A Calculated Life Read online

  “Care to disassemble?” said Harry.

  “I’m talking historically…When primitive man lived on the savannah, the risk of accidental death was high but the types of risk were limited in number. Our intuition on certainty and uncertainty was formed then. Totally inadequate now. Life’s too complex.”

  “Is that a problem?” said Lucas. He was the new boy.

  “Yes and no. Obviously, if people underestimate certain risks they’ll make decisions with unfortunate outcomes. But—” she paused and looked around her friends “—if everyone could grasp their true exposure to negative events there’d be…ramifications. People have to get on with life as though the risks aren’t there. That’s why everyone anticipates an average lifespan. I assume you all caught the latest news from National Statistics—ninety-nine years.”

  “So, in theory, your colleague lost two-thirds his due,” said Lucas.

  “I didn’t understand the media’s reaction,” Jayna said. “What’s so special about living to one hundred rather than ninety-nine?”

  “Teasing failure from success,” said Harry.

  “Anyway, I don’t believe they should massage the figures to achieve an extra year,” said Julie. “They were even suggesting taking deaths through natural disasters out of the statistics. The facts are the facts.”

  “Well, I can tell you one thing,” said Jayna. “I don’t think any massaging would keep Tom Blenkinsop out of the statistics.”

  The group of friends fell quiet. Jayna took a piece of bread from the platter at the center of the table and chased the remaining traces of a thin gravy from her plate. Her companions registered her eagerness and, in turn, they too reached towards the bread.

  With barely two hours of her evening remaining, Jayna returned to her small room and, prompted by Julie’s remark about the savannah, she downloaded a wildlife program on the Serengeti. She turned to the cage on her bedside table. Hester had given her a branch of privet last week and it was now stripped almost bare. Observing her insects, as she always did in the evening, she jotted a note: Leaves are consumed by an insect that looks like a twig. So what is the difference between a leaf falling and a stick insect dying?

  Out on the Serengeti, a lioness pounced at the flanks of a bolting zebra. Jayna had watched hundreds of similar murderous sequences over recent months and she recognized that only a few animals were immune to the carnivorous advances of others. She decided to formalize this thought by writing an essay on food chain hierarchies and biomass diversity. There were plenty of learned treatises already on the subject but she wouldn’t consult them. She preferred to work it out for herself; it all came down to basic mathematics.

  The lights in her room dimmed and she prepared herself for a twelve-hour sleep. As she lay in bed she looked into her little wildlife park and, in the remaining half-light, could just discern her twiggy roommates from their twiggy habitat. She knew Hester would bring another privet branch from the suburbs. With family to take care of, she had plenty to think about other than stick insects. And she might be preoccupied over Tom’s death. But she simply wouldn’t forget.

  Drifting towards sleep, Jayna’s mind stubbornly refused a final release. She retraced her thoughts and pinpointed a question that wandered, unresolved: how would the zebra’s experience of fear differ from Tom’s?

  CHAPTER 2

  Bound to be minuses as well as pluses, Jayna thought, but I’d swap places for a day, if not a week. The street cleaner leaned towards the wall gripping his lance. Dirty brick…lunge…clean brick. Methodically, he chased the yellow paint, which followed an imprecise, splattery arc across the rest station’s front entrance.

  Julie dived through the sweeping haze of droplets and stood with Jayna looking back at the rest station wall.

  “What’s all this?” said Julie.

  “I asked him. He said someone’s thrown yellow paint across the wall.”

  “That’s obvious…I didn’t hear anything.”

  “No. I didn’t either…I wish I’d come out earlier.”

  “It probably happened during the night, Jayna.”

  “I meant, I like watching.” Julie threw her a glance.

  Jayna showed no inclination to leave.

  “Well, I have to go,” said Julie. “Talk later.” She headed off.

  Jayna half turned but kept her eyes on the lance. “Maybe we’ll find out later. Someone…” Julie was halfway across the road.

  The street cleaner had created a pristine scar across the dull hue of the weathered brickwork and pavement. Jayna hoped he knew what he was doing. Her right foot tapped. She transferred her weight to stop the tapping but thirty seconds later her left foot started to tap. Time to go.

  Sensitized by the bright yellow violation, Jayna found herself assaulted by color along her familiar route to work, as if the cones of her retinas craved opposing bursts to counter the rude effect of the yellow. She saw, as though for the first time, the bullying daubs of the city highway engineers, the viridian ironwork of the Palace Hotel, the lipstick-red steps to the Palace Theatre’s stage door, and the formless slithers and polygons of blue sky. Her attention shifted focus from colors to the surface imperfections across the U-shaped urban gorge (wall-pavement-gutter-road-gutter-pavement-wall), the misalignments, patched-in repairs. In her mind, she framed and reframed, stretched and cropped. She selected on the basis of color, selected on the basis of shape, selected on the basis of incongruity. Jayna mused to herself, I could spend a lifetime observing this one street…

  Hester deposited a ribbon-handled, black-and-white striped, carrier bag at Jayna’s array.

