Высокие технологии в современной англоязычной литературе. Часть IV. Методические указания для бакалавров и специалистов 1-2 курсов всех отделений и на

With the roar and the wind of the traffic rushing by, he ran to the guardrail. Below him he saw empty fields, a white farmhouse, and a two-lane blacktop going north and south. The Maserati was sitting at the crossroads, plainly waiting to see if any other car came down the exit behind it. Escher instinctively ducked lower, and watched as the car sat there for a full minute before turning to the right, where a blue arrow pointed toward the town called Cinq Tours.

Task 17

Have you ever driven a Maserati? If you have describe your experience. If you haven‘t , would you like to? Give your reasons.

Task 18

Using the text from task 16 compare the Maserati to the car you or your family have.

Task 19

Write a summary of text 7.

Test 8

Read the text and follow the instructions.

Masello R. The Medusa amulet.-N.Y.: Bantam Books, 2012.-P.491-494

Benvenuto drained his cup, then turned off the desk lamp. He was still wide- awake-she was probably right about the chocolate-but he had an itch to read over the old papers that had been gathering dust in the vaults. He was feeling oddly inspired tonight?

He made his way down to the main floor, then down another flight of stairs to a ponderous steel door, heavy as the door on any bank vault. Pressing his finger, then his eye, to the biometric scan, he turned the wheel and the door swung open. The lights automatically went on and the fans began blowing.

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There were several interconnecting vaults, holding bronze statues, oil paintings in gilded frames, antique tapestries, and cabinets filled with priceless gems. An Ali

Baba‘s cave, if ever there was one. But he didn‘t stop until he came to the deepest and farthest recess of them all. Although the overhead light fixture there was the same wattage as in all the other vaults, for some reason that corner always seemed darker, as if some other force were struggling against the light. Even the marquis had never liked to linger in that spot. Against the farthest wall of rough-hewn rock stood the squat, black safe in which his most valuable treasures were kept. Lowering his head to the lock, he entered the combination, then turned the handles and opened the double doors.

On the bottom shelf, the harpy nestled on its black velvet cushion, right beside the silver garland.

In the middle, the manuscript pages rested in a cracked leather binder, which he removed and placed on top of the safe.

And in the shadowy confines of the topmost shelf, the iron strongbox glinted as silently and dully as a crocodile‘s eye.

He was already closing the safe again when something made him stop. It had been years since he had last opened the iron box-first made to contain the looking glass-and even then he had sworn to himself that he would never do it again.

But at present, for whatever reason, it beckoned to him. His curiosity was aroused, and he found himself drawing the box far enough forward that the circular dials on its lid were revealed.

The combination, of course, was as simple as Caterina‘s nickname, and he turned the circles one by one, carefully, until he heard the tiny click of the lock unlatching.

He paused, wondering if he wanted to go on.

But his fingers, as if possessing a will of their own, were raising the lid and pressing it back on the hinge.

The cold, white light of the vault pierced the black hollow of the box. For a moment, there was no response from the trophy resting inside. But then, as the

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marquis kept his eyes firmly fixed on the mirror affixed to the underside of the lid, it awakened to the sudden glare. Bewildered and unfocused at first, the yellow eyes quickly assumed a desperate cast. The snakes that made up its hair waved in the air, their tiny teeth snapping in vain. The mouth opened in its habitual snarl, as if struggling to cry out.

But even if it could shriek in fury, who besides the marquis could ever have heard it?

He met its gaze in the mirror, trying not to flinch, as the severed head assumed an expression of impotent fury, of seething and inexpressible rage. Even now, he thought, the Gorgon remains the indestructible embodiment of madness, death, and desolation. To behold her reflection was to stare into the abyss. He had thought, many times, of simply consigning his gory prize to the flames. But each time his hand had been stayed by some mysterious impulse. To destroy it would seem a sort of perverse sacrilege. Glad as he was that his own life once again moved forward like anyone else‘s, he was not prepared to eradicate this last living proof of immortality. Life and death, good and evil, were all part of some unknowable cosmic plan, and though he was forever done with his interfering, he was not done with his sense of wonder.

Pressing the lid down until he heard the lock catch, he slid the box backward on the shelf. Then he shut the safe and swiftly retraced his steps through the vault. He swung the heavy door closed, turned the wheel to seal it, and then, clutching the manuscript under one arm, mounted the narrow stairs. The whole way he felt as if there was something right behind him, ready to plant its claw on his shoulder, spin him around and petrify him with its baleful gaze. Only when he had reached the top did he stop and turn around and, after flicking off the lights, stare defiantly into the inky darkness. Nothing stirred, and he slammed the door to the staircase shut with a bang loud enough to awaken the whole arrondissement.

Then he stalked off to his study to continue his story where he had left off so very long ago.

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Task 20

Find the endings of the following sentences:

1.Then he shut the safe and…

2.Only when he had reached the top…

3.His curiosity was aroused…

4.But each time his hand had been stayed…

5.Against the farthest wall…

6.Bewildered and unfocused at first…

7.Pressing his finger, then his eye…

Task 21

Find the following extracts. Translate them into Russian.

