Stanley tried not to raise his face. As soon as he forgot himself for a second and cast a glance into this gaping nothingness, something seemed to shrink in his head, and the picture before his eyes began to dance treacherous pretzels.What did he forget here?After the departure of Cyrus, Interweb did not immediately become like this. At one time, free songwriters continued to quietly frolic in the arenas, and Papa Doc broadcast his slanderous verses about “Lolita as a mirror of the cyberpunk revolution” from the pulpit for long nights. Those days are long gone, and only Stanley remembered how it was. Bright, passionate, bold. However, without the formidable power of the Corporation, its offspring was doomed to decline and neglect. As soon as Romulus and the Companions left the Sol system, something happened that should have happened. "Red-jackets" of all stripes began to coherently and methodically put pressure on everyone who dared to even allegorically mention the Interweb.This w

A motorcade of six heavy tiltwings with a guttural rumble cut through the night air over the ocean, covered from the sky by an orbital group, from the sea accompanied by two self-propelled strike platforms, ahead of time advanced along the course of the motorcade due south from Sri Lanka to the Commonwealth Sea and Prydz Bay.However, these efforts were also part of the ceremony.The route was carefully coordinated throughout the year, and the Big Dozen organized everything in advance so that no random barge, let alone stray tiltwing, turned up on the designated straight line. No one needs a conflict out of the blue.Even more carefully approached the selection of crews. Only proven people, devoted to the corporation, as well as, just in case, married, with children and grandchildren, so that no one would suddenly have the thought that they have nothing to lose.The Yangguang Zituan remembered the episode of 2156, when two general partners died at once during the mysterious crash of t

I haven't been here for a long time. Probably as long ago as he became a slinker again. Or a persecutor, if you use corporate newspeak. Whatever you call it, a person of my profession is in no hurry to return to the places of former glory, because he firmly knows that only black shadows of the past are waiting for him there, from which there is a lot of pain and a little or even less money.A good client is a new client. A good place is one where no one knows you.Simple job - came, sniffed, left. But sometimes there are such circumstances that like it or not, you agree.Return. Breathe in the rancid air of the Megapolis again. Again raise your face to the sky and be surprised at what you see. You don't really see.Memory is a traitorous thing. How many revolutions have passed since you stood in this very place, looking at the silent four from under your brows. Romulus, Ulysses, Urban and Cora. Creatures whom the language did not dare to call people. On that day, they also returned to

The choice of car was a mistake.A heavy but well-traveled Toyota can come in handy at long distances, but here, in the labyrinth of an abandoned place in the middle of century-old industrial zones, agility and secrecy were more important. If only they could guess how far this flight would take them.A short look behind.The client continued, biting her lips, scratching her knuckles with her nails, tearing them literally into blood. At the same time, her face remained stony and pale to blue. Not a good sign, not a good one at all.She was ordered to be taken away from the safe house on the lower tiers of the residential Bauhaus near the very borders of the Megapolis. It’s not unusual how many times it was necessary to rescue endangered witnesses and fugitive agents into remote refugio like this, almost always they twitched, cried, rejoiced, joked nervously, but just did not remain silent.And the rescued in the bulk did not give the impression of a puppet, pushed under the hands of an

Portholes on the "Atreyu" was not provided at all. On the one hand, what are you going to look overboard, the plutoids beyond the orbit of Sedna here, at a distance of fifty ticks from Sol, gave a maximum of the third magnitude, and in order to see them with the naked eye against the backdrop of starlight, you would first have to sit locked up for half an hour with the attendant turned off lighting. On the other hand, the regular fifteen revolutions per hour would give such a fierce attack of vertigo when looking outside that an idle navigator who decided to stare outward would quickly get sick of green elephants.And who needs these windows. Cylindrical cabin "Atreyu", according to the creators' plan, was equipped in a circle with virtreals of the highest detail, which, without unnecessary urges to visit the latrine out of turn, provided the navigator with both an excellent overview and augmented reality, and did not blind the eyes of Sol's annoying lantern, which, although it looked