"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Crunchers, Inc." - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

as if preventing some kind of physical (albeit unplanned) rendezvous.

тАЬI hate this,тАЭ she said. тАЬEISH got to him.тАЭ

EISH was short for the Everyone Is SomeoneтАЩs Hero Society, with the last
тАЬsтАЭ dropped because EISHS was too hard to say. If Edith had been running the
Society, she would have given it another acronym altogether because EISH sounded
too much like тАЬishтАЭ for her tastes.

тАЬI donтАЩt know how EISH got in,тАЭ Conrad said. тАЬIтАЩve added more secure
equipment to this room than any other place in the building. We even have guards
posted outsideтАФreal, living, breathing guardsтАФjust so that no strangers get inside
the elevators coming up to the seventeenth floor.тАЭ

Edith shrugged. тАЬHe screamed, then came out at top speed to tell me about
his grandfather and a plastic pony, and how that made him the man he is today.тАЭ

Conrad sighed. тАЬSounds like EISH.тАЭ

He leaned against the desk and crossed his arms. He stared at the information
still scrolling on the wall across from him, but he clearly wasnтАЩt seeing it.

Edith sank into the chair. It felt comfortable, familiar, as if she had come
home. Here she didnтАЩt feel quite as heavy; here she didnтАЩt feel quite as useless or out
of date.

She sprang up.
 тАЬCheck the chair,тАЭ she said.

тАЬThey did chairs two years ago. TheyтАЩre not going toтАФтАЭ

тАЬCheck the chair.тАЭ

He sighed a second timeтАФwhat other response could they all have to EISH
but sigh?тАФand crouched. While he worked, Edith paced.

Technically, EISH wasnтАЩt her responsibility. The Brass was supposed to
monitor EISH and all other like-minded groups. There were divisions that handled
anti-EISH spin; divisions that persecuted EISH members to the full extent of the law;
and, it was rumored, divisions that sent EISH members into the database earlier than
they deserved to go.

But technically, Actuarial Engineers were supposed to prevent database
tampering. Even though it was against the companyтАЩs best interest, Actuarial
Engineers were supposed to double-check suspicious informationтАФespecially
information provided about a hated person or a person who belonged to a hated
organization (like EISH). This protected the corporation from class action lawsuits,
too much government oversight, and the occasional overzealous
politician/prosecutor/investigative reporter.