped the blood from his stubble.

"Adam," Sharif said, "son. What happened?"

It was an address Sharif used on special occasions, and each time the Pygmalion-like ambition in his voice inwardly shook Adam.

"I'm wondering the same thing, Chief," Adam answered quickly. "We were being chased by the mercenaries who attacked the Detroit headquarters. They work for Tai Yun. One of them had a stolen Typhoon prototype."

A bit more cheerfulness in his voice, and you'd think this investigation was his mission, which he'd done a fine job of. Sharif wasn't too convinced by the report.

"What's with the girl?" He asked with his hands behind his back in a familiar gesture.

Adam took a puff, filling his lungs to capacity with the nicotine-free smoke. Sharif tapped his heel impatiently on the ornate Renaissance Italian parquet.

"The elf took her after she threw herself at the Tyrans," Adam replied

"Elf?" echoed Sharif. That word stuck in everyone's throat. 'Interesting. Tai Yun Medical encourages racial diversity in employees. Where did he take her?"

Really? Because Adam forgot to check his inbox.

"He didn't report to me, Chief."

Judging by the impenetrable expression on his face, Sharif didn't appreciate the sarcasm. He strolled slowly and expressively around the office while Adam looked at the flashing neon sign on one of Detroit's skyscrapers, visible through a rain-drenched window. It was a holographic image of a woman dancing in a champagne glass.

"I thought," he finally said, "you mentioned that the girl was prevented from leaving our world by some kind of... waves. The elf has different magic, then?"

The question caught Adam off guard.

"It's magic," he replied cautiously, "how can the laws of logic be applied to it?"

The uncertain answer gave Sharif carte blanche for a condescending fatherly smile.

"The laws of logic can and should be applied to everything, Adam," Sharif made an eloquent gesture with his hand. "We just don't know which ones yet. By the way, why did the girl throw herself at Belltower?"

Adam didn't have many guesses, and those that he did have would have sounded very ambiguous. Making sure that Sharif would not be satisfied with a simple shrug, Adam said:

"Ciri was trying to protect me," and added: "I guess."

"Ciri," Sharif repeated thoughtfully. It struck Adam for the first time that he didn't call anyone else by their first name. "Have you two gotten close?"

An ambiguous smile appeared and instantly disappeared on Sharif's tanned face. The sun began to glare his eyes, and Adam covered them with his lenses. He noticed that Farida was eagerly but ineffectually trying to listen to their conversation.

"Not in that way, Chief," he replied nonchalantly. "I'm the only person she can trust."

"And that's why she decided to sacrifice herself to save you?" Sharif interjected, before continuing in an extremely friendly manner: "In whatever sense you've become close, her feelings will be to our advantage."

"Chief, Jensen," Pritchard unceremoniously joined the video chat, something he never allowed himself to do with Sharif.

Sharif arched an eyebrow in surprise before pulling back politely:

"Frank, can't this wait?"

"No, Chief," Pritchard ran his palm nervously through his hair, "there's no way. Picus news, channel one."

In front of a rested Sharif, Pritchard looked absolutely exhausted. Sharif turned on the news on his gargantuan-sized television.

"With you today is Andrew Wyatt, breaking news reporter for Picus News."

Andrew Wyatt? Instead of Elise Kassan? If the TV presenter who has been in the news every day for the past five years is sick for the first time, the world is definitely going to go to hell.

The Henscha Towers appeared on the TV screen, the smallest of which would fit the Empire State Building.

"On October 2, at fifteen o'clock local time, a man-made disaster of enormous proportions occurred on Hensha Island," the diction of the starched jacket-wearing anchor was as perfect as his teeth. "Under Daigong Square, a massive ground collapse occurred, resulting in the death of..."

What was shown resembled a scene from a not-too-skillfully shot amateur movie. The fountain in the form of an atom fell through a hole in the ground that appeared like a cheap special effect and began to grow rapidly.

There was nothing natural about the blackness of the abyss. It was the kind of color you could only get in a laboratory. The picture hit him hard on the brain, and Adam had a sudden urge for a drink.

"Where did he drop to?" Pritchard snorted nervously. "Straight into the underworld? Do they think we're idiots?"

Sharif waved his hand impatiently:

"It's been going on for years. What's the square footage?"

"Daigun," Adam repeated, "which is where Tai Yun Medical's headquarters are located."

The reporter's face remained carefully blank, which in his mind probably expressed sympathy.

"The island is under a state of emergency and air traffic over the city limits has been cut off. Level two of Hensha is in danger of collapse. Evacuation list..."

The structures of the two-story city against the backdrop of the hole did look like a death trap. The news, meanwhile, had changed to an express report, ++"WHAT HAPPENED TO ELIZA KASSAN?" There was no mention of the attack on Red Bank.

