Abandoned world: the Awareness - стр. 3

themselves and everyone else. You teach them to think about the future. You give them confidence. Why would you want to know that someone gave up not just that, but the very possibility of life?

– Because we've already got four of these crazies. And it looks like there just might be a

fifth…

They both fell silent. It was clear to both of them that everything had just gone exactly to the

point where a fifth citizen of the station would have killed himself by cutting himself up with a knife. And the hardest thing to say was that there wasn't much he could do about it – he was just going crazy without realizing it. And it had happened before, when he'd tried to tell her about these suicides. When he'd stabbed himself in the palm of his hand with his fingernail. It's already happened, it's happening now and it'll definitely happen again. Until he kills himself completely.

– Charlie, we really need you… I need you," Sierra said, hugging him with both arms.

– I know… I know… I don't know what it is myself… And it seems that those who have already done it have come to it in some similar way… And you know what I'm most interested in?

Did this really only start happening eight months ago, or has it been going on for a long time and we just haven't noticed?

– It's a suicide, Charlie… Everyone would have noticed… A corpse doesn't clean up after

itself.

– Yeah, you're right… Except for the ones who got away before they started killing

themselves… And I think I'm getting something clearer…" Haddock rose from his seat, pressing the tattered blouse tighter against his wound and glancing at Sierra. She looked very sexy now, sitting there in her long skirt and bra that emphasized the rounded shape of her breasts, and when combined with the fact that this was the office and the de facto head of the entire station, very provocative. These thoughts in another situation would have blown Haddock's mind, but now they only cleared, forming fresh thoughts of decision in his head:

– Put something on upstairs, we need to go check something out....

***

The archives department consisted of only one room, where several computers stood, arranged in an even row. No windows, no desks, nothing extra. Just four computers with slide-out keyboards and chairs in front of them.

Heddock thought of the phrase that the corpse would not go away by itself. After all, the station was surrounded by a huge mass of territory, which no one really controlled, and that if you wanted, you could disappear by yourself in a very simple way – just by putting on a spacesuit and getting far away      Of course, no one would be able to open a heart there, but to part with your life