the life of their only power station was impossible, was missing. The only thing left to do is to kidnap her herself, so that everyone will immediately forget about the new helium-3 possibilities.
The administration building included the main hall, inside of which there were small cubicles of ordinary clerks, and in different corners offices of chiefs. There were almost no people, and it seemed that today the office work at the station was more dead than alive.
What was the point of having so many hookworms anyway? Natalie thought and turned to leave this seemingly useless mess. It wasn't even the files in the computer, it was the sheets of paper, which took so many resources to produce that it could probably feed a second station. It's a separate block with growing wood, which is worth it. Of course, the materials from there were used not only for paper production, but the fact that people were doing not what was necessary for survival, but for the formation of this fiction, was already disconcerting.
She tried to remember what it had been like twenty years ago, when she was still a little girl, and she remembered the long lines that crowded into this room, waiting for some permits, coupons, certificates. What she remembered well was that at that time more people just stood there and wasted time than did something concrete with those papers, but now there were almost no queues, but the number of papers had grown exponentially. This is a very strange logic either there are more papers, then there are more queues for all these papers, or vice versa....
They must have invented their own jobs. " Natalie said aloud and turned toward the exit.
Before she could take a step, a hand with a piece of paper clasped between her thumb and forefinger popped out in front of her.
This is for you, Miss Jackson! proclaimed a young and very caustic-looking girl.
Natalie remembered her. Her name was Daisy, and she'd hit on Morgan several times in the corridors of the New York block without success. Despite her rather unassuming appearance, she was remembered well enough for the expression on her face-it was completely unnatural. She had the impression that it was not real, but glued on, and expressed emotions different from those expressed by her eyes. Obviously, she had a radical problem with underfucking, something Natalie had suspected even before the moment of her insight into Morgan's satisfaction.
Natalie picked up and opened the paper handed to her, where at the very beginning in large letters was written "Warning", followed by a text stating that she was being issued a warning due to permanent absence from her workplace, which put other station employees at risk, undermined the morale of the team, and had an immoral effect on all life at the station, and therefore it was demanded that she return to her workplace and not leave it until the end of the shift.
It even looked ridiculous. Not only was it written in the obvious spirit of something official, but it didn't refer to any statutes or regulations. But what made it especially funny was that Daisy didn't realize that Natalie's workplace at the moment was with the very Morgan she was jealous of.
Realizing all that, realizing that Daisy was no match for her in any way, shape or form. Not her body, not her clothes, not her demeanor-nothing could even come close to matching Natalie. And there was no need to talk about her perpetually tricky face, because it was unlikely that anyone would want to get caught in it.
Natalie was now wearing a pencil skirt that emphasized her hips and a dark blue blouse that showed off her ample breasts. Daisy wore baggy pants and a white, almost see-through blouse with a lacy bra behind it. She probably thought it would attract men, but it seemed rather pretentious and tasteless. Even though it was obvious that there was no rivalry, Natalie got angry, tore the paper she'd been handed into four pieces and threw it toward Daisy:
I'm looking for Morgan. And shove that piece of paper up your ass!
Daisy started to shout something in her direction, though not very loudly, and then ran toward the Chief of Staff's office. Let her tell Sierra, who wasn't there right now. It would be
interesting to hear how it would all play out. How stupid and petty people can be at the same time, when they don't want to realize that the reason for their troubles is in themselves.
Natalie was almost to the exit and then some strange force stopped her from getting out.
She felt something grabbing her by the shoulders or by the waist, keeping her from getting out. And that something also began to climb from the left side of her head right inside. She jerked back, looked around, and looked back. There was nothing strange going on, but the part of the hall closest to Sierra's office stood out in the distance.
There's something wrong here. Something is going to happen, and that something is dangerous for all of us. There was some confusion in Natalie's head, but still she understood what was going on around her. And it was obvious that those around her didn't have a similar feeling. And a couple of men on different sides of her were just looking at her with glances that were assessing her graceful figure.
