Unexpected meeting. Chapter 13
Riek Sergev stepped out of the elevator on the floor of the head of the NBS. The main complex of a large corporation was more than ninety-five percent hidden under the ground. The head of the corporation occupied the lowest, underground, floor and a small part of the uppermost, above ground, floor. Riek had access to almost all the apartments of the Dyad, so it freely left the elevator. The man walked along the corridor and found himself in a wide and bright guest room, beyond the windows of which a beautiful view of the park zone opened. He did not even have time to go through half of the living room when the hostess appeared, who deftly grabbed his arm.
- Have you studied the dossier on the meeting participants?
- Of course I studied. How can I ignore the direct orders of my immediate superior?
- Oh, Riek. - Dyad playfully clung to him and quickly pulled away. - and? Any questions?
- I already know eighty percent of the list. Are some people only busy not to miss parties, numerous meetings, virtual participation and other events?
- This is high life. Alone this live. Others - earn. We are also going to make some money in some sense - some things go beyond the framework of official business meetings.
Dyad and Riek left the living room and went down to the ground floor. On the way to the exit, in a long hall, the head of the security service overtook them almost at a run.
“Dyad, I need to steal a few minutes from you.”
- Byrd, we have a meeting! Well, what can you have there urgent?
- It is confidential and very important. Dyad, I understand everything, but this may concern the current meeting - you should know this. I don't often run after you, skipping. Maximum five minutes.
Dyad displeased stopped.
- Oh well. Riek, will you wait for me in the car?
“Of course,” Riak smiled, “if I don’t wait five minutes later, I’ll leave alone.”
The woman smiled and turned to Berdom, looking at him searchingly. Riek did not linger and went to the exit. Byrd absentmindedly looked at Dyad, whose eyes had also become absent-minded. Riak went outside the building and headed for the three air vehicles, which were located near the entrance. The neural network communication of Dyad and Birdom ended just at that moment, when Riek was getting into an airmobile.
- Are you sure about this data? - usually the imperturbable face of Dyad looked surprised and confused.
Byrdom's answer drowned out a powerful blast. The front translucent framing of the building cracked. Hall dulled from the shock wave. A large funnel was formed at the site of the aeromobile parking. Two cars scattered in different directions, shapeless piles of metal, one of which was smoking. The security protocol of the building worked instantly: the cars were still falling, and the internal armored partitions had already cut off the elevated floors of the building from the outside world. The battle modules emerged from under the ground and the walls of the building and took control of the space, forming a security dome above the building. The beautiful and iridescent, silvery building of the NBS corporation was quickly turning into a bristling, gloomily deadly gray building in front of his eyes.
Dyad, who quickly recovered herself, swiftly rushed to the already half-advanced partitions, but by some miracle managed to catch her hand, almost turning it out.
“There ... There Riak,” Dyada shouted in a choking voice.
A pair of only people in the lobby brought all the combat modules, which appeared from under the ceiling at the same time as the beginning of the booking of the building’s floors.
- Dyad! The security protocol works. We are both corporate employees, but this is the second line of external security and our behavior is now suspicious. Take it easy!
Dyad stopped tearing. The man let go of her hand. When the armored bulkheads were fully advanced, with a quiet clanging in place, Dyad turned around. From the ceiling for two people watched KIRP. Dyad knew that somewhere in the depth of the hall, on the sides of the elevator were pulsed guns, and at the corners of the hall - compact cluster rocket launchers. The lighting of the room has changed: the light has become less and it has been distributed so as to make it difficult to detect firing points.
- All the worst has already ended. The system worked automatically. It is necessary to return the building to normal operation. Dyad?
Diad Ivor, the head of the NBS corporation, with a grim face, made a confident step towards the elevator.
***
Dyad sat at the table. All that was required of her now was to wait. In orbit hung her personal ship, from which, in violation of all the rules, the spacecraft urgently launched. Rules? Yes, do not care about them. The notification was sent to the aerospace control center. The route was laid with maximum overloads, the reverse ascent will not be the same not easy, but there is simply no time to move along comfortable paths. Tens of minutes there, tens of minutes here. Then the ship will accelerate to jump. In Hyper will pass the clock. After exiting the hypera, you will need to get to the desired planet, and then to the complex on it. Time, time and time - everywhere one time. A dyad could buy almost anything. But no one will sell her some hours so much needed right now.
The spaceship will probably have to undergo deep maintenance after such a flight, but Dyad now had little interest in this question. For some reason now she was thinking about how the day began today. The larger a person is, the harder it is for him to find a suitable match for himself. She liked that Riak fell asleep, clinging to her. In the mornings she woke up before him, pressed herself against a warm body and listened to the rhythm of his heart or breathing. Usually it was impossible to get over to him imperceptibly, Riek woke up, hugged her and, if she behaved with a quiet mouse, he fell asleep again and she was drowsy sensitively in his arms. Dyad was getting used to not being alone. And now what? Again this will not happen?
- Hypertech! - Dyad clenched fists. - They are always too jealous of the allocation of resources. But this?! This is too much! Besides your source, is there any other data? Because while it looks too fantastic to be a reality.
- We analyze the place of the explosion. So far I can say that the characteristics of the explosive device and the style of execution are similar to the work of the Seventh Fleet Retor. But this is very preliminary.
“The Seventh Fleet ... is this the world of Guy?”
- Yes it is.
- It is there that is the second largest and most significant complex in Hypertech. Bastards!
To his surprise, the lexicon of the head of the security service was supplemented with very capacious expressions that colorfully describe the current situation. Byrd had no illusions about his boss. Dyad Ivor successfully led the largest corporation in the SPM and at times made such Jesuit decisions that it seemed to Byrdom that he was working for the devil himself. However, he had never seen her like that.
After the unflattering comments about the rival corporation, the woman jumped up from the table and began to nervously walk around the office. Suddenly, she froze, receiving a neural network notification.
- Transportation has arrived.
- I spend.
The spacecraft landed right on the park area in front of the main NBS complex. Immediately, people rushed to him, next to whom two mobile medical capsules moved. Dyad Itvor quickly walked towards the ship giving orders on the go.
- Byrd?
- I'm here.
- I will not be some time. The corporation at this time will be governed by a council, an emergency fee, which is appointed in half an hour. Everything is already up to date. Prepare the materials - your presentation will be waiting.
- I will need the authority to work quickly and efficiently. Your absence may be bad for this.
