A Calculated Life (12 page)

She kept eyeing the edge of the building. The perimeter wall was lower than knee height. “Do they know you, your smell?”

“Shouldn’t think so. They’re too busy to notice.”

“Why keep bees, though? Why not grow vegetables?” Because it occurred to Jayna that vegetables could not chase her to the building’s edge. She nudged into him again.

“Bees need very little attention. And no one’s going to nick them.”

“I didn’t think of that.”

“And the honey is easy to sell. So is the beeswax. What’s more, nothing goes off.” There were eight hives, closely spaced. Some in the shadow of a large water tank. “I built the hives myself.”

She looked across to the surrounding buildings. Solar collectors covered a third of their roof spaces but they had little else in common. A maze of clothes hung from lines on the nearest block and on another roof there appeared to be plants trained on trellises. Others had contraptions of pipes and metal cylinders. Dave followed her gaze. “They’re all businesses run by the janitors. Not many of them have the nerve to keep bees.” He laughed. “And I’m not telling them how easy it is.” He brushed a persistent bee from his face.

The bees were in a frenzy, diving in and out of the small entrance to each hive.

“It feels so free up here,” she said.

“I doubt the bees think so. One bee makes less than half a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime.” He turned and cranked open the metal door that gave access, down the stairs, to his top-floor landing. “Come on. You’ve seen it. It’s too hot.”

“Does everyone want to be a janitor?” she said as she followed him down.

“Yeah, there’s plenty competition. But you have to stay in one place for a long time to be eligible. That rules out everyone taking lottery accommodation. Then you need good references. And you have to present a good business plan for your roof enterprise. They don’t want the space wasted.”

“So what are those other businesses?”

“You saw the laundry next door. Then, there are hydroponicas. Some are gardens; you pay a membership fee for so many visits per month. Rabbit or pigeon breeding, that kind of thing.” He stored the protective gear in his janitor’s cupboard.

“Could you sell your bee business? The goodwill, I mean.”

“No. Not legally anyway. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious. Wondered how it compared with bigger business.”

“Well, for a start, I sell honey and beeswax mainly at Mayhew McCline so there’s no goodwill to sell. But an established bee colony should be worth something.”

“Could you sublet the business, informally?”

He spoke quietly: “It happens, but you’d lose the roof if you were found out. People get jealous, Jayna, so it’s best to keep within the rules. I keep the stairwell spotless so no one can complain—there’s always someone ready to snatch the job. Anyway, I don’t want to sublet. I like having the business.” He took a single key from his pocket and unlocked his apartment door. He looked back over his shoulder at her. “Don’t expect much. I didn’t know you’d be coming so…”

“I don’t live in luxury myself.”

No hallway; they stepped directly into his living space. The room was spartan. She sensed this before Dave had even opened the shutters—the sound of his footsteps crossing the room seemed sharp and clear, not the muffled sounds she’d expect in a chaotic room. As light flooded the space, she hunted down details and the revelation, coming almost instantly, was unexpected. It was a small room replete with alignments. If he gave the impression at Mayhew McCline that he craved disruption, there was no evidence of any such tendency at home: three pans hanging in size order from a wooden batten, kitchen and bathroom items strictly segregated on opposite sides of the steel sink, a shelf of perhaps two dozen books standing vertically with two sets laid on their sides acting as efficient props. She detected that Dave was…
resolute
and, more than likely, he lived alone; no glaring inconsistencies or any indication of a bland compromise. This was Dave’s place, she reckoned, and it was organized to suit him alone.

“Well, this is it,” he said.

“It’s bigger than my room. And a cooking area. I’d love that. Though…I don’t know how to cook.” She smiled.

“I could teach you sometime.”

“Could I choose the meal?”

Won over, he laughed. “Within reason. It would have to be fish or vegetable something.” He removed two glasses from his sole wall cupboard and filled them with water from a covered jug.

Jayna sipped her tepid water; Dave bolted his back.

“Do you know how to make real coffee?” he said. She shook her head. “Okay. Watch this.”

Once again he reached into the cupboard and brought forth the apparatus for his act of alchemy: a cast iron contraption, which he clamped to the wooden board that spanned between the sink and the external wall of the kitchen; two small straight-sided cups in lime green, which he sat on two off-white saucers—one slightly too small for the cup, and the other too large (which combination did she prefer, she wondered?); two teaspoons with robed figures for handles; and a small black plastic bag. One end of the bag was tightly rolled and secured with a metal clip. He released this clip, took Jayna’s hands, and placed one upturned palm alongside the other, then poured whole coffee beans from the bag into her cupped hands. She reacted automatically, lifting the beans and lowering her face. Her action felt primeval. Here was a gesture performed over millennia, she could sense it, either in ritual or as a survival tactic. An image appeared to her: an early, hairy progenitor lifting water from a pool, the hand as receptacle.

Step by step, Dave revealed to Jayna the magic of converting these dry dark beans, already intensely aromatic, into a steaming, high-inducing drink. She absorbed the irregular rumbling and crushing sounds, so unlike the frantic and homogenous screamings of automated grinders. Later, she would play and replay in her mind these seductive, hand-iron-bean sounds in the solitude of her room. She would dissect the grindings, stretch the time-scales and try to match the individual sounds of destruction with step-changes in the level of fragrance. Devouring his every move, she recognized a well-rehearsed routine of precise individual movements. Breathless at the beauty of this process, she had to remind herself of the ritual’s purpose—Dave was making the perfect cup of coffee, for her. As he poured near-boiling water onto the ground beans she allowed her gaze to shift from the swirling coffee, away from the focus of this
endeavor, to the hands of the alchemist. And she recalled his affectionate gestures in the bookshop and felt giddy.

