A Calculated Life (4 page)

“Well, don’t tell that to the client.”

Olivia was a statistician herself, thought Jayna, so why did she talk like that?

“Look, we’re still delighted with your conclusions and so are the police. They’re going to match staff rotas to the weather forecast,” said Olivia.

“Come on. Don’t look so worried,” said Benjamin. “It’s good to make use of the crime stats. Have you seen the access costs? And after all the aggravation we had getting accreditation…”

Jayna’s eyes were flicking between Benjamin and the image on the wall behind him, a large poster of
Jesse Recumbent
; a rare and monumental oak sculpture from the medieval age, of immense significance according to Olivia.
Jesse
lent gravitas to the boardroom, Jayna thought, even though he was lying down. She wondered what he’d make of Mayhew McCline and its world of trend forecasting and economic modeling. Jayna changed the subject. “Any news about Tom?”

“Not yet. How are his files?” said Benjamin.

“I checked this morning. There are a couple of ideas he abandoned that should be revived.”

“He tended to dump things he wasn’t interested in. What were they?”

“One on the wine industry: production trends across western Europe.”

“That figures; he was teetotal. Can you handle them?”

“I don’t want any distraction at the moment, Benjamin. I think you should recruit.”

Benjamin groaned. “We’ve only just laid off Ingrid.”

“Can you bring her back?” asked Olivia.

“Awkward,” he said. He bared his teeth. “Bit of a slanging match, to put it mildly. I think there’s something wrong there. She’s far too…Anyway, never mind that. I’ll find a freelance for now and brief the headhunters. Won’t be easy, though. I’ll have to offer more money.”

“What? More than Tom was getting?” Olivia cast a glance at Jesse as if to say,
Look at what I have to deal with
. “Just do what you can,” she said. And, clearly trying to calm herself, she turned to her star analyst. “So, what are you working on at the moment, Jayna?”

“Shifts in energy consumption patterns; looking at hydrogen. I’m aiming for an investment strategy report.” Olivia’s eyes widened. “There’s plenty of data available, almost too much. I’m filtering current research projects reported in journals and conference proceedings and I’m also acquiring industrial briefing papers through more…tortuous avenues—” Benjamin nodded his approval, realizing the implication “—sifting through it all, looking for key variables. It’s a big subject, so I’d rather not have any diversions.”

“Okay. You’ve made good calls so far,” said Olivia. “In fact, you’ve turned this department around—March figures, just being revised, will be the best ever.”

“You didn’t meet your predecessor Frank,” said Benjamin. “We knew you’d be smarter than him but…well…you’re something else.” He smiled. “And far more personable. We weren’t expecting that so much.”

Jayna knew all about Frank; she’d seen his personnel file. In any case, she’d met plenty of Franks, and Fredas, at the rest station. Heavens, they didn’t even have individual names. Why was Benjamin attempting a comparison? Frank’s file revealed him to be
diligent, if bland. “Brilliant at go-fetch analysis but not creative,” according to Hester’s filed assessment. Took his briefs, met deadlines, faultless attendance record. Deemed efficient.

“So far, so good, then?” Jayna said to Olivia. “But let me point out, please, I do become tired if I don’t finish on time—” She shifted her gaze. “Benjamin, perhaps you could gently remind the team that my working day should be six hours. Remember, I’m on the job whether I’m here or at my residence. It’s just the level of intensity that varies.”

More personable? As she made her way to the elevator, she picked over Benjamin’s remark.

personable,
adjective:
pleasant
, agreeable, likeable, nice, amiable, affable, charming, congenial, genial, engaging, pleasing; attractive, presentable, good-looking, nice-looking, pretty, appealing;
Scottish
couthy;
Scottish & N. English
bonny, canny;
dated
taking.

Before she could reach any conclusion, she needed to answer one specific question: did her appearance have any bearing on how she was regarded?

There was no full-length mirror at Mayhew McCline, or at the rest station for that matter, but when she boarded the elevator she saw a fuzzy version of herself reflected in the matte metallic doors; no detail, just an impression. She stood alongside two other female employees, benchmarks. She puckered her lips and made an assessment. Average. Neither tall nor short, neither curvaceous nor thin. An interesting negative shape between her mid-brown hair and shoulders. None of her colleagues’ idiosyncratic features: high forehead, short nose, heavy jaw, receding chin, small eyes, thick eyebrows, narrow shoulders, legs disproportionate to torso, small head.
Her only feature transgressing the average was the fractionally wider setting of her eyes. Otherwise…nothing.

No
,
the way I look must have a neutral impact
.

Jayna stepped out of the elevator and walked directly to the washroom. In the cubicle, once again, she stood facing the cold tiles.
Talent, Pure and Simple
. Quite a slogan. And it was true. She could handle colossal amounts of data, vastly more than bionics like Hester, Benjamin, and the rest of them. They had cognitive implants just as she did, but their enhancements were built on a fundamentally impoverished base. They didn’t realize, Jayna thought, simply could not grasp…

The washroom door opened and someone stepped into the neighboring cubicle. Jayna sat down and urinated. She needed more time to think. No doubt, Olivia and Benjamin had pored over the details before they’d committed to her lease, even if they didn’t fully appreciate the implications.

