Владимир Андерсон – Abandoned world: the Awareness (страница 2)

would not be a problem. And now there was no doubt that the thoughts that were formed at the moment of an attack could be of a completely different kind, but definitely leading to the same result – inevitable death.

Heddock and Sierra were now pairing up reports on the number of lost, inoperable, decommissioned spacesuits from previous years. After Heddock realized that he was far from having complete control over Apollo 24's activities, the possibility that his own mistakes were being hidden from him no longer seemed so impossible.

And the answers started coming almost immediately. It turned out that four years after the awakening, there was some loophole for manipulating the reports with the written-off inventory. The thing is, the original models of spacesuits were only supposed to be usable if a second person closed the suit door from behind, and then opened it upon arrival to let the person out. Four years later, new models were developed that allowed one to close inside oneself and also open later. And judging by the reports, the next eight years only went by in an upward trend: as time went on, more and more new spacesuits were developed, and older models were put aside for storage. But then the trend began, when some of the new models were again replaced by the old ones for various reasons "damage to the sleeve", "damage to the closing mechanism" and other fairly easily correctable flaws. But instead of eliminating them, they were written off completely and disposed of as if into the void, because after the instructions for disposal there were no parts left, which could obviously be useful both for replacement and in the production of new spacesuits.

Thus, by keeping the number of suits at the same level, the managers were obviously hiding the disappearance of spacesuits. And it would not look so obvious, if it did not turn out that all the time only new models are utilized, and the old ones are sent for repair.

It seemed that all the past suicides had been found, bravely leaving the station and settling scores with their lives somewhere out there, obeying strange impulses that Haddock himself had had recently. Of course, there were still questions about where exactly they were going, and why had the process of "leaving" been abruptly replaced by a process of "mowing down" on the station itself? The news was, of course, that there was a very palpable eyewash in the supposedly very correct accounting structures at the station.

Come to think of it, why can't we just report that someone has voluntarily left the station and not returned. Maybe they should go out looking for him. Maybe some new controls should be put in place to keep people from going out on their own… But no, they just draw up the reports so that there's no question about it… Haddock was not only amazed, but also very disappointed that he'd let an entire system that had a life of its own flourish for so long, and his thoughts didn't stop there. How much more of this could there be in Apollo 24?

How many other areas of the station's life could there be, where in reality he had no control over anything? He didn't want to truthfully answer that question, but the answer came forward on its own – everywhere. It could just be everywhere. Here's the problem. He allowed himself to break the rules and not be afraid of it, because, as everyone knew, even for a Felony the punishment was a stay in Tosca, where you might be lucky enough to become a warden.

The only thing that can fix this is a visual demonstration of death. Fear and death. They quickly sober the mind, the body, the soul. When everyone sees that they have something to lose, and that it could be any of them who break the rules. All that's left is to come up with a louder name for it than felony. And for that, there's Peyton Cross, capable of creating the necessary, showing everyone that it's new.

Natalie

Natalie had been to all sectors of the energy section, to the administration office, then to the security office, and then back to the living quarters of the New York building, where she spent considerable time knocking on Morgan's apparently empty apartment. He was nowhere to be found and no one knew where he might be except at his workplace in the lab. The administration had even hinted to her that she should not inquire about such matters during working hours, and that if a man was not at his workplace, his immediate superior, namely the head of the energy section, should always know about it.

Natalie didn't say that he wasn't at his workplace either, and that since they didn't know, they should just say so. She'd recently begun to notice that the people around her were more fucked up than she'd realized before. In fact, before she'd met Morgan, before their first night together, she hadn't noticed anyone else's fuck-ups at all. People grumbled when they didn't want to answer or didn't know the right answer. That's how people are. Of course, there had to be some reason behind it, but it had never occurred to her that most of these people had the same reason. So much depended on physiology, and the most primitive one at that… She was also surprised that people of different ages behaved like that, both those younger than her and those older. It manifested itself in a few different ways, but still the same disgusting shade of something inferior was in all these faces at the same time. In fact, it gave away the very general similarity of nervous grouchiness and caustic behavior in all these faces.

– You could have fucked each other," Natalie said, staring at the locked door of Morgan's apartment. – I don't want to be like that.

She turned around and went back to the administration office, after all, Sierra was a close friend of hers, and maybe she could find out something through her. It was also worth supporting her now, after she'd complained about what was going on with Charlie. They were all the same problems, all because of men.

***

Sierra wasn't there either, and her assistant said she hadn't shown up since morning. This was becoming not just surprising, but suspicious. Something was happening on the station that was no longer a possibility, but a given. At least two section chiefs were missing, Morgan, without whom

the life of their only power station was impossible, was missing. The only thing left to do is to kidnap her herself, so that everyone will immediately forget about the new helium-3 possibilities.

The administration building included the main hall, inside of which there were small cubicles of ordinary clerks, and in different corners offices of chiefs. There were almost no people, and it seemed that today the office work at the station was more dead than alive.

What was the point of having so many hookworms anyway? – Natalie thought and turned to leave this seemingly useless mess. It wasn't even the files in the computer, it was the sheets of paper, which took so many resources to produce that it could probably feed a second station. It's a separate block with growing wood, which is worth it. Of course, the materials from there were used not only for paper production, but the fact that people were doing not what was necessary for survival, but for the formation of this fiction, was already disconcerting.

She tried to remember what it had been like twenty years ago, when she was still a little girl, and she remembered the long lines that crowded into this room, waiting for some permits, coupons, certificates. What she remembered well was that at that time more people just stood there and wasted time than did something concrete with those papers, but now there were almost no queues, but the number of papers had grown exponentially. This is a very strange logic – either there are more papers, then there are more queues for all these papers, or vice versa....

– They must have invented their own jobs. " Natalie said aloud and turned toward the exit.

Before she could take a step, a hand with a piece of paper clasped between her thumb and forefinger popped out in front of her.

– This is for you, Miss Jackson! – proclaimed a young and very caustic-looking girl.

Natalie remembered her. Her name was Daisy, and she'd hit on Morgan several times in the corridors of the New York block without success. Despite her rather unassuming appearance, she was remembered well enough for the expression on her face-it was completely unnatural. She had the impression that it was not real, but glued on, and expressed emotions different from those expressed by her eyes. Obviously, she had a radical problem with underfucking, something Natalie had suspected even before the moment of her insight into Morgan's satisfaction.

Natalie picked up and opened the paper handed to her, where at the very beginning in large letters was written "Warning", followed by a text stating that she was being issued a warning due to permanent absence from her workplace, which put other station employees at risk, undermined the morale of the team, and had an immoral effect on all life at the station, and therefore it was demanded that she return to her workplace and not leave it until the end of the shift.