- For the next half hour you have unlimited powers. A temporary chapter will be appointed to the council. You will continue to work with him.
- How long will you be?
“I don't know, Byrd.” I don't know yet. Experimental center is not close. I don’t even know if we are taking ... - Dyad stumbled, - what was left of him.
- I understood. Medcapsule readings are stable for half an hour. I do not think that in the next few hours something will change. Tune in that everything will be fine with delivery.
- Thanks Byrd.
The woman quickly climbed aboard. The ramp closed, the hinged doors closed and the spacecraft immediately soared into the air.
***
- Are you exactly authorized to issue such orders? - The commander of the NBS special task force looked puzzled.
A few minutes later he received an additional confirmation.
- Take dopkody. Consider that this order is given to ltvor personally.
The military accepted the data and confirmed their correctness. After receiving the order, he immediately sent calls to all team members. The fighters will receive congratulatory rhymes that will make them drop everything and rush headlong to the point of emergency gathering. Emergency fees were held earlier - the security service did not allow to relax much. But these were teaching and testing operations, the results of which confirmed the qualifications of the employees, the division's rating was adjusted, and with it the financing. And in such cases, the group commander was always informed. But he did not receive such orders from the time of service in the fleet. Not every day a citizen receives an order to attack a small complex Hyper-Tech with a detailed plan of the operation and permission to use heavy weapons.
The man shrugged. Work is work. The brain of the military has already calculated the time to collect the team, equipment and advance to the object. The beginning of the operation fit into the protocol hour. “Just like in old times,” the man smiled to himself, running out of his house.
***
NBS emergency advice went very quickly. At this time, no one was going anywhere - people met in a virtual environment. Visually, the virtual space was no different from the meeting room, where the council usually met in person.
- In accordance with the protocol for such a situation, I am appointed as acting head of the corporation. Does anyone have any objections, comments or suggestions?
The head of the implant unit looked around. Few people even wanted to charge themselves with at least a temporary one, but looking after a large corporation, realizing that the acting head will still come back and will have to be accountable for bad decisions to her. The risk of making unsuccessful decisions in this situation was great. And no one knew what state the Dyad would be back in. Nobody had any questions - Divor An arranged everything.
- Good. Byrd, we all got acquainted with your record from the hall. What did you learn during the half hour?
- Nothing, Divor. Nothing at all. How an explosive device fell into our area of ​​responsibility is unknown. My employees have now raised all the records for the last two months, but the result will be no earlier than the end of the day. The executor and customer of the terrorist attack are still unknown. The security service was transferred to enhanced mode, the complexes were transferred to the second civil security protocol. I used the old agency and my connections, but so far only the data collection takes place.
- Dyad said something about Hypertech.
- I do not know about it. What exactly?
- What is Hypertech all rigged.
- This is a joke?
“If it was a joke, it would be with them ...” Divor sighed. - And how did it happen that Riek Sergev left the complex alone, and Dyad stayed with you?
- Dyad asked me to clarify the file of some people participating in the upcoming party. I gave her the results.
- To transfer results is a matter of several seconds.
- Dyad has clarifying questions. On the move, it was inconvenient to decide. We lingered a little.
- Strange is all. Will Diade just get lucky? After all, surely they wanted to remove it. Did you give any special orders after your departure?
- Not. I had to prepare a more detailed report on the incident and give it to you. Unfortunately, at the moment I have nothing to tell you. Every half hour I will provide the current report.
- Good. Then we let you go. If you need anything, contact me directly.
- Got it.
Byrd disappeared from the room. Divor thoughtfully looked at the unreal table.
- I hope everyone has their own security services transferred to enhanced mode?
“As soon as the information appeared,” the woman answered for everyone.
- Did anybody have any problems when changing the security level?
Sitting people shook their heads.
- Dyad too quickly wound up on her ship, not even bothering to write down any appeal. I understand her. But now we have to convince everyone that the head of the corporation did not die during the terrorist attack. If it disappears immediately after the incident, it will not be so easy. I will act as a press boy and at the same time I will control the investigation. I ask you to respond promptly to the calls. I am also always available for you.
***
Irek Ong regretfully pulled away from the records. The fact that Riek Sergev was jumping through all the inhabited worlds was not surprising given the nature of his work. And the fact that he had close ties with the clergymen was also not very surprised. But if you believe these records, it turned out that about three months ago, a meeting took place in the temple of one peripheral world and during its holding the protection was used. There was also nothing suspicious about this - the head of the corporate division always has something to hide. However, judging by the study of the type of protection used, it turned out that in a single room two Statil stations worked in concert. The message of the agent must, of course, be cross-checked, but the intuitively old employee of the Security Center of the CMB felt that there was something there. If such rare and specific devices as “Calm” were used, the level of negotiations corresponded to the governmental one. Three months ago, it was just when the NBS curtailed the “Warranty” project. And Ireka was very interested in the identity of the second person, who was in the confessional room number 14/3. A lot of time has passed since that meeting, but it was worth trying to find information.
Irek answered the call.
- Well, that one ...
The head of the security service of the CMS looked at him point-blank.
- Where is Dyad Itvor?
- After the incident at the main complex of the NBS, in which Riek Sergeev suffered, she caused
your transport and climbed into orbit. Two hours ago, her "Karamun" went into the jump at a distance of half a million kilometers above the ecliptic of the system. She allegedly flew to Zimurg to the NBS experimental base for an attempt to restore Sergeev’s body. Chef, I have been studying for Serge for the last few months and ...
Irek interrupted in mid-sentence under the heavy gaze of the chief.
- What's the matter?
- What is the matter - this is my question for you! Did you see the news? Put aside your work in chapters. And start collecting a chronicle of routine. You can attract anyone, I have expanded your powers almost to infinity. Every half an hour I need updated reports.
The head is disconnected. Irek, sensing evil, reached into the infoset. As always, in such situations, the headlines were enough for an experienced investigator to draw the appropriate conclusions. “The NBS fighting teams struck a concerted simultaneous blow to small Hypertech complexes on several worlds,” “The head of the Hypertech corporation’s security made a statement that the NBS couldn’t get away with an apology and receive a decent response,” around the home of the Hypertech head in the world of Vanta ”,“ The head of security of the NBS stated that Hypertech was responsible for the terrorist attack and the NBS has evidence of this, ”“ The security team of Hyper-Tech collided with the militants of the NBS ”, the CECs have declared war on each other. ”
Terrorist attack? On one of the central planets SPM? Irek Ong could not even remember when this was the last time. It’s not that everything was quiet in the SPM and nothing exploded anywhere. But the attack of this level! It broke out beyond the usual perception of the world.