Natalie moved back with quick steps. Let nothing happen to Sierra. I wish nothing would happen to her. She only had two close friends. Sierra and Delaney. I wish nothing would happen to them Why would anything happen to them? In fact, Sierra wasn't even in the office. There's no way she could have gotten in bypassing her. Why would anything happen to anyone right now?
But as she approached Sierra's office, she saw her assistant lying unconscious near her desk. Her cubbyhole was just around the corner from the main room, so no one could see what had really happened. A few work folders were lying around, the chair was on its side, in short, all the signs that it was more than just a faint. Did Daisy do that to her?!
Natalie took a step toward the door to the study and noticed that the door was slightly open. There was a strange shuffling sound coming from there. It was as if someone or something was sharply and progressively running an iron over the couch. The girl quickly opened the door and almost shrieked, clamping her hands over her mouth.
Sitting at the Chief of Administration's desk, Daisy was cutting her left thigh with a clerical knife. In even rows, leaving more and more cuts over and over, she wielded it as if she were simply sharpening the knife. After each spurt, she would gently wipe the knife against her white blouse, leaving a streak of blood, and then make another swipe across her leg. The pupils in her eyes were so dilated that they seemed as black as night.
Natalie yelled, "Help!" and moved a little away from the entrance. She immediately thought that Daisy was going to leave the activity to do this to herself and run after her with the knife. But instead Daisy stopped and looked with her eyes full of terror right at her. It seemed as if she were looking not into her eyes, but straight into her soul. Straight into the innermost corners, where all the most secret and innermost thoughts of every human being lie. And yet her gaze expressed neither hatred, nor reproach, nor anything else.
Daisy smiled and solemnly slit her throat.
Elder
Peyton thought he'd be better in a month. He really hoped it would be sooner, at least a
week. In fact, he was better the very next day. His eyes burned with a new passion, and all he could think about was Delaney. About what he would do to her when he got the chance And most of all, he couldn't understand how he hadn't gotten to that point before. How he'd just fucked her without violence before. How he'd done it and never even considered that it might look completely different. Not at all the way the old him wanted it to. And not the way he wanted the renewed one....
He couldn't call himself young. No. It's not for him. Young people make more mistakes than they do right. He's not like that. He's wise and precise. Every move he makes is a properly calibrated final combination. One that deserves respect. And on this day, he has something new to explain to
people. Something new that they couldn't even think of before, because it's a new step. A new next right step. One of the twenty-four right steps in achieving the goals of Apollo 24.
***
The stream auditorium was full to capacity. Everyone knew that now one of the elders, Peyton Cross, would be announcing a new achievement of their station, a new successful step the station had come to.
This auditorium hadn't fit the entire population, or even half of it, in a long time. Only two and a half thousand out of seven. And now Peyton, looking at this meeting from the podium, remembered how he had cleverly thought of announcing that it was necessary to gather here, because from a certain moment only the chosen ones should listen to the speeches and be the first to know about new events. And how then, the obvious disadvantage of the lack of a suitable room had become a significant advantage to divide citizens, even nominally, into those who deserved to know everything firsthand and those who did not.
Then it was a lesson even for Peyton himself, who saw by his own example how one can successfully turn a given thing inside out, portraying disadvantages as advantages. After all, the most important thing is not what happens. The most important thing is how to tell about it. Because the one who tells about it will also keep silent about the most important thing in all this will keep silent about himself, because without him all the above mentioned will not make sense at all All this will not make sense without Peyton. The Peyton who's gonna get what's coming to him, not because he's the best. Not even because he deserves it. It's because he decided to.
You know, every time, I worry a lot. I worry that I won't be able to find the right words put those words in the right order even I worry that I'll go hoarse while I'm saying something But you know I never worry about being heard I'm proud to say that all the time, all the years that
I've been serving Apollo-24, I've spent hand in hand with the most loyal and worthy people on Earth, who have survived and who are capable of any task having finished this phrase, Peyton took the water bottle that stood on the podium and poured some liquid into the glass that stood next to it.
