"c172" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burt Andrew - Noontide Night)

3:11 A.M., Thursday, February 2, 2000
Manukau, New Zealand

Desiree rubbed her cramping right hand and poured herself a steaming cup of coffee. She considered, then rejected, eating the processed cheese sandwich she'd brought for "lunch." Papakura Steel and Brass's break room was spare and smelled of old linoleum cleaner and molten brass. She took her mug to the wobbly table and extracted a spiral notebook and pen from her purse. She wished her hand didn't hurt so much from filling out order forms; but PS&B was blessed with a continual stream of orders, and cursed with a job management computer system they wished they'd checked for Y2K compliance. Every order had, of course, multiple sub-orders—16-penny nails, #11 rebar, lag shield anchors, DSAW pipe, Plow-Dome head bolts, Swageform screws—and each had to be (well, they wanted them to be) written on a separate sheet. This entailed tedious manual reproduction of customer names, addresses, phone numbers. Desiree had suggested they keep a customer list with all the redundant information in one place, but Bernice said they'd tried that, and it would have worked great, if the order handlers like her would have done a decent job of making sure the customers' data was always on file. So no, Bernice answered loudly, as if to scold the other half dozen humans they'd hired to do manually what could not currently be done by computer, please follow the procedures in the newly created Y2K Contingency Plans, and if you need aspirin for your hand, it's in the cabinet. The repetition was mindnumbing. When she was painting or sketching, Desiree could lose herself in a sort of play acting, imagining she was the president of a company walking toward and into the building she was drawing. She could imagine herself strolling in the rose-perfumed foyer, grabbing a warm cookie from a tray set out for visitors, wriggling her toes in carpet thicker than she knew they'd ever install, study the Matisse paintings on the wall. She knew corporations never finished their buildings this way, but it helped her get "in character" and see the more mundane elements, such as the mauve color of the walls, the burgundy carpet, the brick red tiles. There was nothing exciting about order forms by the pound. Her mind needed stimulation, and dwelled on problems. Nonetheless, Desiree found it reassuring to be in a place with lighting at night. As if sanity and normality had returned to the world. Desiree understood the work they did. Her father worked steel and brass back in Storm Lake since she was a kid. In the past couple days she already found herself becoming the natural leader of the order processing "compuserfs." They didn't have any more sense how to spell "knurled washer" than they knew what it did. Though the pay was good (if the company survived until any given payday), the work was brutal. Humans were never meant to handle the volume that computers did. Somehow that volume snuck up as computers took the load. Computers slickered us, she thought, sweet-talking us into reliance on them, then running off in the night like a deadbeat dad. Well, this deadbeat had better pony up on his child support or the world would be in a bad way. Desiree flipped open the notebook and looked at the letter to Morgan she'd started on her first break. "Dear Morgan, Good news! Matty said the transfusion went great. Jeremy is off the ventilator!" That was all. She'd wanted to write more, memorialize the infinite details that danced in her head, but her hand had other ideas. Her mind filled in the rest. Her baby was breathing on his own! She wanted to hug him close, to cuddle him. She ached to nurse him. But Morgan would understand. He'd share her joy, and her terror. If those NS thugs hurt her baby, she swore she'd rip them apart herself. And—the idiots! Matty told her yesterday morning when Desiree picked her up after her shift that the generator would soon be out of fuel. The Nation of the Strong had been selling pharmaceuticals to pay for generator fuel, a lousy bargain itself, but that the diesel fuel supplier said barely a trickle had come in from the middle east since the start of the year. The government had requisitioned the fraction the country produced itself. She felt ready to shoot the prime minister if the hospital's running out of diesel hurt her Jeremy in the slightest way. But she couldn't write that. Wouldn't. Only good things. Bernice poked her head into the break room. "Desiree, there you are. Do you remember two days ago's order from Albano Construction? They say they ordered five thousand drywall screws, but Freddie has no slip on that. You took the order. Do you remember if they ordered those drywall screws? Because they're going to chuck a mental and if we have to refit for drywall screws then we'll be behind half a day." Desiree rubbed her eyes with her palms. She felt like she was the most competent person in the order taking group, and yet she was the one getting in trouble for a muffed order. "I don't... it was probably my fault," she said in her no-it's-not tone of voice. "You can take it out of my pay if you want." Bernice grimaced. "No worries." Desiree painfully scrawled a few more lines about her job, took care to write "I love you dearly" in an unwavering hand, folded it and sealed it in the envelope she'd had ready. Desiree looked longingly at the letter. Jeremy, Jeremy, dearest baby Jeremy. Momma's going to come give you a hug. Somehow she'd find a way. It had become, she realized, an obsession. She had to get into the hospital. Matty had suggested several times that Desiree cut and dye her hair and sneak in as Matty herself, since her job was so useless now, and she mainly went in to keep tabs on Jeremy anyway, and—Desiree would cut her off, not even wanting to hope such an insane plan could work. If they caught her, which they would, she'd be a miserable hostage again, and worse off than now. They might even kill her or Jeremy to make a point. She would be too tempting a target without some kind of bargaining chip. The lights flickered, momentarily frightening Desiree that they'd lose power even here; was something wrong with their generator? The lights remained steady, but mental threads suddenly coalesced like double vision into focus. The Nation of the Strong would let her see her baby if she brought them diesel fuel. It was one thing for Matty to say all was well; but a mother had to know. She had to get inside. She dreaded returning to their lair, but it would be okay if she had something to bargain with. They'd want diesel fuel. Diesel fuel she could 'borrow' from PS&B.