***
The transport ship left the jump at an intermediate point on its route. The transport navigator began to receive data from the radar complex and after half an hour passed its verdict.
- I see "Cesius". At seventy millions from us. In two hundred millions one more ship.
- It is strange, as far as I remember, at this point, apart from us with “Cesius,” there should be no one else now. - The captain thought. - Contact “Cesius”: we are all right, ready to jump in two and a half hours.
The leading and driven transports continued to move in the same course at a speed of about one hundred and forty kilometers per second.
The captain of the battleship "Oridon-3", a warship of the space forces of the Republic of Kraon, received a notice of gravitational disturbance ten minutes after the transport ship appeared in the system. Twenty minutes later, the radar complex determined the exact location of the new ship. Within half an hour, the captain was convinced of the immutability of the transport ships and declared alarm. While the accumulators of pulsed torpedoes were charging, equipment was prepared for opening hyper-junctions. Five minutes before the full charge of the drives, each torpedo complex began to work actively. Powerful installations created beams of coherent radiation, along which plasma began to be ejected into the space like rails. After several plasma emissions, the focused emitters of the hyperfield started to work. At a distance of half a million kilometers from the battleship an unbalanced line of small flashes formed. The torpedo drives were fully charged by this time and the battleship made a volley. Torpedoes rotating at a wild speed around its axis took twenty minutes to reach the hyperjunction points. In the immediate vicinity of the hyper-transitions, the timers worked, small warheads separated from the torpedoes and, after a few seconds, the torpedoes exploded, forming rapidly expanding and rotating plasma cones. . , , , , , .
After two dozen seconds at a distance of half a million kilometers near the transport ships in the usual space flashed bright flashes. The sensor equipment of the transports recorded a weak gravitational disturbance and immediately failed due to the impact of a high-energy wave. Navigation and communications equipment was damaged. The process of restarting hyperdrives violated, the jump preparation cycle was abnormally stopped. Ordinary civilian transports did not have any protection against such electromagnetic shocks and, after the first one, were completely blind and lost the possibility of communication with the outside world. Half an hour later, a second stream of powerful radiation passed through the ships. After several electromagnetic strikes, the internal systems of the ships began to fail.
Having completed the attack with an electromagnetic weapon, the battleship jumped. The deviation of the exit point coordinates at close jumps is much less than at distant ones, therefore, when after four hours the battleship emerged from hyperspace, it was separated from the transport no more than two million kilometers. The railgun batteries on the starboard side flashed faintly, and projectiles from high-strength alloys rushed to an invisible point of transport. Having made several volleys, the battleship fired two flocks of missiles after the shells and began maneuvering to intercept the transport ship Cesius. The fate of this ship is predetermined: in an hour, if the transport does not change course, it will enter that small part of outer space, in which it will be pierced through heavy blanks flying at high speed. The first wave of missiles arriving will damage the ship’s external body kit and engines, and the second,penetrating into the holes already existing in the hull, will cause heavy damage inside the ship. The crews of the ships do not know that their spacecraft will soon turn into a piece of useless and lifeless metal and all this hour they will try to restore the working capacity of systems that have failed.
Space battle was not. It was a cold and calculated murder.
***
A man in an expensive suit sat on a soft couch and looked at a part of the wall in the room where news bulletins were displayed, which now came out almost every ten minutes. The decor in the room was quite austere - a sofa, a table and a couple of chairs. On the table was a terminal cube connected to the information network. A person entered the infoset not directly, but through the terminal, using a neural network connection with it. The pose of the person and his jerky movements showed that he was waiting for something intensely. Finally, he received a call.
- I'm listening.
“Contact was eight hours ago.” Two transport NBS.
- Accepted.
The man sighed and sent a newsletter to the news agencies with the headline "Hypertech shot down two NBS vehicles in the peripheral world."
***
- What's happening? You are the head of SAFETY! How?I ask, HOW did this happen? Such a friendly, successful and prosperous Union of Central Worlds and suddenly two corporations plunge it into darkness. Look at the headlines in the media!
- We understand, Mr. President. At the moment, the main version is a large-scale sabotage. The heads of the security services of the NBS and Hyper-Tech, after they made resonant statements, are nowhere to be found. And ... I need broad powers to restore order.
- “Mr. President” - the President has mocked the head of the SC of the SC. - Yes, to hell with the formalities! How wide?
— . – . , . . , , .
— ?
— . – . . , , , . , . … . . . . .
— ?
— .
- Oh well. - The head of the SPM predictably twisted. - In the end, we must immediately make it clear that the central power is power. And corporations - for the Union, not the Union for corporations. Day? It'll be enough? Can you imagine what it means to introduce an emergency at least for a day? The coordination centers will go insane during this time.
- I think we can handle it in a day. I would not like to attract the fleet, but it would be better to intimidate the corporate officers that if there is at least one more incident in space, then ... the ICF will be attracted. On HyperTech, this should have a very sobering effect - they have the base of the seventh fleet at their side. And although their relations are surely warm, I have no doubt that the naval order of Arus will be executed without hesitation.
“Besides analytics, I need a detailed and chronologically correct reconstruction of events.” Who, where, when.
- Irek Ong is already doing this.
***
After a day, the situation inside the SCM did not improve. The military confrontation of corporations resulted in violent clashes not only on the surface of the planets, but also in space. Nobody paid any attention to the appeals of the government. The suddenly straightened spring of centuries-old enmity, combined with some deep internal corporate mechanisms could bring the situation to the extreme in a matter of tens of hours. No one understood how this could ever happen. Not even inside the corporations understood.
The fighting was local in nature and almost did not affect the civilian sector. At first, the information was perceived by people as some kind of ridiculous incident that did not directly concern them. Lightning-scattered news about the destruction of two NBS transports made people alert. A little later, the information about the complete destruction of two passenger liners and the severe damage to the orbital terminal provoked a panic. No one anywhere felt safe. The security service of the CMS has admitted that it is unable to take the situation under complete control. The public, moving away from the shock of the first day, attacked the government, criticizing its apparent inaction. And when the government's patience was over, the Navy got the go-ahead for their work. A state of emergency has been extended for a week.
