"Alex Irvine - Volunteers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Irvine Alexander C)

smile you offer when you're confused and trying to figure out whether the people you're smiling at are
dangerous lunatics or just lunatics. Which was funny, because we'd just been chewing over the same
distinction. Was 1956-Land the product of a collective longing for a sort of totemic safety and sense of
belonging, or more like a Potemkin village put up to anesthetize people and consolidate power?

"We're trying to figure out what to do," Furcal said.

"About what?"

"About the fact that you and most of the rest of the people here have gone stark fucking bonkers."

Milt frowned. "That's not really appropriate language in front of kids."

So he's noticed me, I thought. I wondered how it would play out in school the next day.
├Дt
It didn't play out the next day, or the day after that. The Tuesday after, my luck ran out. Bahrani caught
me coming out of last-period social studies and took me down to his office. "I'm not sure this crowd
you're with is good for you, Wiley," he said when he'd settled me in the chair facing his desk. "I know
kids like you have trouble sometimes. It's the times, I guess. Kids want to rebel; heck, I did too." He
tried on a smile, abandoned it when he saw I wasn't going to give him anything back. "But it can be taken
too far, and when it gets out of hand, the school administration needs to take action. We'd like you to see
someone, try to talk out some of the hostility you're experiencing."

I was scared out of my mind. Too many movies full of old men in white coats with big syringes. So I
played alongтАФmostly. "How about the AI first?" I asked, trying to sound cooperative. "It's designed to
work through dissociative feelings, right? If that's what I'm feeling, let's do that."

"I'm not sure what to say to that, Wiley." Bahrani crossed his legs and tapped his pen on my file. "What
do you mean by AI?"

That was the most frightened I had ever been. Bahrani had gone completely over the edge; if he was just
playing a role, I saw that he didn't know it anymore. Right then I went from feeling like people didn't
understand me to believing that I was surrounded by enemies.

Play along, I thought, long enough to get out of here. "Can you make me an appointment?"

"That's a good idea," Bahrani said. He got another file from his desk and consulted a schedule. "You
know, it's perfectly normal to feel the way you're feeling. At your age." He made a note on the schedule.
"Dr. Macavenue can see you tomorrow right after school."

"Okay," I said, and that was it. Bahrani let me get up and leave, and I walked out of the office feeling like
I'd narrowly avoided something awful.

I went straight to Iris. She was watching Hannah and Peter on the playground. I sat next to her in the
swingset, and I didn't mean to but the first thing out of my mouth was, "They've all gone crazy." Which
wasn't an ideal thing to say considering I was under suspicion of being nuts myself.

Iris was on my side, though. "Yeah, they have," she said.

"We can't stop it."