  “Thanks, Hester. It’s good of you to remember.” As though someone prodded her in the back, she added, “What with Tom and all the upset.” Hester ignored the remark and removed white tissue paper covering the bag’s contents to reveal garden clippings, mainly privet. She lifted between finger and thumb a straggle of foliage from a climbing rose, and looked for approval.

  “Perfect,” said Jayna. And confidence renewed—she’d mentioned Tom without causing offence—she added, “Dave in Archives brings me greenery most weeks. He gets it from a park near the terminus. But he forgets sometimes.”

  “Well, what do you expect?” she said, as a throwaway.

  Jayna’s shoulders stiffened at the harshness embedded within the remark. “He’s normally reliable, Hester. He keeps asking for more challenging work.”

  “No chance.” Hester snorted. “There’s no way he could cope with anything more. There are enough complaints about him already. And—” she turned and headed towards her own corner of the office “—it would be too much hassle.”

  That’s curious, thought Jayna. She leaned back in her chair. Hester had made several objections to the idea of Dave’s promotion when one overriding reason would have been more persuasive. And, to her recollection, Hester—despite being capable of minor kindnesses vis-à-vis the garden clippings—was the only person she’d heard complain about Dave. Jayna still couldn’t grasp the concept behind Hester’s managerial style: abbreviated politeness when she dealt with equals, and she seemed to count Jayna in that category, stretching to mere pleasantries with the directors. The directors themselves regarded her default snappiness as somehow…endearing. As for the junior analysts, like Mark…Jayna watched him, now. He was walking the long way around the office just so he didn’t pass Hester’s array. Jayna was sure of it. Yet, Dave, the only menial Hester had to deal with, seemed immune to—Jayna searched for the right word—her angularity.

  She recalled a remark Hester made about Dave exactly seven weeks ago: “I swear I’ll have him out of here one day.” It had happened when Dave was organizing his latest sweepstake. “I don’t know why he does these silly things. It’s such a distraction.” An overreaction by Hester, Jayna felt on reflection. Seemed harmless to her: a sweepstake for the Grand National. A major cultural event, after all. Hester had waved Dave away but he’d persisted and teased: “Go on, Hester. You’ve got a great c
hance. No-one’s picked out the favorite, Sticky Wicket.”

  She’d simply bitten a reply at him: “No. Go.”

  Even then, Dave hadn’t given up. “Okay, I’ll make the same offer to Jayna, here. You’ll be sorry. Don’t say—”

  “She’s not allowed,” said Hester.

  And he’d come back at her yet again. “Now come on, Hester. Let’s not be a spoiler. You know you’ll feel all left out when the race begins. And why shouldn’t Jayna have—”

  “Out. Now.”

  “All right, all right. I’m history.” Which was his little joke, Jayna had subsequently learnt, coming as he did from Archives.

  It struck Jayna that Hester could barely bring herself to construct a whole sentence when dealing with Dave. I don’t take that attitude with Hester, she said to herself. I don’t think she’s aware…She wondered, as a corollary of sorts—she and Dave both being extremes, albeit on opposing sides of the bell curve—if her presence in the office sparked any debate, any dissent. Are there barbed remarks when I leave the office mid-afternoon? She turned to her array and pulled up Tom’s files. Anyway, it’s beyond doubt. They all know my value. I guarantee we meet targets. And there’s that proverb, one of Hester’s conversation stoppers: the proof of the pudding is in the eating. She’s good at that—abrupt endings.

  Late-morning, Eloise came over. “Olivia and Benjamin want to see you in the boardroom.” Jayna had clinched a new correlation last week and the final report had been dispatched on Thursday to the Metropolitan Police. She was due a few words of praise. It seemed to Jayna that Mayhew McCline’s directors congratulated their staff in a semi-formal setting as though executing some learned motivational strategy.

  “Well, here’s a turn-up for the books. Those correlations for violent crime looked pretty robust until half an hour ago, Jayna,” said Olivia Westwood, Mayhew McCline’s vice-chairman. Jayna had detected a link at regional level between violent crimes, limited though these instances were, and mean wind direction. Strong north-easterlies were the ones to watch out for.

  “What’s happened?”

  “Whole family murdered out in Enclave S2.”

  Jayna felt her cheekbones burn. “It’s a westerly today.”

  Olivia smiled. “I know, I know.” Jayna had been reluctant to search for trends because the crime figures were so low. “I read your battery of provisos. Obviously, it’s a crime of passion. Can’t seem to stop those.”

  “I suggested a trend, with multiple caveats. It’s not a predictive tool.”

  “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.”