"Cory_Doctorow_Liberation_Spectrum" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doctorow Cory)

The Canadian government took a hard line on anything that looked like separatism. Two CogRadio employees who'd been unlucky enough to get stuck on the wrong side of the barricades would rot in a Canadian pen for 10-to-15, eight with good behavior. Keeping the corporation's respect after that clusterfuck was killing Lee-Daniel.

With the investors off out of sight, the managers and the frontliners shucked their veneer of civility and began to get wild, invalidating their health insurance with carbo treats. Elaine sucked down three tequila cartons and glared bleary hostility at him.

"If you had any fucking guts," she said, mangling a carton with her strong, scarred hands. "If you had any fucking balls, we would have gotten everyone out. They were my people and you wouldn't stand up to those shitheels," she jerked her head at the investors' private room, "to save them. All you care about is the goddamned money." The smell of old sweat and booze made his eyes water.

It's a business, Lee-Daniel said inside his head, biting his tongue. Where do you think your goddamned paycheck comes from?

Mortimer hitched himself erect, creaking up from his seat. "That's enough of that," he said in his cop voice, laying a still-strong hand on Elaine's shoulder. "If you don't like your job, you can give notice, but you'll keep it polite as long as you're working here."

Elaine tried to shake his hand off, but he kept his grasp firm. Lee-Daniel had been through one or two of these in the first year, and he knew that Mortimer knew what he was doing. Things could get awfully heated up at times like this.

"You're hurting me," Elaine said. "Let go."

"Apologize to the man," Mortimer said, the voice of authority. "You're out of line."

Joey Riel leapt on Mortimer's back, his arms locked around Mortimer's neck. "Don't you touch her, you pig," he hissed. Mortimer took hold of Joey's thumb and twisted it into a come-along and Joey let go, dancing around and clutching his hand.

"You broke my fucking thumb!" he said, and then Elaine was on her feet, shouting incoherently, right up in Mortimer's face, darting her head at him like a striking cobra. The frontliners broke off their gaming and boozing and necking and rushed over, hooting for blood.

Lee-Daniel felt the old adrenaline, the "leadership" brain-reward that he got when it all came down to a crisis. He jumped up on their table, scattering their dinners' active packaging, which curled and waved as it flapped to the floor, cycling through its upsell ads.

"Enough!" he roared. It wasn't a cop voice, but it was a voice nevertheless -- the voice of the man who signs the paycheck, the disappointed father who was going to turn the bus around and take the company home this instant if he didn't get respect. Lee- Daniel didn't have to use that voice often, but its rarity was part of its effectiveness.

It didn't work. Elaine still shouted, Joey Riel was digging through the drifts of trash for a weapon, and the frontliners were still cheering their bosses on. "Enough!" he said again, just to check, but it didn't work any better the second time around.

He got down off the table and circled Mortimer, who had the mic for his loudhailer clipped to his belt. Lee-Daniel snatched it up and hit the Talk button, dialing the volume up to max with his thumb.

"Enough!" he said, and the loudhailer amplified his voice to staggering volume. At max, it was meant to be used to signal passing aircraft. Inside the vending machine's claustrophobic bowels, it was like a bullet ricocheting through their skulls. Some of the more delicate antennamen dropped to their knees, their hands clutched to their heads, and Mortimer staggered back into Lee-Daniel, nearly knocking him off his feet.

Lee-Daniel cut the volume in half and hit Talk again. The company shied back when the speaker array on Mortimer's bandolier popped to life. "All right, enough. Company meeting. Get chairs, sit on the floor, whatever. Right here, right now." He handed the mic back to Mortimer, who wiped it down with care and clipped it back to his belt.

He gave Mortimer his poker chip. "Get a bag of ice for Joey," he said. "And thanks, man."

Mortimer gave him the cop stare and trudged off to one of the vending banks and started prodding methodically at its display.

"All right," Lee-Daniel said, again, looking into the expectant, upturned faces of his company. "All right.

"No one is happy about Akwesahsne, all right? I take responsibility. We're wireless hackers, not guerrillas. We're not going to get into that kind of situation again." Joey Riel turned around and stalked to the back of the roadhouse. "Nothing is worth endangering the safety of the employees of this company." Lee-Daniel thought of his investors and their relentless push for more.

"That said, If you want your options to be worth something, someday, this company's going to have to grow. We've been growing at 20 percent per quarter for the past three years, and that's right on track. Maintaining that growth is going to necessitate excursions out of the USA. We'll be going back to Canada -- better prepared, wiser, more cautious -- but we'll be going back. The Caribbean, too. South America and Mexico. I shouldn't have to tell you that radio has no borders. Wherever there's unencumbered spectrum, we'll be there. There's never going to be a 'routine' job, whatever that means. Every job will be different. If you're looking for a 'routine' job, you're in the wrong business.

"We're headed for the Seneca Sovereign in Cattaraugus next. There'll be a week of R&R there: fishing, hunting, gaming. They have a decent theater there that's doing a Beckett revival, and I've got half-price tickets if you want 'em.

"Half-price tickets for those who stay, that is. Because I want to make one thing clear: If you don't like the way I run this company, you shouldn't put up with it. Give me your notice, I'll cut you a check and you can get lost. That's your remedy. That's your only remedy. I'll be sitting right here, any of you want to give your notice tonight."

He sat down at a table and helped himself to someone's carton of crantini, gave it a shake to cool it down, then took a nonchalant sip.

The silence was broken by the door to the investors' dining room hissing open. The Series A investor stepped out into the chaos of the main concourse and crooked a finger at Lee-Daniel.