During the week, warships of the All-Union Parliamentary Federation blocked almost the entire interplanetary internal space communication, distributed over the entire space of the SPM. Fighting groups that quickly took control of the complexes of the two corporations were dropped onto the planets. Hypertech, one of the first captured complexes, put up active resistance and, in the astranet, the record of the exponential operation for its complete destruction spread at the speed of light. Responsibility for those killed in the complex of people was placed on the head of the division of Hypertech, who owned this complex. A week after the start of the VCF operation, a fighting group was present at each complex of the NBS and Hypertech, which completely controlled the security system of the complex and was subordinate only to the Fleet.Heads of corporate divisions were taken to the central world to investigate the incident. The authorities and society were in a state of depressive confusion - the success and well-being of the Union of Central Worlds turned out to be so fragile that reason refused to take this fact seriously.
As a result of the shutdown of the space transport infrastructure, the SCM economy received a disappointing outlook for the near future. The absence of even one ship has a serious impact on the planning of economic activity. Stopped long-established supply of products. This had a strong impact on production. Sharply changed the structure of demand. Worlds markets responded quickly and violently. Unaccustomed to such sudden crisis situations, the population was crushed and confused, and the price bumpage only fueled panic, exacerbating an already difficult situation. Against this background, the model of semi-automatic coordinating centers unexpectedly well proved itself, which, when additional information was received, promptly and effectively recalculated the distribution of the remaining resources practically without the participation of people.
Dyad Itvor, the head of the NBS corporation, who contacted four days after her sudden and untimely disappearance, was forced to urgently fly to Nomir. Many reasonably hoped that with the advent of Ivor, the conflict would be settled and the worlds would return to their usual life cycles.
Unexpected meeting.Chapter 13.
Text version: 1.1.3.
Date of first publication: 07/09/2017.
Last edited Date: September 14, 2017.
The full table of contents is given in Chapter 1 .
Quick navigation:
Chapter 12 - previous chapter.
Chapter 13 is the current chapter.
Chapter 14 is the next chapter.
« Wordpress ».
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- / , - . . , , , , - . . , Wordpress :
in the file wp-config.php. This directive disables only auto-update, but does not disable periodic checking for updates. Therefore, if there are updates by going to the admin area under the admin, notifications will be immediately visible and their installation for the engine, plug-ins and / or topics can be resolved manually.
After some time, abundant hyphenation of text ran into my eyes. With them, the text is well aligned vertically, evenly filling the entire space of the page, but it is very unusual. This issue is solved through styles - in style.css you need to disable hyphens.
We are looking for something like this:
And here's the following view:
Another point is related to the fact that someone named Andrew treacherously attacked my blog and systematically sent letters with typos starting in the first chapter. Sometimes I get the feeling that I am posting the texts of the story purely for proofreading :) Andrew, thanks for the work, most of the chapters were updated by your efforts to version 1.0.1. So, a friend used this feedback form from the site, which is organized using the “Contact Form 7” plugin. It is very simple to make a functional form with this plugin - you need to create a form and set it up; some shortcode of the type [contact-form-7 id = "101" title = "Feedback"] will be assigned to the form. Next, create a page with the feedback address and prescribe this shortcode. And then the link to this page can be registered in a convenient place of the site. Letters regularly arrived and it was nice that the equipment works without failures, but it became a little inconvenient in front of a person due to the fact that it would be possible to implement this functionality more conveniently.
Yes, I mean the Orphus system, when it is enough to select a word or combination of words with a mouse and press Ctrl + Enter - a letter with notification is sent to the site / article owner. For Wordpress there is a special plugin that adds similar functionality to the site. I would especially note - autonomous functionality. In our age, when it is believed that the “cloud in the pants” and always with you, autonomous things acquire special value. Unlike Orphus, where you need to register, download the script and connect it to the site, simply install the Mistape plugin. Configuring quite a few plugin settings is simple and at the end of each article on the site will appear a notification text about the possibility of using Ctrl + Enter. But ... there are some moments.
First, when checking in different browsers, it turned out that sending a notification for some reason only works stably when using the left Ctrl. Secondly, when you select a long sentence by pressing the Ctrl + Enter buttons, nothing happens at all - it was established empirically that only a certain number of characters in the region of 10-15 words are sent without any problems (it depends on the length of the words). Thirdly, somewhere I read that the developers made protection against spam (reasonably, especially if the plugin is configured to add a comment to the sent notification), which is not mentioned in the help of the plugin more than five messages (although I got more ) in half an hour you will not send - by pressing the Ctrl + Enter buttons, nothing at all happens when the limit is reached. I have added all this non-obvious information to the notification text, which displays the plugin in the articles on the site.
Comment from the author and abstract
Comment on the author.
An unexpected meeting is my experimental literary project. The project is based on my thoughts on the model of controlled development of civilization, ideas about future technological advances, as well as some thoughts on scientific and technical progress, its role and implications for the development of human civilization. The idea of ​​the book originated in 2013-2014, but only at the end of 2015 I had free time and I was able to start working on it. Initially, a series of separate stories was planned, but in the process of creating a single universe for stories, I preferred to try to write a whole science fiction work.
Annotation.
Two former graduates of the Academy of the Space Fleet, who have not seen each other for a long time, unexpectedly meet on a cargo ship. Both are working on the task of providing support ship cargo. However, after the almost completed regular inspection of the ship and the cargo on it, events occur that prevent further divergence of their life paths. In an atmosphere of mutual distrust, heroes have to figure out what is happening and look for solutions to emerging problems. After the overall situation on the ship becomes clear, there is another unexpected encounter that not only has a strong influence on the future of both heroes, but also triggers larger-scale events in the worlds inhabited by people.
An unexpected meeting is my experimental literary project. The project is based on my thoughts on the model of controlled development of civilization, ideas about future technological advances, as well as some thoughts on scientific and technical progress, its role and implications for the development of human civilization. The idea of ​​the book originated in 2013-2014, but only at the end of 2015 I had free time and I was able to start working on it. Initially, a series of separate stories was planned, but in the process of creating a single universe for stories, I preferred to try to write a whole science fiction work.
Annotation.
