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Corporation 12
The ascent felt magical. It was as if some kind of force was taking her to the very heavens, dissolving in their unearthly radiance, dissolving so much that she ceased to feel like herself, to share her own thoughts with the breath of the universe surrounding her. Even these thoughts gradually faded away, disappearing into the distant distance, leaving behind only a pitiful echo of the former essence, a quiet echo of the personality that once inhabited it, which for simplicity it called itself.But no, only here, at the very top, a belated understanding came to her of how illusory and vain human auto-perception is. No matter how much you peer into the mirror of being, you will see there not yourself, but only your own reflection, dim, distorted, far from the truth. The long monologue in your head is also not you, but only a meaningless echo of external signals migrating through Broca's zone, only through an oversight, taken by you for your own thoughts, insistently sounding between yo
Corporation 13
- The signal came in, we had to force, sorry.It is clear now why she was so pulled. Drummer quickly ran her eyes over the trace. Sparsely, but some marks of intermediate hops have been preserved, and yes, with every hour the trail will become paler. It is understandable why they are all so nervous. Neither the introduction is normally organized, nor the departure.Was the message attached?- No way, standard single-fire, like everything is in rapidamente.No details, that is. Okay, they didn't work with that. And now it’s clear why such a crowd of “fizi”. Together with the "tailor" they will cover Drummer's ass in case of fire contact. And he will surely introduce himself now, oh, how he will introduce himself.Speaking of butt.- How much time do I have?- Window? Seven minutes for sure before they spot it.Drummer whistled.- Not much.- Should be enough.And looked so frowning.Ha, that should be enough. Feel free to talk to him."Sniffers" as a reasonable compensation for their o
Corporation 14
Like every tiny agricultural town, Abanton was wide awake by six in the morning. Robocouriers scurried along the front gardens, delivering fresh pastries to the yards or rattling milk glass containers, the housewives drove the bird to the dance with loud voices, the children ran from the dog with a squeal, she answered them with joyful barking, somewhere mumbled, calling the unit, a milked cow, the usual reigned for a summer morning, a farce, under which it is so pleasant to get out of bed.Bernard managed to look at the forecast before leaving, so he first opened the side shutters of the greenhouse, and then hurried to the station. It's only about ten minutes to go here, but I had to hurry every time. Yes, it’s understandable, it’s stupid to go out in advance, but if you hesitate, then grab the unicycle and go until they start without you.For once, this time there was still plenty of time, so Bernard walked on foot. So it’s nice for health, and with which of the neighbors along the
Corporation 15
Only here the work became art, and art acquired its real embodiment."Bernard Knecht, you are being asked to return to level five hundred."Yes, what is it!Bernard hated being interrupted while he was working, and so categorically, with things to go, now it’s probably half a day down the drain, and what a day, the sun is so hot, none of your dank gloom that has been sown all summer long in this year the limits of the metropolis.Okay."I'm going down."In the ears, habitually crunched from the pressure drop. Before letting anyone upstairs, bioengineers usually implanted a micropump into the Eustachian tube of high-altitude climbers like Bernard to avoid trouble with the reverse block, but even with it there was enough discomfort. Minus a kilometer in a minute and a half, this is the speed at which a passenger suborbital usually decreases in dense layers. Not only does it sing in the ears, but also the stomach rolls up to the throat at the sight of a splayed forest of stocks rushing t
Corporation 16
Supply disruption was Roger Moore's main headache from the very beginning of the contract, and every single day he began with endless reconciliation checks.In the bowels of some "Eriksson" or "Ar-Rajha" in terms of such issues, he would have sat a whole department of "yellow tokens", arguing to move big data, while an adviser of his level would not even be interested in what and how they reduce there, I looked through the next report out of the corner of my eye, if they screwed up, heads will roll, and the whole tale.But this position was unlike any other. Where thousands of clerks would work on any petty issue in every normal corporation, hundreds of overseers and overseers over overseers, here Roger Moore had only himself and petaflops of calculated capacities, executive and soulless, at the disposal of Roger Moore. They were not mistaken, but they did not show any initiative, they always had to make any decisions themselves.And now, when the monitoring system threw out a banner
Corporation 17
At the same time, the adviser knew for certain that if this all followed a plan, then this plan was constantly being revised.How many times have the same units, sometimes just assembled, been disassembled again, updated or moved from place to place, again and again suggesting the total madness of that unknown architect who was behind this whole project.But Roger Moore, having got used to it, didn’t complain anymore, and now, having briefly glanced over the dashboard, he easily managed to make sure that the completely new - less than a month old - power units of active radiators - have safely passed into the disassembly stage, because after recalculating the introductory the temperature regime has changed, and now metallic sodium has been appointed as the coolant with all the ensuing requirements for the specific output power.And so every day, as long as the adviser remembered the history of the crazy project.The scale was also striking - gigawatts of power, hundreds of thousands o
