2023-01-15 16:12:55
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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
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
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
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
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
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
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