Two former graduates of the Academy of the Space Fleet, who have not seen each other for a long time, unexpectedly meet on a cargo ship. Both are working on the task of providing support ship cargo. However, after the almost completed regular inspection of the ship and the cargo on it, events occur that prevent further divergence of their life paths. In an atmosphere of mutual distrust, heroes have to figure out what is happening and look for solutions to emerging problems. After the overall situation on the ship becomes clear, there is another unexpected encounter that not only has a strong influence on the future of both heroes, but also triggers larger-scale events in the worlds inhabited by people.
For those who read for the first time or read a long time ago: decoding used abbreviations
VKF - Military Space Fleet
ZKP - Spare Command Point
AI - Artificial Intelligence
KIRP - Kinetic Induction Rotary Gun
NBS - NeuroBiosystem (corporation in SPM)
Security Center of CMS - Security Service of CMS
SCM - Union of Central Worlds
FIPI - Physio-Intellectual-Psychological Index (person)
CCTS - Central Command Telemetry System
TSUK - Ship Control Center
EMIG - Electromagnetic Pulsed Grenade
ZKP - Spare Command Point
AI - Artificial Intelligence
KIRP - Kinetic Induction Rotary Gun
NBS - NeuroBiosystem (corporation in SPM)
Security Center of CMS - Security Service of CMS
SCM - Union of Central Worlds
FIPI - Physio-Intellectual-Psychological Index (person)
CCTS - Central Command Telemetry System
TSUK - Ship Control Center
EMIG - Electromagnetic Pulsed Grenade
- Have you studied the dossier on the meeting participants?
- Of course I studied. How can I ignore the direct orders of my immediate superior?
- Oh, Riek. - Dyad playfully clung to him and quickly pulled away. - and? Any questions?
- I already know eighty percent of the list. Are some people only busy not to miss parties, numerous meetings, virtual participation and other events?
- This is high life. Alone this live. Others - earn. We are also going to make some money in some sense - some things go beyond the framework of official business meetings.
Dyad and Riek left the living room and went down to the ground floor. On the way to the exit, in a long hall, the head of the security service overtook them almost at a run.
“Dyad, I need to steal a few minutes from you.”
- Byrd, we have a meeting! Well, what can you have there urgent?
- It is confidential and very important. Dyad, I understand everything, but this may concern the current meeting - you should know this. I don't often run after you, skipping. Maximum five minutes.
Dyad displeased stopped.
- Oh well. Riek, will you wait for me in the car?
“Of course,” Riak smiled, “if I don’t wait five minutes later, I’ll leave alone.”
The woman smiled and turned to Berdom, looking at him searchingly. Riek did not linger and went to the exit. Byrd absentmindedly looked at Dyad, whose eyes had also become absent-minded. Riak went outside the building and headed for the three air vehicles, which were located near the entrance. The neural network communication of Dyad and Birdom ended just at that moment, when Riek was getting into an airmobile.
- Are you sure about this data? - usually the imperturbable face of Dyad looked surprised and confused.
Byrdom's answer drowned out a powerful blast. The front translucent framing of the building cracked. Hall dulled from the shock wave. A large funnel was formed at the site of the aeromobile parking. Two cars scattered in different directions, shapeless piles of metal, one of which was smoking. The security protocol of the building worked instantly: the cars were still falling, and the internal armored partitions had already cut off the elevated floors of the building from the outside world. The battle modules emerged from under the ground and the walls of the building and took control of the space, forming a security dome above the building. The beautiful and iridescent, silvery building of the NBS corporation was quickly turning into a bristling, gloomily deadly gray building in front of his eyes.
Dyad, who quickly recovered herself, swiftly rushed to the already half-advanced partitions, but by some miracle managed to catch her hand, almost turning it out.
“There ... There Riak,” Dyada shouted in a choking voice.
A pair of only people in the lobby brought all the combat modules, which appeared from under the ceiling at the same time as the beginning of the booking of the building’s floors.
- Dyad! The security protocol works. We are both corporate employees, but this is the second line of external security and our behavior is now suspicious. Take it easy!
Dyad stopped tearing. The man let go of her hand. When the armored bulkheads were fully advanced, with a quiet clanging in place, Dyad turned around. From the ceiling for two people watched KIRP. Dyad knew that somewhere in the depth of the hall, on the sides of the elevator were pulsed guns, and at the corners of the hall - compact cluster rocket launchers. The lighting of the room has changed: the light has become less and it has been distributed so as to make it difficult to detect firing points.
- All the worst has already ended. The system worked automatically. It is necessary to return the building to normal operation. Dyad?
Diad Ivor, the head of the NBS corporation, with a grim face, made a confident step towards the elevator.
***
Dyad sat at the table. All that was required of her now was to wait. In orbit hung her personal ship, from which, in violation of all the rules, the spacecraft urgently launched. Rules? Yes, do not care about them. The notification was sent to the aerospace control center. The route was laid with maximum overloads, the reverse ascent will not be the same not easy, but there is simply no time to move along comfortable paths. Tens of minutes there, tens of minutes here. Then the ship will accelerate to jump. In Hyper will pass the clock. After exiting the hypera, you will need to get to the desired planet, and then to the complex on it. Time, time and time - everywhere one time. A dyad could buy almost anything. But no one will sell her some hours so much needed right now.
The spaceship will probably have to undergo deep maintenance after such a flight, but Dyad now had little interest in this question. For some reason now she was thinking about how the day began today. The larger a person is, the harder it is for him to find a suitable match for himself. She liked that Riak fell asleep, clinging to her. In the mornings she woke up before him, pressed herself against a warm body and listened to the rhythm of his heart or breathing. Usually it was impossible to get over to him imperceptibly, Riek woke up, hugged her and, if she behaved with a quiet mouse, he fell asleep again and she was drowsy sensitively in his arms. Dyad was getting used to not being alone. And now what? Again this will not happen?
- Hypertech! - Dyad clenched fists. - They are always too jealous of the allocation of resources. But this?! This is too much! Besides your source, is there any other data? Because while it looks too fantastic to be a reality.
- We analyze the place of the explosion. So far I can say that the characteristics of the explosive device and the style of execution are similar to the work of the Seventh Fleet Retor. But this is very preliminary.
“The Seventh Fleet ... is this the world of Guy?”
- Yes it is.
- It is there that is the second largest and most significant complex in Hypertech. Bastards!