Corporation 18
The radius of Guangzhou-Zhanjiang, for my taste, was the most inhospitable place on this planet. Two hundred million people, a complex patchwork of zones controlled by Yanguang and Tri-Trade, a wild amount of industrial abandonment from the time of the Great Experiment, the terrible ecology associated with this, and yes, orderly rows of towers of the first wave of development, twined to the waist with a communication network.The Slinkers called these two hundred kilometers along the coast "glade", so freely any representative of our respected profession felt here. Corporate freemen on the ruins of the former autonomous regions, the rampant level of corruption and banal slovenliness on the ground, the overall density of buildings plus the abundance of "gray", no-man's objects turned the "glade" into the Asian branch of Central Africa during the post-war Black Boom.For a slinker, there was always work here, and it wasn’t about money at all - perhaps only the magical Bohai or the Islan
Corporation 19
And no one around, not a single extra signal. Even the lidar of the Corporation's agents, which glided over the client's car, I still spotted. There was nothing at all here. Even the blackness of the signal blockade, like there, in the client's apartment.An ordinary residential tower, also half empty, but still filled with the usual household signals. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't see anyone else.It was impossible to pull the rubber further.Either move forward or leave. But you can stand like this, listening, endlessly.And then I made up my mind.Unauthorized movement across foreign territory, even for an experienced slinker, is not an easy task. Other representatives of our kind of activity study this all their lives, mastering the difficult science of penetrating secure communications, hacking systems from the outside and from the inside. Others seem to be born with this knowledge, possessing, if you like, a special angle of view, when instead of breaking through a
Latest Chapter
- Corporation
Epilogue
Deprived of the present - does not live, deprived of the past - was not even born. I don’t remember who said so, all these books merged into one mess for me during the flight. But, returning in my thoughts to my life on Earth, I cannot help but think about the Corporation, and I cannot help but think about the fate that brought me to the Corporation. The place where I grew up has long ceased to be a sleepy town far from the big and noisy world, the suburbs of the metropolis have moved in on it, comparing hills and raising faceless towers of cheap high-rise housing around. The black cubes of factory buildings, lined with light-absorbing tiles, seemed to be the focus of secrets in the dark and musty chaos of thousands of people who were not interested in anything; no one thought about it. I hardly remember when Corporations appeared in our lives. Sometimes I feel like they've always been there. The faceless masters of the world, at first they were somewhere far, far away. Not here. Per
- Corporation
82
The roof breathed a thick smell of hot metal, the sun was so hot that even the familiar tropics of the lower levels seemed like a resort from the coast of the Northern Ocean. In such places, in the middle of the realm of dusty iron and a web of wires creaking in the barely perceptible wind, a normal person will not linger. And if you remember the composition of the local air, full of carbon monoxide rather than oxygen, you involuntarily catch yourself thinking - why did you get here, run away from here, run ...There was little use for these thoughts. The introduction says clearly - the "patient" will try to break through here, and you should not worry about his plans, sweat between your shoulder blades and dry concrete crumb under your tongue. Whatever he is looking for here - he should not pass by. Neither alive nor already dead. If you do your job, you will head north, or even south, across the sea - it is dry there, there is no eternal smell of rivers rotting in the concrete bowel
- Corporation
81
The drowned city was empty again, and did not really have time to become a new home for immigrants from the Megapolis, which surrendered under the pressure of the Glacier. Until quite recently, life was in full swing here, shuttles took the last pax from the gravity well, heavy trucks delivered here and unfolded giant cubes of fabricators, but now everything was quiet, and only the quiet lapping of the waves of the Tethys Sea beat against the metal-polymer supports of the newly erected towers here.- Are you happy? she asked that day with what he thought was sincere curiosity.- Satisfied with what?“Because we leave this world alone.“Ah, that,” Romulus shrugged, “I will be pleased when they leave me alone. And Mother, she still does not hear us. She doesn't care what we think about her.- Stupid humanity tired even the all-powerful Romulus.- Don't bother with words. You have only lived with this for a quarter of a millennium, but I have been dealing with people for more than four h
- Corporation
80