Adam looked at the ticker of the stock quotes. Tai Yun Medical was down twenty percent. VersaLife, on the other hand, had gained fifteen. While the former was understandable, the latter struck him as damned odd. The biochemical company was not a direct competitor to the largest Chinese concern.

"The air traffic is closed?" Pritchard interjected. "Afraid the hole will eat the planes? Not even trying."

"They don't need to. Panic, chaos, turmoil: all security protocols have gone to hell, and all resources are devoted to evacuating people. The timing couldn't be better."

"Chief," Adam said with pressure in his voice. "It's not a coincidence."

Sharif could not have run one of the most successful companies if he did not anticipate people's intentions ahead of time.

"No."

How do you sell him on the idea? Ciri's in there. She's got to be.

"Chief," Adam said, "we won't get that chance again. Their best mercenaries are out of action, the building is in the process of being evacuated."

No. We need something that will advance Sharif Industries. A direct and tangible benefit. An incoming e-mail about interviews for a new department popped up in the corner of the TV.

"Chief," Pritchard interjected, "I recall a psychiatrist warning us to be on the lookout for suicidal tendencies after an augmentation of this magnitude. I think it's time."

Adam immediately replaced one cigarette with another.

"There's evidence of Tai Yun Medical's attack on our headquarters," Adam said before hitting the most precious thing to Sharif - his creations. "And the stolen prototypes."

The more he could shift the focus from Ciri to confronting Tai Yun, the better.

"Fruit of the poisonous tree (1), Adam," Sharif objected, but with less iron hardness in his voice.

On those rare occasions when Adam really needed something, he had the grip of a bull terrier.

"We'll disguise it as a leak."

Sharif grinned.

"I didn't realize you were such a public speaker, Adam. Should I move you to the Sales Department?"

Pritchard rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair, still in his theatrical pose. Adam waited.

"Give me a couple of hours to think," Sharif straightened up and crossed his arms over his chest.

Judging by the position of his body, the conversation was over. Under any circumstances, he always had the last word.

When the video link was cut, Adam went over the footage from Daigun Square one more time, trying to find angles from which he could see the Tai Yun building. Finding none, he decided that while the world was going to hell, he might as well take a nap. The sound of hastily spinning blades cut through the air. Farida had carefully turned on the soundproof mode, but right now Adam would have fallen asleep even in a tank.

Adam dreamed of masked men speaking with Scottish accents.

* * *

They were already flying over Shaoxing when Adam was awakened by an Infolink message.

+/"Contact David Lee."

Attached to Sharif's order was a portrait and brief biography of a man wearing old-fashioned glasses with hexes of newfangled hacker implants on both temples. Judging from his personnel file, he'd been hired for corporate espionage and provided with an apartment with a nice view of Daigun Square.

Any attempt to contact David Lee was unsuccessful, which determined the future route. Farida remained silent, but her appearance made it clear how desperately bad she thought the idea was.

Evacuation chaos reigned on the borders of Hensha Island. Emergencies are the best catalyst for social Darwinism, and the island was being abandoned in order of bank account size. Non-celebrities had to descend from their ivory towers - or fly away - depending on funds. Those who couldn't get private jets crowded into ports. Those who couldn't get a seat on ships and yachts stood in kilometer-long traffic jams.

Adam hoped that getting to the place everyone was running from was a lot easier than the other way around. At least, he was the only one on the southern cordon. The border guards had been working hard for the past three hours, doing their best to hold back the frenzied crowd.

Adam analyzed their faces with CASIE, picking out the most fearful and weak-willed. One of them, wiping sweat from his forehead, fit the psychological profile.

"Frank Prescott," Adam introduced himself in a tone that brooked no objection. "The security department of Tai Yun Medical."

Good luck with the database check. The border guard's eye twitched at the mention of "Tai Yun," but he still dryly demanded identification. Adam obediently showed a hastily fabricated identification card. He did not doubt that the border guards were forbidden to admit that the facial search system was down. The guard was clearly figuring out if he could work for Tai Yun Medical - Adam defiantly crossed his arms over his chest and covered his eyes with his lenses.

CASIE detected doubt and fear in the guard.

"Look, buddy," Adam added a little more anger to his tone. "We've got an emergency here, and we certainly don't have time to chill. What's the problem?"

"I..."

Adam didn't let him finish. A barely perceptible tremor at the corners of his eyes, his breathing quickening, his gaze running. He gotta strike while it's hot.

"I'm supposed to be on the scene in half an hour, and if I'm not there..." Adam read the name off the nametag slowly and expressively, "...Mr. Lin, I know who to blame."

"If you at least give me a contact person..." the man muttered.

"Roy Jones," Adam replied calmly. "Belltower."

Hell knows where he'd gotten that name from. If "Tai Yun Medical" didn't work, the combination of "Belltower" and "Tai Yun Medical" was unmistakable. With a languid smile, the border guard glanced at him, clearly wishing him to fall into the same abyss in the middle of the city.