He knew perfectly well that the only thing people would hear now was the slight clink of glass against each other, and then the sound of water being poured.
Moreover, he knew very well how this sound was heard from different points in the audience, because once he had specifically asked his assistant to pour water into a glass while Peyton himself would run around the empty auditorium and listen from different places to see how well this sound could be heard in the speakers. Then he did the same thing with a slight toss of the pen from his hand to the podium stand. Then with a deep sigh. Then with a cough And so on until
the entire list he had prepared in advance was complete. Sometimes he even added something new to it and went back to experimenting, each time finding something new for himself.
Of course, he did not stop there. And then he asked the assistant to look in different directions: straight ahead, to the right, to the left, while he himself was also in different places at that moment and looked at how it should look.
And then he began to experiment with "climbing" out of the grandstand. The thing is that the rostrum itself, due to its massiveness, seriously separated him from everyone else. It turned out that he was hiding behind it. And he would have been happy to throw it away, but some of the elders could not stand more or less long without its help, so he had to leave it as it was. And that was completely at odds with his goals of being as close to everyone as possible, so that they could all be easily controlled.
The only thing that could be done under such conditions was to bring his hands beyond the edges of the podium to place them on the edge, or to bring them higher so that they would appear as something omnipresent to the audience. And in this configuration, he decided that the barely noticeable could make the difference in this competition for attention. The thing is, people often pay
attention to some little thing out of the ordinary. They start to focus on it, or even fixate on it And Peyton chose his index finger, which could literally jump out of the outer part of the edge of the podium a little bit upwards Peyton would put his hand on the edge of the podium, wrapping his hand around it a little bit and pretending that his hand was either holding this edge firmly or resting freely on it. And then in bursts of his phrases he would raise his index finger sharply, admiring what he said as an exclamation mark.
At first it seemed to him that such a configuration, in general, was nonsense, and he even considered getting rid of this maneuver. Especially since most of the poses formed in this way were the most uncomfortable for his body. But looking at the changed for the better performance, it became obvious that in combination with all the other elements to influence the mass of people, such a practice works very effectively.
And now, as he stood on the podium, he saw, heard and literally felt himself from all sides, realizing perfectly well how this murmuring of water in a glass is felt by everyone in this audience. And how he himself looked to each of them.
And that is why he began to make this movement now, after he had said that he was sure that he would be heard by the people who had gone through the most difficult things, who had survived and were already obliged to accept whatever he had to say, simply because it was natural. Nothing in the world is as indestructible as the natural. Like the water that's flowing right now, and everyone can hear it in the speakers. And even though it's just for a couple of moments, it's so self- evident that it starts to be associated with that common flow of I we water, that everyone loses any logic and starts to take what's being said as undeniable truth.
Peyton took the glass in his hand and drank a few sips from it, placed his right hand on the edge of the podium in front of him, and then continued:
I even got a lump in my throat I got a lump in my throat because I could finally announce that we had reached the next step (index finger jerked upward and spun back a little bit) in our accomplishments in Apollo 24 It's always hard to take in something new, but when it's something new that makes us stronger, we feel completely different We feel stronger. Stronger and more experienced (index finger sighed upward again). And we know that we can withstand all the trials, all the difficulties that come our way Because we are one family (he shook both hands in front of him, representing something big). One big family that lives together, solves its problems together We are responsible for each other at the end of the day (he shook his index finger from top to bottom).
Peyton turned his head sharply to the side and fell silent. He wanted to listen, to get a better sense of how he was perceived by those around him. He wanted to listen, to get a better sense of how he was being perceived by the people around him, to catch their waves, to make that wave his own and start manipulating it in the direction he wanted it to go.