Simulant Operative Version CS12.01.

Maker: Constructor Holdings plc.

Product Description: Biological simulant, grown
in vitro
from a genetic master-type characterized by prodigious analytical attributes. Widespread additional genetic interventions. Extensive bionic cognitive implants. Initiated, at Constructor Holdings’ Initiation Centre in Oxford, with multi-lifetime experiential data for higher socio-economic groupings.

The next bit translated into
more personable
but they probably missed the point:

Wider range of emotional capabilities than earlier versions
(the Franks and Fredas)
to refine social behavior, leading to enhanced assimilation within the workforce and exceptional skills in continuous learning.

To herself, Jayna said,
That word
assimilation,
it’s the wrong one to use. It’s an engineer’s word. I’m far better than Frank because I
fit in;
I’m one of the team, the best member of the team
. Embedded Intelligence,
another slogan. That’s a fair description, too. I can discuss, advise, mentor. Apart from the odd faux pas, they think I’m the best thing…since sliced bread. Yes, I fit in, I’m more personable. But, to pin it down, I can empathize:

empathize,
verb
:
identify
, sympathize, be in sympathy, understand, share someone’s feelings, be in tune; be on the same wavelength as; relate to, feel for, have insight into;
informal
put oneself in someone else’s shoes.

Hester returned from a long lunch with her stockbroker buddies, halted mid-office alongside Jayna’s array and announced, marginally more chilled than her usual self: “Okay, I’d better warn you all, I’m bringing Jon-Jo to work tomorrow morning. Three hours max. Definitely not office trained.”

“I’d love to meet him, Hester. Why is he—?”

Hester cut her off. “Having his pre-3s check late morning,” she said, addressing everyone. “Daniel’s stuck in a meeting for a couple of hours, and when that’s finished we’ll go together to the hospital.”

Jayna had no experience of children beyond witnessing their antics in the Entertainment Quarter. Even there, she and her friends stayed away from kids’ events. This could be her only opportunity, possibly for months to come, to speak one-to-one with a young person. So, during the afternoon, she scanned the statistics on child-related markets and, on the basis of this snap analysis, she left work as normal at three-thirty and headed
straight for the Talking Horse Toy Shop located down a back lane off Peter Street.

None of the business premises had street numbers but from the end of the still-cobbled lane Jayna caught the shining eyes of stuffed creatures. As she approached she distinguished a teddy bear in dungarees, a rag-hatted doll, five squashy elephants trunk-to-tail across the window front, a tearful clown (why, thought Jayna, would anyone buy
that
for a child?), and a painted green dragon suspended in a tortured pose by puppeteer’s cords. A bell clattered overhead as she entered. Would she find anything for Jon-Jo, she wondered, that cost less than a week’s allowance? On a round table, small toys were piled into baskets with a hand-painted label stuck between them stating
Party Bag Gifts
. Jayna read and re-read the phrase and wondered if a hyphen were missing. She explored the surfaces of these modest offerings until her fingertips met polished wood—a giraffe standing on a cylindrical base. She held it up and saw that each of its legs, and its neck, comprised a series of cylindrical forms.

“Push the base up,” said the shop assistant. Jayna turned and inclined her head.

“Go on. Push the base up with your thumb.”

She did so and the giraffe collapsed, its head hanging below the base. Startled, she withdrew her thumb, and the giraffe leapt to its full height, elegant and poised, ready to chew from lush canopies once again.

“The simplest toys are usually the best,” he said.

“Do you gift wrap?”

“Well, I suppose so. It won’t take much wrapping.” He laughed. “Did you never have one of these as a child?”

She hesitated. “No. I didn’t.”

He wrapped. She turned away. The muscles tensed around her mouth. She paid with the exact coinage and left, the eyes of a polar bear following her down the lane as she considered the implications of the shopkeeper’s seemingly innocuous inquiry.

A childhood. Why did he ask such a personal question?

Looking down at the shining package she noticed the assistant had tucked a Talking Horse calling card under the ribbon ties. She grabbed the card, pushed the package under her arm, and ripped the card once, twice, and three times into eight horribly irregular pieces. She crumpled the fragments between her fingers. But her actions were too puny. With an exaggerated arm movement, as though lifting a brick, she threw the paper scraps to the ground and stamped on them, scuffing them into the pavement. Jayna steadied herself, her hand against brickwork, and turned to look up and then down the lane. No one. She leaned against the wall, her right arm still registering aftershocks from the exertion.

So impertinent
. Her heart raced.

She counted to calm herself. But other thoughts insisted: her colleagues…going home to their housemates, or their children. Such long lives—twenty, thirty, forty-plus years—from babies. So slow, so incremental. No perceptible change between one day and the next. “Oh! Look how she’s grown.” She recalled the cooing chorus when Benjamin showed projections of eight-year-old Alice. It seemed to be a cause of genuine incredulity. And then, she remembered it clearly, a dissection of the child’s appearance: her father’s eyes, her mother’s hair. And Benjamin: “Yes, she’s certainly got the best of us both.”