Romulus climbed along the ridge with a measured step, from time to time looking back at the stone labyrinth of the Megapolis slowly plunging into the blue haze.Here, fifty kilometers from the edge of the Glacier, it looked quite familiar, if you do not remember how deep into the multi-year snow layers these stone skeletons now go. Towers, Bauhaus and palazzos sink deeper and deeper into the compressed ice pack every year. Go get it.Nothing, the fabricators have already reached the product capacity, releasing a million of their hardworking rats a day to the borders of the agglomeration.Romulus watched them work with his own eyes yesterday. Three individuals fiercely fought for a kilogram stub of monothread steel, zealously grinding their diamond cutters on it, only sparks flew around.These mechanical laborers will open any deposits of debris, make their way into the very hodgepodge of ceilings, dig their way into the depths of permafrost, but in the end they will wipe this abscess
- Corporation
79
We have seen a new humanity. People are weakened, divided, they will be even more crushed by the Age Outside, but sooner or later, one way or another, they will begin their expansion. But until that moment they cannot be left alone with Romulus. They need to be kicked in the ass into the Galaxy and locked up within the boundaries of the Barrier as much as possible.The guest thought, now for a long time. The clouds grew darker, the sunset faded, the snowflakes hit her cheek more and more painfully, and she stood still and was silent. Finally, when she spoke again, her voice was cold and formal.“I will speak to the soorn-infarh. But I don't promise anything.The redhead bowed again.“We couldn’t have hoped for more, wise one.” But I can see that something is bothering you.“Romulus confuses me. Will he fall into such a trivial trap?- Who knows who knows. Perhaps they themselves want to be deceived.The guest gave a short nod and moved away, through the oncoming gusts of a piercing no
- Corporation
78
The three from the chest were comfortably seated at the very edge of the cliff. One of them, a tall, desperately red-haired old man, waved his arms all the time, trying to jump up and run, in every possible way depicting general excitement. The other two, on the contrary, reclined comfortably in hammocks, pulling their blankets up to their chins, and hardly moved. A slight, but at the same time filled with internal contentment, a smile wandered on the face of both.All three would look very suspicious to an outsider's eye - what fate brought them to this windy land and what was the purpose of their today's observation, even the most desperate detective could not figure out, even if one happened so far south of Maharashtra.But in fact, there was no one here for a long time and reliably. The Goan land lay empty, and only the cold winter wind carried dust whirlwinds along these once populous lands, throwing handfuls of sand in the face of a random oncoming one.But these three were not
- Corporation
77
And what, it's even reasonable on their part. Less emotion, less stigma, less inevitable exophobia. It makes less sense to talk about something.Inside the makeshift conference room, to which the gateway led, already gathered, meanwhile, quite decently people. Apparently, their shuttle did not arrive first.It is necessary to get out somewhere far away to the side, very few people here would like to see him alive, let alone face to face. However, he was lucky, there was still a pleasant exception.- Companion Urban.— Ilmari Olsson.Both nodded briefly to each other, but not at all in the way that Lilia nodded to him when they met. Two intense gazes, clinging for a second in the surrounding crowd, managed to show each other enough emotions to immediately calmly part. Unlike the Companion of Ulysses, they always knew how to disperse peacefully with Urban. Of all the Companions, only Jean Armal still retained a certain amount of humanity. After all, only he knew what it was like to phys
- Corporation
76
The evacuated moon domes were far more depressing than he had expected. Live on Krasnaya for a couple of dozen turns, and you will no longer be surprised by its lifeless expanses. The lifestyle there was such that everyone seemed to be afraid of both this sand and each other. For a thousand sols you can not meet a single living soul, only chains of heavy copters stretching in the bloody skies remind that this world is inhabited by someone. But Muna... Muna in his memories was always a grandiose covered anthill, where everyone was in a hurry somewhere. The main staging post of the Sol system has remained the true heart of the Sol system since its inception.So it was before Ceres. And so it was before the Arrival.Now, looking at the empty galleries inside the domes and the cleared launch pads beyond, he only thought about what they had missed.What happened to the people who once set foot on the gray lunar regolith in the hope of developing a new frontier? The easiest way was to say t
- Corporation
75
The onboard observatory of the flagship, although it was focused on tracking objects located no further than a hundred kilometers from the Sun, nevertheless, gave a background image rich in details and colors, enriched with spectra outside the visible range from microwave to hard X-ray inclusive. The resulting composite panoramic banner only at first glance resembled the familiar picture of the starry sky - the former tracer did not need to be reminded of what deep space usually looks like to the naked eye. The white pupil of the distant Sun and the barely noticeable points of the brightest stars plus the planets, that's the whole poor visual range. Immediately at the disposal of the navigator, free from other activities, was given the multi-colored world of the contours of the Galaxy and entire star placers of the nearest cluster.When looking at this rich panel, made up of billions of stars, gas clouds, globular clusters and nebulae of the nearest galaxies, for once it became clear
