"Rudy Rucker - Master Of Space And Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rucker Rudy)

Master of Space and Time
by Rudy Rucker
version 1.0


1

This Is the Name of This Chapter

MY screen began flashing. I had the console
rigged to measure quitting time to the nano-
second. Softech had a flexitime system, which meant
that you could quit for the week after putting in
forty hours. A few quick keypunches and I'd logged
off for the weekend. I yawned and looked around
the too-familiar room. I was pretty old to be work-
ing this hard. A couple of years ago I'd had it
madeтАФmy own company and my own signature
on the paychecks. But now ...

"Finished so soon, Dr. Fletcher?"

It was my supervisor, an angular young blond
woman named Susan Lacey. Dr. Lacey. No one
used first names at Softech. Company policy.

"No, I'm not finished. But I've clocked in my
forty hours. It's Friday afternoon."

She flashed her human-relations smile. "It's two

forty-seven, Dr. Fletcher. I don't have to tell you
that they're in an awful rush for your program.
You know how anxious they do get."

They. Lacey was always talking about her higher-
ups as if it were her and me against some abstract
impersonal them. It was her way of trying to win
my sympathy, even though she was a slave driver.
A pathetically transparent con job. I wished I could
be my own boss again; I was too good for this
noise.

"Don't worry." I snapped shut my briefcase. "The
deadline's only Wednesday, you know. I'll bring
the thing in under the wire. I always do."

All around me, my coworkers were still tapping
away at their terminals. I was the only one with the
nerve to take flexitime seriously. I'd never move