―There were several interconnecting vaults … then turned the handles and opened the double doors‖; ―He met its gaze… with his sense of wonder‖

Task 22

What do the texts have in common? What can the plot of the whole book be? Is there anything supernatural about it? Give your reasons.

Text 9

Task 23

Read the text and follow the instructions.

Deaver J. The Burning wire.- L.: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd., 2011.-P.3-9

Sitting in the control center of Algonquin Consolidated Power and Light's sprawling complex on the East River in Queens, New York, the morning supervisor frowned at the pulsing red words on his computer screen. Critical failure.

Below them was frozen the exact time: 11:20:20:003 a.m.

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He lowered his cardboard coffee cup, blue and white with stiff depictions of Greek athletes on it, and sat up in his creaky swivel chair.

The power company control center employees sat in front of individual workstations, like air traffic controllers. The large room was brightly lit and dominated by a massive flat-screen monitor, reporting on the flow of electricity throughout the power grid known as the Northeastern Interconnection, which provided electrical service in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut. The architecture and decor of the control center were quite modern-if the year were 1960.

The supervisor squinted up at the board, which showed the juice arriving from generating plants around the country: steam turbines, reactors and the hydroelectric dam at Niagara Falls. In one tiny portion of the spaghetti depicting these electrical lines, something was wrong. A red circle was flashing. Critical failure…

"What's up?" the supervisor asked. A gray-haired man with a taut belly under his short-sleeved white shirt and thirty years' experience in the electricity business, he was mostly curious. While critical-incident indicator lights came on from time to time, actual critical incidents were very rare.

A young technician replied, "Says we have total breaker separation. MHTwelve."

Dark, unmanned and grimy, Algonquin Consolidated Substation 12, located in Harlem-the "MH" for Manhattan-was a major area substation. It received 138,000 volts and fed the juice through transformers, which stepped it down to 10 percent of that level, divided it up and sent it on its way.

Additional words now popped onto the big screen, glowing red beneath the time and the stark report of the critical failure. MH-12 offline.

The supervisor typed on his computer, recalling the days when this work was done with radio and telephone and insulated switches, amid a smell of oil and brass and hot Bakelite. He read the dense, complicated scroll of text. He spoke softly, as if to himself, "The breakers opened? Why? The load's normal."

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Another message appeared. MH-12 offline. RR to affected service area from MH-17, MH-10, MH-13, NJ-18.

"We've got load rerouting," somebody called unnecessarily.

In the suburbs and countryside the grid is clearly visible-those bare overhead high-tension wires and power poles and service lines running into your house. When a line goes down, there's little difficulty finding and fixing the problem. In many cities, though, like New York, the electricity flows underground, in insulated cables. Because the insulation degrades after time and suffers groundwater damage, resulting in shorts and loss of service, power companies rely on double or even triple redundancy in the grid. When substation MH-12 went down, the computer automatically began filling customer demand by rerouting the juice from other locations.

"No dropouts, no brownouts," another tech called.

Electricity in the grid is like water coming into a house from a single main pipe and flowing out through many open faucets. When one is closed, the pressure in the others increases. Electricity's the same, though it moves a lot more quickly than water-nearly 700 million miles an hour. And because New York City demanded a lot of power, the voltages-the electrical equivalent of water pressure-in the substations doing the extra work were running high.

But the system was built to handle this and the voltage indicators were still in the green.

What was troubling the supervisor, though, was why the circuit breakers in MH-12 had separated in the first place. The most common reason for a substation's breakers to pop is either a short circuit or unusually high demand at peak timesearly morning, both rush hours and early evening, or when the temperature soars and greedy air conditioners demand their juice.

None of those was the case at 11:20:20:003 a.m. on this comfortable April day. "Get a troubleman over to MH-Twelve. Could be a bum cable. Or a short in

the-"

Just then a second red light began to flash. Critical failure. NJ-18 offline.

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Another area substation, located near Paramus, New Jersey, had gone down. It was one of those taking up the slack in Manhattan-12's absence.

The supervisor made a sound, half laugh, half cough. A perplexed frown screwed into his face. "What the hell's going on? The load's within tolerances."

"Sensors and indicators all functioning," one technician called.

"SCADA problem?" the supervisor called. Algonquin's power empire was overseen by a sophisticated Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition program, running on huge Unix computers. The legendary 2003 Northeast Blackout, the largest ever in North America, was caused in part by a series of computer software errors. Today's systems wouldn't let that disaster happen again but that wasn't to say a different computer screwup couldn't occur.

"I don't know," one of his assistants said slowly. "But I'd think it'd have to be. Diagnostics say there's no physical problem with the lines or switchgear."

The supervisor stared at the screen, waited for the next logical step: letting them know which new substation-or stations-would kick in to fill the gap created by the loss of NJ-18.

But no such message appeared.