To his surprise, the lexicon of the head of the security service was supplemented with very capacious expressions that colorfully describe the current situation. Byrd had no illusions about his boss. Dyad Ivor successfully led the largest corporation in the SPM and at times made such Jesuit decisions that it seemed to Byrdom that he was working for the devil himself. However, he had never seen her like that.
After the unflattering comments about the rival corporation, the woman jumped up from the table and began to nervously walk around the office. Suddenly, she froze, receiving a neural network notification.
- Transportation has arrived.
- I spend.
The spacecraft landed right on the park area in front of the main NBS complex. Immediately, people rushed to him, next to whom two mobile medical capsules moved. Dyad Itvor quickly walked towards the ship giving orders on the go.
- Byrd?
- I'm here.
- I will not be some time. The corporation at this time will be governed by a council, an emergency fee, which is appointed in half an hour. Everything is already up to date. Prepare the materials - your presentation will be waiting.
- I will need the authority to work quickly and efficiently. Your absence may be bad for this.
- For the next half hour you have unlimited powers. A temporary chapter will be appointed to the council. You will continue to work with him.
- How long will you be?
“I don't know, Byrd.” I don't know yet. Experimental center is not close. I don’t even know if we are taking ... - Dyad stumbled, - what was left of him.
- I understood. Medcapsule readings are stable for half an hour. I do not think that in the next few hours something will change. Tune in that everything will be fine with delivery.
- Thanks Byrd.
The woman quickly climbed aboard. The ramp closed, the hinged doors closed and the spacecraft immediately soared into the air.
***
- Are you exactly authorized to issue such orders? - The commander of the NBS special task force looked puzzled.
A few minutes later he received an additional confirmation.
- Take dopkody. Consider that this order is given to ltvor personally.
The military accepted the data and confirmed their correctness. After receiving the order, he immediately sent calls to all team members. The fighters will receive congratulatory rhymes that will make them drop everything and rush headlong to the point of emergency gathering. Emergency fees were held earlier - the security service did not allow to relax much. But these were teaching and testing operations, the results of which confirmed the qualifications of the employees, the division's rating was adjusted, and with it the financing. And in such cases, the group commander was always informed. But he did not receive such orders from the time of service in the fleet. Not every day a citizen receives an order to attack a small complex Hyper-Tech with a detailed plan of the operation and permission to use heavy weapons.
The man shrugged. Work is work. The brain of the military has already calculated the time to collect the team, equipment and advance to the object. The beginning of the operation fit into the protocol hour. “Just like in old times,” the man smiled to himself, running out of his house.
***
NBS emergency advice went very quickly. At this time, no one was going anywhere - people met in a virtual environment. Visually, the virtual space was no different from the meeting room, where the council usually met in person.
- In accordance with the protocol for such a situation, I am appointed as acting head of the corporation. Does anyone have any objections, comments or suggestions?
The head of the implant unit looked around. Few people even wanted to charge themselves with at least a temporary one, but looking after a large corporation, realizing that the acting head will still come back and will have to be accountable for bad decisions to her. The risk of making unsuccessful decisions in this situation was great. And no one knew what state the Dyad would be back in. Nobody had any questions - Divor An arranged everything.
- Good. Byrd, we all got acquainted with your record from the hall. What did you learn during the half hour?
- Nothing, Divor. Nothing at all. How an explosive device fell into our area of ​​responsibility is unknown. My employees have now raised all the records for the last two months, but the result will be no earlier than the end of the day. The executor and customer of the terrorist attack are still unknown. The security service was transferred to enhanced mode, the complexes were transferred to the second civil security protocol. I used the old agency and my connections, but so far only the data collection takes place.
- Dyad said something about Hypertech.
- I do not know about it. What exactly?
- What is Hypertech all rigged.
- This is a joke?
“If it was a joke, it would be with them ...” Divor sighed. - And how did it happen that Riek Sergev left the complex alone, and Dyad stayed with you?
- Dyad asked me to clarify the file of some people participating in the upcoming party. I gave her the results.
- To transfer results is a matter of several seconds.
- Dyad has clarifying questions. On the move, it was inconvenient to decide. We lingered a little.
- Strange is all. Will Diade just get lucky? After all, surely they wanted to remove it. Did you give any special orders after your departure?
- Not. I had to prepare a more detailed report on the incident and give it to you. Unfortunately, at the moment I have nothing to tell you. Every half hour I will provide the current report.
- Good. Then we let you go. If you need anything, contact me directly.
- Got it.
Byrd disappeared from the room. Divor thoughtfully looked at the unreal table.
- I hope everyone has their own security services transferred to enhanced mode?
“As soon as the information appeared,” the woman answered for everyone.
- Did anybody have any problems when changing the security level?
Sitting people shook their heads.
- Dyad too quickly wound up on her ship, not even bothering to write down any appeal. I understand her. But now we have to convince everyone that the head of the corporation did not die during the terrorist attack. If it disappears immediately after the incident, it will not be so easy. I will act as a press boy and at the same time I will control the investigation. I ask you to respond promptly to the calls. I am also always available for you.
***
Irek Ong regretfully pulled away from the records. The fact that Riek Sergev was jumping through all the inhabited worlds was not surprising given the nature of his work. And the fact that he had close ties with the clergymen was also not very surprised. But if you believe these records, it turned out that about three months ago, a meeting took place in the temple of one peripheral world and during its holding the protection was used. There was also nothing suspicious about this - the head of the corporate division always has something to hide. However, judging by the study of the type of protection used, it turned out that in a single room two Statil stations worked in concert. The message of the agent must, of course, be cross-checked, but the intuitively old employee of the Security Center of the CMB felt that there was something there. If such rare and specific devices as “Calm” were used, the level of negotiations corresponded to the governmental one. Three months ago, it was just when the NBS curtailed the “Warranty” project. And Ireka was very interested in the identity of the second person, who was in the confessional room number 14/3. A lot of time has passed since that meeting, but it was worth trying to find information.
Irek answered the call.
- Well, that one ...
The head of the security service of the CMS looked at him point-blank.
- Where is Dyad Itvor?
- After the incident at the main complex of the NBS, in which Riek Sergeev suffered, she caused
your transport and climbed into orbit. Two hours ago, her "Karamun" went into the jump at a distance of half a million kilometers above the ecliptic of the system. She allegedly flew to Zimurg to the NBS experimental base for an attempt to restore Sergeev’s body. Chef, I have been studying for Serge for the last few months and ...
Irek interrupted in mid-sentence under the heavy gaze of the chief.
