"Chalker, Jack L - G.O.D. Inc 3 - The Maze in the Mirror" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

additional switch points and then sidings to whatever worlds they wished. Whole
sections of line all over not on any map. Weak points too minor for the Company
to bother with or on worlds the Company hadn't gone into yet were developed. If
you didn't know the switches were there you could neither see nor detect them,
and the drain on the system power is not enough to show up on the power meters.
They've been quite clever."
She was appalled, although it explained a lot. Nobody built something like that
in a few years. Nobody. That was the work of decades at least, and real
long-term planning. It had to be part of that old operation they'd thought
they'd broken. That was how and why they were able to go from point to point
without ever meeting a security man. And that cube where they'd ambushed and
shot Sam ... A hidden switch point, maybe? Then they shut it down and the facet
simply goes to the world where it's supposed to.
"This is big," she told him. "We got to tell the Company this."
"I did," he responded. "I told them what I've told you. They refused to believe
it, refused to believe that it was even possible. They said the sort of
resources needed to build such a network and remain undetected all this time
were beyond concealment. Only the Company could have done it and there were no
records or expenses or anything. They said the only fellow who could possibly
have managed it was a traitorous former Director and that they'd not only had
him isolated, they'd drained everything he knew from his mind ahead of that.
They demanded incontrovertible proof or it was suggested that perhaps I'd been
in this business too long and should take a holiday."
She nodded. The iron-bound arrogance of the Company was its weakest point.
Always had been. It had been obvious almost from the start which director had
been the bad guy. If it'd been a murder mystery then unmasking the villain would
have been a snap. The trouble was, he was high up, one of the ultimate bosses,
and no one would believe that such a one could betray the Company or beat the
Company's security unless he could be caught and unmasked with his finger on the
trigger and in the act of committing treason. She had solved it, but it was Sam
who figured out how to nail the bastard.
"Maybe he didn't know-any more. With them mind control things they got you can
get parts of anything erased. If he had set it up and then got it erased so it
never showed, then nobody'd know- but his gang could use it Maybe just a few key
folks in the gang that never got caught. I'm pretty sure most nobody knew about
this even if they was usin' it. That bastard was so smug and arrogant himself he
violated the biggest rule of bein' a crook-he got a gang workin' for him that
was smarter than he was. They're all a pack of racists who think that they're
the be-all and end-all of human creation. And, hell, he wouldn't have to build
'em. If he got to the big data bank and simply erased the records of certain
built but not operational switches and sidin's, then they wouldn't show up at
all on the maps. Damn! This is big!" I wish Sam was here for this, she added to
herself.
He nodded. "Yes. A herd of elephants running amok on the system and nobody
notices. But now I have proof. Or, at least, I can show them proof. I know the
location of a siding and how and when it operates. I was discovered. They can
shut it down but they jolly well can't unbuild the thing. I got in through a
casino sub-basement private station on the Riviera. I tripped some alarms, and
they were waiting for me. I was on the run into the main branch when I was
cornered and had to take the first facet out that I could find. Here, blast it."