The city lay in semi-darkness under a shroud of drizzling rain. The clear skies on the island were a phenomenon their fathers and grandfathers had told their children about.

If the news was to be believed - which Adam had never done in his life - Hensha's second level was in danger of collapsing in less than a couple of days. Unless, of course, teams of highly trained engineers and construction robots, courtesy of Tai Yun Medical, VersaLife, and Sumimoto Keiretsu, could save it from that fate.

Judging by the few who were trying to get into the city rather than escape it - these engineers looked suspiciously like scientists, and Adam strongly doubted that the scientific community was so interested in the ground collapse. Even more doubtful was the fact they would need an army in their research.

The visual interface in front of his eyes was covered with a grid of streets. A red cross marked Lee's apartment. Adam had descended into Henscha's automated underground transportation system, following the orange neon arrows, when Pritchard once again felt the need to chat.

"Jensen, there's one question that's been bugging me," Pritchard sounded like he hadn't gotten much sleep. "Who did Wintermute turn out to be in the end?"

Pritchard had a weakness for cybercriminals. He flew halfway around the world to listen to Mitnick's lecture.

"A crazy lunatic," Adam disappointed him. "He wanted to destroy Red Bank to spite the Illuminati. Yeah, the freemasons who control the world."

Adam expected at least a chuckle from Pritchard, but for once the latter dispensed with the sarcastic comment.

"Do you know, Jensen, how many people didn't believe in MK-ultra (2)?"

Oh, God, not this.

"Yes, Pritchard, and 9/11 was the work of the FBI. Seriously, I'm having an extremely hard day." Adam signaled the topic was closed and asked the question really bothered him: "What was that alert on Sharif's screen? Are we expanding the staff?"

The very moment the head of security is unable to vet anyone.

"Um?" Pritchard asked without interest. "Yes, specialists in the new department. Genetics and biotechnology. Why? Are you afraid you'll be left without a year's bonus? Don't get your hopes up, you won't get one."

Sharif has serious stakes in the outcome of this mission. On Ciri. The couple of days in the lab that Adam had promised her now seemed an extremely optimistic prognosis. Catching the oppressive silence, Pritchard decided to inquire:

"Jensen, do you seriously think Sharif is paying for you to run around to show Supergirl the beauty of Detroit?"

Adam hasn't been that naive for about ten years now. The market is the market - times change, and the market is always alive.

Finishing his session, he walked out a couple of stations away from Daigun Square.

You can make post-apocalyptic movies in Hensha now without much expense. There's nothing on the streets that doesn't run on batteries. A pamphlet with Taggart's "It's not going to get any better" lecture stuck to Adam's shoe. He's not a bad marketer - the lettering is in an archaic font that's supposed to remind him of computers from the eighties. Luddites are unkillable.

Adam had never felt so uncomfortable in his life. In the dust-polluted, hot air of the deserted concrete jungle, a premonition of something terrible hung in the air.

David Lee's apartment was in a narrow, tall building squeezed between corporate giants. The price per square meter was beyond the financial means of mere mortals, and the interior furnishings were so ascetic that the inattentive would have thought it had been skimped on. The robot butler cheerfully greeted the only guest.

Adam went up to the twenty-eighth floor. The apartment had been left in a hurry, leaving behind top-of-the-line industrial espionage equipment: wiretaps, GSM trackers, and terminals whose purpose he didn't immediately understand. David Lee had left a pile of papers on the desk, and on a white sheet at the top of the pile was a schizophrenic inscription in sprawling hieroglyphics-"THEY EXIST." It seemed to Adam that the number of lunatics per square meter had increased dramatically lately.

At least Lee had a nice collection of Scotch in the bar. We're gonna have to go looting after all. Adam could afford one glass of Glenlivet before he tried to extract anything of value from the spy's findings.

The panoramic window offered a stunning view of the abyss in the middle of Daigong Square, the black cube of Tai Yun Medical, and the elongated tower of the VersaLife Clinic. The latter was projected with plump lips encircling a round pill and the inscription "EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE".

You couldn't be more accurate.

//"We thought we were alone," Adam contemplated the neon desert, "and omnipotent. That we knew everything there was to know."

In the blackness of the abyss, Adam caught a barely perceptible stirring, like bubbles rising to the surface of someone else's soup. It was the shape of something not quite human and not quite animal, a slimy, shapeless mass.

//"It can't be," Adam thought. - The ravings of an exhausted mind. Or the malt hitting him sharply in the head."

"EVERYTHING is possible," VersaLife contradicted him.

Darkness was coming over the city.

* * *

Внимание! Этот перевод, возможно, ещё не готов.
Его статус: идёт перевод

Переведено на Нотабеноиде
http://notabenoid.org/book/86809/569246

Переводчики: Camrad_RIP