- What's the matter?
- What is the matter - this is my question for you! Did you see the news? Put aside your work in chapters. And start collecting a chronicle of routine. You can attract anyone, I have expanded your powers almost to infinity. Every half an hour I need updated reports.
The head is disconnected. Irek, sensing evil, reached into the infoset. As always, in such situations, the headlines were enough for an experienced investigator to draw the appropriate conclusions. “The NBS fighting teams struck a concerted simultaneous blow to small Hypertech complexes on several worlds,” “The head of the Hypertech corporation’s security made a statement that the NBS couldn’t get away with an apology and receive a decent response,” around the home of the Hypertech head in the world of Vanta ”,“ The head of security of the NBS stated that Hypertech was responsible for the terrorist attack and the NBS has evidence of this, ”“ The security team of Hyper-Tech collided with the militants of the NBS ”, the CECs have declared war on each other. ”
Terrorist attack? On one of the central planets SPM? Irek Ong could not even remember when this was the last time. It’s not that everything was quiet in the SPM and nothing exploded anywhere. But the attack of this level! It broke out beyond the usual perception of the world.
***
The transport ship left the jump at an intermediate point on its route. The transport navigator began to receive data from the radar complex and after half an hour passed its verdict.
- I see "Cesius". At seventy millions from us. In two hundred millions one more ship.
- It is strange, as far as I remember, at this point, apart from us with “Cesius,” there should be no one else now. - The captain thought. - Contact “Cesius”: we are all right, ready to jump in two and a half hours.
The leading and driven transports continued to move in the same course at a speed of about one hundred and forty kilometers per second.
The captain of the battleship "Oridon-3", a warship of the space forces of the Republic of Kraon, received a notice of gravitational disturbance ten minutes after the transport ship appeared in the system. Twenty minutes later, the radar complex determined the exact location of the new ship. Within half an hour, the captain was convinced of the immutability of the transport ships and declared alarm. While the accumulators of pulsed torpedoes were charging, equipment was prepared for opening hyper-junctions. Five minutes before the full charge of the drives, each torpedo complex began to work actively. Powerful installations created beams of coherent radiation, along which plasma began to be ejected into the space like rails. After several plasma emissions, the focused emitters of the hyperfield started to work. At a distance of half a million kilometers from the battleship an unbalanced line of small flashes formed. The torpedo drives were fully charged by this time and the battleship made a volley. Torpedoes rotating at a wild speed around its axis took twenty minutes to reach the hyperjunction points. In the immediate vicinity of the hyper-transitions, the timers worked, small warheads separated from the torpedoes and, after a few seconds, the torpedoes exploded, forming rapidly expanding and rotating plasma cones. . , , , , , .
After two dozen seconds at a distance of half a million kilometers near the transport ships in the usual space flashed bright flashes. The sensor equipment of the transports recorded a weak gravitational disturbance and immediately failed due to the impact of a high-energy wave. Navigation and communications equipment was damaged. The process of restarting hyperdrives violated, the jump preparation cycle was abnormally stopped. Ordinary civilian transports did not have any protection against such electromagnetic shocks and, after the first one, were completely blind and lost the possibility of communication with the outside world. Half an hour later, a second stream of powerful radiation passed through the ships. After several electromagnetic strikes, the internal systems of the ships began to fail.
Having completed the attack with an electromagnetic weapon, the battleship jumped. The deviation of the exit point coordinates at close jumps is much less than at distant ones, therefore, when after four hours the battleship emerged from hyperspace, it was separated from the transport no more than two million kilometers. The railgun batteries on the starboard side flashed faintly, and projectiles from high-strength alloys rushed to an invisible point of transport. Having made several volleys, the battleship fired two flocks of missiles after the shells and began maneuvering to intercept the transport ship Cesius. The fate of this ship is predetermined: in an hour, if the transport does not change course, it will enter that small part of outer space, in which it will be pierced through heavy blanks flying at high speed. The first wave of missiles arriving will damage the ship’s external body kit and engines, and the second,penetrating into the holes already existing in the hull, will cause heavy damage inside the ship. The crews of the ships do not know that their spacecraft will soon turn into a piece of useless and lifeless metal and all this hour they will try to restore the working capacity of systems that have failed.
Space battle was not. It was a cold and calculated murder.
***
A man in an expensive suit sat on a soft couch and looked at a part of the wall in the room where news bulletins were displayed, which now came out almost every ten minutes. The decor in the room was quite austere - a sofa, a table and a couple of chairs. On the table was a terminal cube connected to the information network. A person entered the infoset not directly, but through the terminal, using a neural network connection with it. The pose of the person and his jerky movements showed that he was waiting for something intensely. Finally, he received a call.
- I'm listening.
“Contact was eight hours ago.” Two transport NBS.
- Accepted.
The man sighed and sent a newsletter to the news agencies with the headline "Hypertech shot down two NBS vehicles in the peripheral world."
***
- What's happening? You are the head of SAFETY! How?I ask, HOW did this happen? Such a friendly, successful and prosperous Union of Central Worlds and suddenly two corporations plunge it into darkness. Look at the headlines in the media!
- We understand, Mr. President. At the moment, the main version is a large-scale sabotage. The heads of the security services of the NBS and Hyper-Tech, after they made resonant statements, are nowhere to be found. And ... I need broad powers to restore order.
- “Mr. President” - the President has mocked the head of the SC of the SC. - Yes, to hell with the formalities! How wide?
— . – . , . . , , .
— ?
— . – . . , , , . , . … . . . . .
— ?
— .
- Oh well. - The head of the SPM predictably twisted. - In the end, we must immediately make it clear that the central power is power. And corporations - for the Union, not the Union for corporations. Day? It'll be enough? Can you imagine what it means to introduce an emergency at least for a day? The coordination centers will go insane during this time.
- I think we can handle it in a day. I would not like to attract the fleet, but it would be better to intimidate the corporate officers that if there is at least one more incident in space, then ... the ICF will be attracted. On HyperTech, this should have a very sobering effect - they have the base of the seventh fleet at their side. And although their relations are surely warm, I have no doubt that the naval order of Arus will be executed without hesitation.
“Besides analytics, I need a detailed and chronologically correct reconstruction of events.” Who, where, when.
- Irek Ong is already doing this.