The three Manhattan substations, 17, 10 and 13, continued alone in providing juice to two service areas of the city that would otherwise be dark. The SCADA program wasn't doing what it should have: bringing in power from other stations to help. Now the amount of electricity flowing into and out of each of those three stations was growing dramatically.

The supervisor rubbed his beard and, after waiting, futilely, for another substation to come online, ordered his senior assistant, "Manually move supply from Q-Fourteen into the eastern service area of MH-Twelve."

"Yessir."

After a moment the supervisor snapped, "No, now." "Hm. I'm trying."

"Trying. What do you mean, trying?" The task involved simple keyboard strokes.

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"The switchgear's not responding."

"Impossible!" The supervisor walked down several short steps to the technician's computer. He typed commands he knew in his sleep.

Nothing.

The voltage indicators were at the end of the green. Yellow loomed. "This isn't good," somebody muttered. "This's a problem."

The supervisor ran back to his desk and dropped into his chair. His granola bar and Greek athlete cup fell to the floor.

And then another domino fell. A third red dot, like a bull's-eye on a target, began to throb, and in its aloof manner the SCADA computer reported: Critical failure. MH-17 offline.

"No, not another one!" somebody whispered.

And, as before, no other substation stepped up to help satisfy the voracious demands of New Yorkers for energy. Two substations were doing the work of five. The temperature of the electric wires into and out of those stations was growing, and the voltage level bars on the big screen were well into the yellow. MH-12 offline. NJ-18 offline. MH-17 offline. RR to affected service areas from MH-10, MH-13.

The supervisor snapped, "Get more supply into those areas. I don't care how you do it. Anywhere."

A woman at a nearby control booth sat up fast. "I've got forty K I'm running through feeder lines down from the Bronx."

Forty thousand volts wasn't much and it would be tricky to move it through feeder lines, which were meant for about a third that much voltage.

Somebody else was able to bring some juice down from Connecticut. The voltage indicator bars continued to rise but more slowly now. Maybe they had this under control. "More!"

But then the woman stealing power from the Bronx said in a choking voice, "Wait, the transmission's reduced itself to twenty thousand. I don't know why."

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This was happening throughout the region. As soon as a tech was able to bring in a bit more current to relieve the pressure, the supply from another location dried up.

And all of this drama was unfolding at breathtaking speeds.

700 million miles an hour…

And then yet another red circle, another bullet wound. Critical failure. MH-13 offline.

A whisper: "This can't be happening." MH-12 offline. NJ-18 offline. MH-17 offline. MH-13 offline. RR to affected service areas from MH-10.

This was the equivalent of a huge reservoir of water trying to shoot through a single tiny spigot, like the kind that squirts cold water out of a refrigerator door. The voltage surging into MH-10, located in an old building on West Fifty-seventh Street in the Clinton neighborhood of Manhattan, was four or five times normal load and growing. The circuit breakers would pop at any moment, averting an explosion and a fire, but returning a good portion of Midtown to colonial times.

"North seems to be working better. Try the north, get some juice from the north. Try Massachusetts."

"I've got some: fifty, sixty K. From Putnam." "Good."

And then: "Oh, Jesus, Lord!" somebody cried.

The supervisor didn't know who it was; everybody was staring at their screens, heads down, transfixed. "What?" he raged. "I don't want to keep hearing that kind of thing. Tell me!"

"The breaker settings in Manhattan-Ten! Look! The breakers!"

Oh, no. No…

The circuit breakers in MH-10 had been reset. They would now allow through their portal ten times the safe load.

If the Algonquin control center couldn't reduce the pressure of the voltage assaulting the substation soon, the lines and switchgear inside the place would allow through a lethally high flood of electricity. The substation would explode.

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But before that happened the juice would race through the distribution feeder lines into belowground transformer boxes throughout the blocks south of Lincoln Center and into the spot networks in office buildings and big high-rises. Some breakers would cut the circuit but some older transformers and service panels would just melt into a lump of conductive metal and let the current continue on its way, setting fires and exploding in arc flashes that could burn to death anybody near an appliance or wall outlet.

For the first time the supervisor thought: Terrorists. It's a terror attack. He shouted, "Call Homeland Security and the NYPD. And reset them, goddamn it. Reset the breakers."

"They're not responding. I'm locked out of MH-Ten." "How can you be fucking locked out?"

"I don't-"

"Is anybody inside? Jesus, if they are, get them out now!" Substations were unmanned, but workers occasionally went inside for routine maintenance and repairs.

"Sure, okay."

The indicator bars were now into the red. "Sir, should we shed load?"

Grinding his teeth, the supervisor was considering this. Also known as a rolling blackout, shedding load was an extreme measure in the power business. "Load" was the amount of juice that customers were using. Shedding was a manual, controlled shutdown of certain parts of the grid to prevent a larger crash of the system.

It was a power company's last resort in the battle to keep the grid up and would have disastrous consequences in the densely populated portion of Manhattan that was at risk. The damage to computers alone would be in the tens of millions, and it was possible that people would be injured or even lose their lives. Nine-one-one calls wouldn't get through. Ambulances and police cars would be stuck in traffic,

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