"Thomas A. Easton - Silicon Karma" - читать интересную книгу автора (Easton Thomas A)

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over sun-sparkled ocean, distant freighters, and closer sailboats, a
ferry, a snow-white cruise ship. The foreground was filled with the
roofs of lower buildings, fragments of street, a green scrap of
waterfront park. Swimmers could not be seen because the water was toxic
with sewage and chemical wastes. The only persons who entered the water
in the flesh were those who did not intend to return. The four people
sitting at the boardroom's long table were paying no attention to the
view. They were there to discuss certain difficulties the Corporation
was encountering, fully aware that if they could find no solution ...
Well, each of them had enough in investments and savings to live out
their lives in comfort. They were not about to go down to the beach.
That, or its equivalent, would be for the Corporation. One of the chairs
of polished wood and thick leather upholstery creaked discreetly. "It's
gobbling memory," said Jonathon Spander. The official head of the
division, he had thinning hair, a round nose, and bad teeth that he
sucked noisily and often. He did so now. "Just in this one box. Using it
much too fast. There's a lot of demand on the processor too."

"Is this really the problem?" asked Leah Kymon. Tall, lean, and gray
from hair to skirt, she was a special assistant to the corporation's
president and the division's actual manager. Usually, she deferred to
the specialists. "After all, you can just plug in more chips and boards,
another processing unit. Unless it's money?"

"No," said Spander. "Not that. The residents are productive enough to
pay for all the chips and processors they want. But ..."

"The rumors," said Eric Minckton of PR. His blond hair had been
carefully cut not to hide the pair of diamond studs that adorned his
left ear. "Crime waves! The whole virtual world is about to collapse!"

"That's nonsense, of course."

"It's still hurting sales." The fourth person at the table was
Marketing's Manora Day, a short woman with skin like fine leather and
hair as black as night. "Right across the board. Not just in this
computer, but also in the corporate retirement machines, the Heavens,
the ..."

"I'd like to know who leaked," said Kymon. "And how they knew anything
at all was going on. We can't watch or eavesdrop, after all, and the box
doesn't give us reports."

"It isn't supposed to," said Spander. "There should be a back door."