"Chalker, Jack L - G.O.D. Inc 3 - The Maze in the Mirror" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

wilderness, with almost all the people bunched up on opposite sides of the
state, and even some of the smaller ones like New Hampshire and Vermont have
comparatively vast areas of unspoiled wilderness. Black bear still roam the
Pennsylvania hills in season, and deer threaten to overrun southern' New Jersey;
every time the cougar is declared extinct in the northern states one will
miraculously make an appearance. They've declared that animal extinct north of
Florida at least twenty times in the past fifty years.
The northern half of Pennsylvania is a vast and mostly unspoiled forest land
through which Interstate 80 carries traffic from the metropolis port of New York
in the east out to Ohio and then all the way to San Francisco, but through
Pennsylvania it finds little civilization. People are there, all right, but not
many of them, and they are scattered in small towns like Bellfonte and Liverpool
with nary a Philadelphia or Pittsburgh to be seen.
Penn State University, in fact, is probably one of the more isolated major
universities in the country. Not even I-80 comes too near, and it sits in Happy
Valley surrounded by stark mountains and a northern climate, often nearly
unreachable in mid-winter, its tens of thousands of students having to content
themselves with the small town of State College and a few others nearby who
exist only to serve them. The only other industry of note is the State Pen, the
counterpoint of Penn State (although many locals claim to have problems
differentiating the two), and because of its isolation and the climate around a
very difficult one to successfully get out of by other than legal means. You
might escape, but after that you'd stick out like a sore thumb and it would be
very difficult to get away.
Some areas do have farms; either truck farms for the University and other small
towns; mostly, or breeding farms for dairy cattle and horses. On one such farm,
even more isolated than most and off any main roads, concealed by forest and
mountains, there stands a particular thick grove of trees and in the center of
that grove a very strange area with a high fence around it. It's not much to
look at, even inside, if you get past the warnings from the electric company, or
so it is stated, warning of high voltage dangers. In the middle is a
cistern-like cavity made of smooth, virgin concrete that has almost a
marble-like texture. It goes down perhaps ten feet, with an old and rusty ladder
to the bottom, but, once down, it doesn't look like much of anything, either.
Just a lot of crud and no outlet and no panels or anything else.
In fact, the only unusual thing about it is that even in the dead of winter the
immediate area of the concrete has no snow. It simply won't lay there, as if the
entire thing is heated-although if you dared it is cold to the touch-and there
is no water at the bottom as if there is some sort of concealed and clever
drain. Where the water goes and where the heat comes from is not apparent, and
there are few clues.
A driver on the nearby main road is going along listening to the local rock
station, on his way in to town for something or other, and suddenly there is a
bad burst of static that continues, going in and out, making the listening
experience unpleasant. He tries a few other stations and finds the same thing
happening, and curses, but within two minutes the effect is gone. Atmospherics,
he thinks, grumbling, and forgets about it.
The pulses, however, come from the recessed well concealed on the farm, and they
have determined that no one is within the grove at this time. This feeds a
signal back-somewhere-and, inside that concrete urn, something begins to happen.