"Kraus-WhiteWalls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kraus Stephen)

question.

The director seemed taken aback. "A few months, I suppose. You'll have to ask
Kirkendahl. He knows the details." He locked his hands behind his back, finally
looking away. "I imagine it's difficult at first, coming in here. All the
procedures, the discipline. There isn't a lot of that outside, is there?
Mandated decentralization, multiple governments vying for conscripts. What do
they call it? The Chaos? We don't see any of that. It's clean here, orderly.
You're safe. Safer than anywhere else on Earth. There aren't any contaminants or
carcinogens or ionizing radiation. There isn't a particle in the air larger than
a virus. I can't even imagine going back out there now. None of us can."

He faced her again. He seemed to be smiling beneath his helmet. "You can get
dressed. I'm sorry if I alarmed you. You have an important part to play in our
work. I had to be sure of you."

"Shut it off," Jacobson said. He had to wait a minute until his voice was
steady. "Shut the damned thing off."

Jacobson pushed back the chair at the end of the long table and stood up.
Meetings made him restless. "Questions?" he asked.

"Is anything happening with the microwave power proposal?"

Jacobson looked down the table toward a young dreadlocked project manager.
"Faultline Admin is still reviewing it; that's as much as I know."

"They've been reviewing it for three months. I haven't had anything to work on
since July."

Jacobson sighed. "I know."

Alice Freeman, Jacobson's assistant, raised her hand. "We're down to six real
projects and some maintenance stuff. How are we going to keep this place going?"

The rest of the staff murmured nervously.

Jacobson robbed his forehead. Alice was right. Contracts hadn't been coming in
at the usual rate. Something was changing outside, there was some subtle,
incomprehensible shift in the Chaos.

"We've been through this before," Jacobson said. "The director always sees the
trends, keeps us positioned, keeps us independent. He's been doing it for ten
years."

"You're putting a lot of faith in someone whose face none of us have ever seen,"
Alice muttered.

"What's he planning now? Do you know?"