MirnyiAtom: переводы

→Mag was going on about something, coming down the steps one at a time, making a production of every footfall. I ignored the ass.

→"I was aware, thank you," I said. "Is there any reason the countermeasure shouldn’t work?"

→The valkyrie eyed me. "Your arm is broken."

→"Your home office would be annoyed with me if I wasted your life on such a low-percentage proposition," I said. "We stick to the plan."

→Gard helped me get Hendricks to the door of the room and turned around. "Close the door. I may be able to discourage him out here."

→Gard hauled me to my feet by my coat with her spare hand. I got under the stunned Hendricks’s other arm and helped them both down the rest of the stairs. Justine stood in the doorway of the safe room, at the end of the hallway of flickering lights, her face white-lipped but calm.

→There was more, but there is hardly a need to go into details. Given a choice between that egocentric drivel and a broken arm, I prefer the latter. It’s considerably less excruciating.

→We raised the weapons to our shoulders, lined an eye up with the scopes, and kept moving. We reached the first defensive position, folded out the reinforced composite barriers mounted there, and knelt behind them. The ambient light from the city outside and the emergency lights below us was enough for the scopes to do their jobs. I could make out the outline of the hallway and the room beyond. Sounds of quiet movement came closer.

→The nightvision scopes mounted on my weapon and Hendricks’s had been custom-made, based off of designs dating back to World War II, before nightvision devices had married themselves to the electronics revolution. They were heavy and far inferior to modern systems-but they would function in situations where electronic goggles would be rendered into useless junk.

→I stopped and looked at her.

→She shook her head gently. "But you’re a criminal. Criminals don’t have rules. They break them."

→"Because I have rules," I said.

→"Then why are you doing it?" she asked.

→"I am not doing it for you, young lady," I said. "Nor am I doing it for the child."

→I took off my coat and hung it up in the closet. I took off my tie and slipped it over the same hanger. I put my cuff links in my coat pocket, rolled up my sleeves, and skinned out of my gun’s holster. Then I slipped on the armored vest made of heavy scales of composite materials joined to sleeves of quite old-fashioned mail. I pulled an old field jacket, olive drab, over the armor, belted it, holstered my sidearm at my side, opposite a combat knife, and took a military-grade assault shotgun-a weapon every bit as illegal as my pistol in the city of Chicago-from its rack.

→"Thank you," she said quietly.

→I looked at Justine as I rose and walked to my closet. "You will go with the child into the panic room. It is, with the possible exception of Dresden’s home, the most secure location in the city."

→"Sir?"

→"For what?" I said very calmly. "You understand, do you not, what you have done by asking for my help under the Accords?"

→There was something hard and not at all submissive in her eyes. "Thank you, sir, for . . ."