Abandoned world: the Awareness - стр. 4

would not be a problem. And now there was no doubt that the thoughts that were formed at the moment of an attack could be of a completely different kind, but definitely leading to the same result – inevitable death.

Heddock and Sierra were now pairing up reports on the number of lost, inoperable, decommissioned spacesuits from previous years. After Heddock realized that he was far from having complete control over Apollo 24's activities, the possibility that his own mistakes were being hidden from him no longer seemed so impossible.

And the answers started coming almost immediately. It turned out that four years after the awakening, there was some loophole for manipulating the reports with the written-off inventory. The thing is, the original models of spacesuits were only supposed to be usable if a second person closed the suit door from behind, and then opened it upon arrival to let the person out. Four years later, new models were developed that allowed one to close inside oneself and also open later. And judging by the reports, the next eight years only went by in an upward trend: as time went on, more and more new spacesuits were developed, and older models were put aside for storage. But then the trend began, when some of the new models were again replaced by the old ones for various reasons "damage to the sleeve", "damage to the closing mechanism" and other fairly easily correctable flaws. But instead of eliminating them, they were written off completely and disposed of as if into the void, because after the instructions for disposal there were no parts left, which could obviously be useful both for replacement and in the production of new spacesuits.

Thus, by keeping the number of suits at the same level, the managers were obviously hiding the disappearance of spacesuits. And it would not look so obvious, if it did not turn out that all the time only new models are utilized, and the old ones are sent for repair.

It seemed that all the past suicides had been found, bravely leaving the station and settling scores with their lives somewhere out there, obeying strange impulses that Haddock himself had had recently. Of course, there were still questions about where exactly they were going, and why had the process of "leaving" been abruptly replaced by a process of "mowing down" on the station itself? The news was, of course, that there was a very palpable eyewash in the supposedly very correct accounting structures at the station.

Come to think of it, why can't we just report that someone has voluntarily left the station and not returned. Maybe they should go out looking for him. Maybe some new controls should be put in place to keep people from going out on their own… But no, they just draw up the reports so that there's no question about it… Haddock was not only amazed, but also very disappointed that he'd let an entire system that had a life of its own flourish for so long, and his thoughts didn't stop there. How much more of this could there be in Apollo 24?