Lotte Dugan could hear the fatigue and frustration in the voice on the other end of the call, but there was no other choice; in this competitive land, he couldn't afford to show weakness.
Especially since even these people he considered parasites were starting to feel the pressure of work, their voices tinged with exhaustion, indicating that computing power was genuinely stretched thin.
This meant that any sign of weakness on his part could result in computational power, which should belong to his project, being allocated to those more difficult people first.
Having long dealt with those at the Institute for Advanced Study, Lotte Dugan was well aware of the nature of those guys engaged in fundamental theoretical research.
Their usually genteel demeanor was merely a facade to deceive outsiders. When it came to the competition for research resources, each one of them was ruthless.