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Chapter 17.2

3:11 A.M., Thursday, February 2, 2000
Manukau, New Zealand

Desiree rubbed her cramping right hand and poured herself a steaming cup of coffee. She considered, then rejected, eating the processed cheese sandwich she'd brought for "lunch." Papakura Steel and Brass's break room was spare and smelled of old linoleum cleaner and molten brass. She took her mug to the wobbly table and extracted a spiral notebook and pen from her purse. She wished her hand didn't hurt so much from filling out order forms; but PS&B was blessed with a continual stream of orders, and cursed with a job management computer system they wished they'd checked for Y2K compliance. Every order had, of course, multiple sub-orders—16-penny nails, #11 rebar, lag shield anchors, DSAW pipe, Plow-Dome head bolts, Swageform screws—and each had to be (well, they wanted them to be) written on a separate sheet. This entailed tedious manual reproduction of customer names, addresses, phone numbers. Desiree had suggested they keep a customer list with all the redundant information in one place, but Bernice said they'd tried that, and it would have worked great, if the order handlers like her would have done a decent job of making sure the customers' data was always on file. So no, Bernice answered loudly, as if to scold the other half dozen humans they'd hired to do manually what could not currently be done by computer, please follow the procedures in the newly created Y2K Contingency Plans, and if you need aspirin for your hand, it's in the cabinet. The repetition was mindnumbing. When she was painting or sketching, Desiree could lose herself in a sort of play acting, imagining she was the president of a company walking toward and into the building she was drawing. She could imagine herself strolling in the rose-perfumed foyer, grabbing a warm cookie from a tray set out for visitors, wriggling her toes in carpet thicker than she knew they'd ever install, study the Matisse paintings on the wall. She knew corporations never finished their buildings this way, but it helped her get "in character" and see the more mundane elements, such as the mauve color of the walls, the burgundy carpet, the brick red tiles. There was nothing exciting about order forms by the pound. Her mind needed stimulation, and dwelled on problems. Nonetheless, Desiree found it reassuring to be in a place with lighting at night. As if sanity and normality had returned to the world. Desiree understood the work they did. Her father worked steel and brass back in Storm Lake since she was a kid. In the past couple days she already found herself becoming the natural leader of the order processing "compuserfs." They didn't have any more sense how to spell "knurled washer" than they knew what it did. Though the pay was good (if the company survived until any given payday), the work was brutal. Humans were never meant to handle the volume that computers did. Somehow that volume snuck up as computers took the load. Computers slickered us, she thought, sweet-talking us into reliance on them, then running off in the night like a deadbeat dad. Well, this deadbeat had better pony up on his child support or the world would be in a bad way. Desiree flipped open the notebook and looked at the letter to Morgan she'd started on her first break. "Dear Morgan, Good news! Matty said the transfusion went great. Jeremy is off the ventilator!" That was all. She'd wanted to write more, memorialize the infinite details that danced in her head, but her hand had other ideas. Her mind filled in the rest. Her baby was breathing on his own! She wanted to hug him close, to cuddle him. She ached to nurse him. But Morgan would understand. He'd share her joy, and her terror. If those NS thugs hurt her baby, she swore she'd rip them apart herself. And—the idiots! Matty told her yesterday morning when Desiree picked her up after her shift that the generator would soon be out of fuel. The Nation of the Strong had been selling pharmaceuticals to pay for generator fuel, a lousy bargain itself, but that the diesel fuel supplier said barely a trickle had come in from the middle east since the start of the year. The government had requisitioned the fraction the country produced itself. She felt ready to shoot the prime minister if the hospital's running out of diesel hurt her Jeremy in the slightest way. But she couldn't write that. Wouldn't. Only good things. Bernice poked her head into the break room. "Desiree, there you are. Do you remember two days ago's order from Albano Construction? They say they ordered five thousand drywall screws, but Freddie has no slip on that. You took the order. Do you remember if they ordered those drywall screws? Because they're going to chuck a mental and if we have to refit for drywall screws then we'll be behind half a day." Desiree rubbed her eyes with her palms. She felt like she was the most competent person in the order taking group, and yet she was the one getting in trouble for a muffed order. "I don't... it was probably my fault," she said in her no-it's-not tone of voice. "You can take it out of my pay if you want." Bernice grimaced. "No worries." Desiree painfully scrawled a few more lines about her job, took care to write "I love you dearly" in an unwavering hand, folded it and sealed it in the envelope she'd had ready. Desiree looked longingly at the letter. Jeremy, Jeremy, dearest baby Jeremy. Momma's going to come give you a hug. Somehow she'd find a way. It had become, she realized, an obsession. She had to get into the hospital. Matty had suggested several times that Desiree cut and dye her hair and sneak in as Matty herself, since her job was so useless now, and she mainly went in to keep tabs on Jeremy anyway, and—Desiree would cut her off, not even wanting to hope such an insane plan could work. If they caught her, which they would, she'd be a miserable hostage again, and worse off than now. They might even kill her or Jeremy to make a point. She would be too tempting a target without some kind of bargaining chip. The lights flickered, momentarily frightening Desiree that they'd lose power even here; was something wrong with their generator? The lights remained steady, but mental threads suddenly coalesced like double vision into focus. The Nation of the Strong would let her see her baby if she brought them diesel fuel. It was one thing for Matty to say all was well; but a mother had to know. She had to get inside. She dreaded returning to their lair, but it would be okay if she had something to bargain with. They'd want diesel fuel. Diesel fuel she could 'borrow' from PS&B.


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