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

prison/unemployed/living on some sort of benefits? Has he had a positive influence
on the people around him?

Each action could cause a reactionтАФgood and bad. The programs worked
out a level of disgruntledness proportionate to fame or good fortune or (in cases like
ConradтАЩs) simple good looks (figuring that jealousy created bad human behavior).
There were also the health factorsтАФwas this person keeping good enough care of
himself so that he wouldnтАЩt become a burden on societyтАФtoo much alcohol, too
much food, too little exercise (unless these things were matched by weight loss
surgeries and overnight nano-exercises, things that only a fortunate few [like Edith]
could afford).

In other words, the programs kept a functional and relatively simple
databaseтАФmost people fell into easily predictable categories.

It was the folks who led non-traditional lives who were the problems, and they
fell under the auspices of the relatively robotic AE, who gave the information a
somewhat human glance and decided what category the person belonged in.
 Somehow, organizations like EISH had discovered the AEs and even worse,
found their names. Now AEs were targets, and all of them seemed to be breaking
under the pressure.

тАЬGot it.тАЭ Conrad held up a chip the size of a fruit fly. тАЬIтАЩll analyze it, but IтАЩm
sure itтАЩs an EISH component.тАЭ

тАЬScan the room for more of them. And find out how it got on the chair.тАЭ

He gave her a lazy grin that warmed her more than it should have. тАЬYes,
maтАЩam. And whatтАЩll you do?тАЭ

тАЬBesides fill out report after report on poor, broken Reginald?тАЭ She sighed,
making this one gusty and long, so that Conrad knew he wasnтАЩt alone in his disgust.
тАЬFind a replacement, of course.

****

The replacement, Edith decided, had to be someone with no trace of
sentimentality. No hidden plastic horses, no loving spouse, nothing that could pry
through the shield of that personтАЩs loyalty to numbers, statistics, and the purity of
formula.

She no longer allowed personnel to make the final decision. She added a few
interviews of her own.

It took a week before the seventeenth floor got its new AE. That put seventeen
behind all the other floors in the building, a serious problem. Life and death
decisions were being made all over the country, and the files that had been routed to
seventeen couldnтАЩt be accessed.

That meant doctors who needed to know which patients deserved life-saving