***
After a day, the situation inside the SCM did not improve. The military confrontation of corporations resulted in violent clashes not only on the surface of the planets, but also in space. Nobody paid any attention to the appeals of the government. The suddenly straightened spring of centuries-old enmity, combined with some deep internal corporate mechanisms could bring the situation to the extreme in a matter of tens of hours. No one understood how this could ever happen. Not even inside the corporations understood.
The fighting was local in nature and almost did not affect the civilian sector. At first, the information was perceived by people as some kind of ridiculous incident that did not directly concern them. Lightning-scattered news about the destruction of two NBS transports made people alert. A little later, the information about the complete destruction of two passenger liners and the severe damage to the orbital terminal provoked a panic. No one anywhere felt safe. The security service of the CMS has admitted that it is unable to take the situation under complete control. The public, moving away from the shock of the first day, attacked the government, criticizing its apparent inaction. And when the government's patience was over, the Navy got the go-ahead for their work. A state of emergency has been extended for a week.
During the week, warships of the All-Union Parliamentary Federation blocked almost the entire interplanetary internal space communication, distributed over the entire space of the SPM. Fighting groups that quickly took control of the complexes of the two corporations were dropped onto the planets. Hypertech, one of the first captured complexes, put up active resistance and, in the astranet, the record of the exponential operation for its complete destruction spread at the speed of light. Responsibility for those killed in the complex of people was placed on the head of the division of Hypertech, who owned this complex. A week after the start of the VCF operation, a fighting group was present at each complex of the NBS and Hypertech, which completely controlled the security system of the complex and was subordinate only to the Fleet.Heads of corporate divisions were taken to the central world to investigate the incident. The authorities and society were in a state of depressive confusion - the success and well-being of the Union of Central Worlds turned out to be so fragile that reason refused to take this fact seriously.
As a result of the shutdown of the space transport infrastructure, the SCM economy received a disappointing outlook for the near future. The absence of even one ship has a serious impact on the planning of economic activity. Stopped long-established supply of products. This had a strong impact on production. Sharply changed the structure of demand. Worlds markets responded quickly and violently. Unaccustomed to such sudden crisis situations, the population was crushed and confused, and the price bumpage only fueled panic, exacerbating an already difficult situation. Against this background, the model of semi-automatic coordinating centers unexpectedly well proved itself, which, when additional information was received, promptly and effectively recalculated the distribution of the remaining resources practically without the participation of people.
Dyad Itvor, the head of the NBS corporation, who contacted four days after her sudden and untimely disappearance, was forced to urgently fly to Nomir. Many reasonably hoped that with the advent of Ivor, the conflict would be settled and the worlds would return to their usual life cycles.
Unexpected meeting.Chapter 13.
Text version: 1.1.3.
Date of first publication: 07/09/2017.
Last edited Date: September 14, 2017.
The full table of contents is given in Chapter 1 .
Quick navigation:
Chapter 12 - previous chapter.
Chapter 13 is the current chapter.
Chapter 14 is the next chapter.
« Wordpress ».
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, . . , , 21 , ( ) . ! - , — , .
- / , - . . , , , , - . . , Wordpress :
define('AUTOMATIC_UPDATER_DISABLED', true);
in the file wp-config.php. This directive disables only auto-update, but does not disable periodic checking for updates. Therefore, if there are updates by going to the admin area under the admin, notifications will be immediately visible and their installation for the engine, plug-ins and / or topics can be resolved manually.
After some time, abundant hyphenation of text ran into my eyes. With them, the text is well aligned vertically, evenly filling the entire space of the page, but it is very unusual. This issue is solved through styles - in style.css you need to disable hyphens.
We are looking for something like this:
/* Sidebar */ .widget-area .widget { -webkit-hyphens: auto; -moz-hyphens: auto; hyphens: auto; margin-bottom: 20px; word-wrap: break-word; } .site-content article { border-bottom: 2px double #F3F3F3; margin-bottom: 28px; padding-bottom: 24px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-hyphens: auto; -moz-hyphens: auto; hyphens: auto;
And here's the following view:
/* Sidebar */ .widget-area .widget { -webkit-hyphens: none; -moz-hyphens: none; hyphens: none; margin-bottom: 20px; word-wrap: break-word; } .site-content article { border-bottom: 2px double #F3F3F3; margin-bottom: 28px; padding-bottom: 24px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-hyphens: none; -moz-hyphens: none; hyphens: none;
Another point is related to the fact that someone named Andrew treacherously attacked my blog and systematically sent letters with typos starting in the first chapter. Sometimes I get the feeling that I am posting the texts of the story purely for proofreading :) Andrew, thanks for the work, most of the chapters were updated by your efforts to version 1.0.1. So, a friend used this feedback form from the site, which is organized using the “Contact Form 7” plugin. It is very simple to make a functional form with this plugin - you need to create a form and set it up; some shortcode of the type [contact-form-7 id = "101" title = "Feedback"] will be assigned to the form. Next, create a page with the feedback address and prescribe this shortcode. And then the link to this page can be registered in a convenient place of the site. Letters regularly arrived and it was nice that the equipment works without failures, but it became a little inconvenient in front of a person due to the fact that it would be possible to implement this functionality more conveniently.
Yes, I mean the Orphus system, when it is enough to select a word or combination of words with a mouse and press Ctrl + Enter - a letter with notification is sent to the site / article owner. For Wordpress there is a special plugin that adds similar functionality to the site. I would especially note - autonomous functionality. In our age, when it is believed that the “cloud in the pants” and always with you, autonomous things acquire special value. Unlike Orphus, where you need to register, download the script and connect it to the site, simply install the Mistape plugin. Configuring quite a few plugin settings is simple and at the end of each article on the site will appear a notification text about the possibility of using Ctrl + Enter. But ... there are some moments.
First, when checking in different browsers, it turned out that sending a notification for some reason only works stably when using the left Ctrl. Secondly, when you select a long sentence by pressing the Ctrl + Enter buttons, nothing happens at all - it was established empirically that only a certain number of characters in the region of 10-15 words are sent without any problems (it depends on the length of the words). Thirdly, somewhere I read that the developers made protection against spam (reasonably, especially if the plugin is configured to add a comment to the sent notification), which is not mentioned in the help of the plugin more than five messages (although I got more ) in half an hour you will not send - by pressing the Ctrl + Enter buttons, nothing at all happens when the limit is reached. I have added all this non-obvious information to the notification text, which displays the plugin in the articles on the site.
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