She tried to de-agitate her mind by comparing Dave’s room with her own. He had a small sofa whereas she had a better entertainment console. He had a picture of the Earth taken from the Moon. She had interesting cracks on her ceiling, which she had mentally enhanced and colored to make a virtual series of 723 abstracts. And then, he had his shelf of books, whereas she had her stick insects.

They sat on unmatched chairs—cast-offs, she guessed, from Mayhew McCline—at a square table made from strips of recycled wood, sanded down. Some strips were wider than others and most had remnants of old paint trapped in divots. Dave held the sides of the table and his middle fingers teased the imperfections. She wondered if he’d made the table himself but before she could part her lips to ask, a small eddy of information swirled through her mind and throbbed for attention. She tried to stifle it but then let it surface.
Should I…?
Her foot began tapping.
Should I…act on this?

“Why did you want to come here, Jayna?”

She picked up the robed figure and stirred her coffee, far too quickly. “I wanted to see a home.”

He sat forward, took the teaspoon from her hand, and laid it back on the saucer. “And?”

She noticed, for the first time, the hairs on the back of his hand. “Yes, there is more. There are other reasons.” She settled her eyes on her steaming coffee. Five major tones ranging from creamy brown to brown-brown, that is, a dark chocolate brown; a little world in itself, air bubbles popping and steam rising, a primordial swamp. “I want something
unexpected
to happen. Something outside my usual routine.”

“Life’s a bit boring?”

“It’s not that. I think a change in routine might be helpful.”

“In what way?”

“I have this idea…that I might be…less surprised by events. I think I’d make better predictions if I knew more about other people’s lives, if I could feel for myself that things don’t always happen as anticipated.” She felt a tic under her right eye. “Not only that, maybe I’d be a little less…wooden. If that’s the right word. And, that’s not all.”

“Go on.”

She looked down into her coffee. “I also want to have a friend who I can visit at the weekend. Someone who isn’t…well, who’s completely normal.”

He looked down, stirred the
crema
of his own coffee and shook his head. “No such thing. There’s no normal.” And he looked up at her. “Let’s face it. The likes of Hester and Benjamin think
they
are the norm. They’ve made themselves the yardstick.”

“Well, whatever you say, I’m certainly not normal. There are so many things I can’t do, Dave. I don’t even know what I’m missing.”

“And what about me?” He slowly drank some coffee and set the cup gratingly on the too-small saucer. “I’m an organic. That was normal at one time. But I’m made to feel a freak.” He leaned forward. “Look, Jayna, there are plenty of things I can’t do either. Before implantation ever started, someone like me could have a real career, travel places. But I’ve got as far as I’ll ever get at Mayhew McCline.”

“You might be right.”

He sat back. “You’ve seen my file, haven’t you?”

“Yes, I have, Dave. Well, I’m not supposed…” And a silence sat between them.

“Well, now I know. Dave Madoc is not a special case. I’ll have to keep my head down and toe the line if I want to keep this flat.”

She liked the way he mixed his metaphors. Careless or carefree?

“Why did you never have an implant, Dave?” She wanted his version.

“I failed the genetic risk assessment at eighteen. No surprise. My maternal grandfather was expelled from his university post. I always knew that. But I’m eligible for late implantation—my parents were squeaky clean all their adult lives, model employees…”

“So?”

“I can’t afford it. And I don’t want to take a loan. And, in any case, I hate the whole idea.”

“But why?”

“Too big a trade-off. I feel sorry for the poor bastards really. They’re so fucking sensible all the time.”

She smiled. Then caught herself. “Tom wasn’t exactly sensible, was he? Swimming out into strong currents.”

“He wasn’t being stupid. It was a misjudgment.”

“Anyway, Dave, you’re already partly bionic.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Inoculated at birth? Protected from addictions and most diseases?”

“I didn’t get any choice about that, did I?”

“Even so, you’re not saddled with any inclination towards self-destruction—over-indulgence in drugs, alcohol, gambling. Look how safe it is for everyone now: hardly any crime. You’ve all been liberated. Implantation is the obvious next step.”

“I just don’t want it. To be honest, I
like
losing my temper now and then. I
like
sitting out all night on the roof and bunking off work the next morning. Once you take the implant, you’re trapped. I’ve never heard of a bionic just dropping out, resigning their fancy job, and fucking off to the hills.”

“Well, I can’t see how they could survive in the hills. In any case, maybe some do go to the hills, Dave, and you don’t know about it…Which hills are you talking about?”

“Hold on. I didn’t mean the hills, literally. I mean
dropping out
, disappearing, living on the margins.”

She hesitated. “There could be bionics living here in your enclave without you realizing who they are.”

“I suppose so…I haven’t heard of any.”

“It’s possible though.”

They sat without speaking, each taking sips from their coffee.

“Jayna, let’s face it. You’ve not much to worry about on the scale of things. You don’t have to worry about money. You’ve got free housing, meals, clothes. And the best job in the company below director level. Am I right?”

“Yes. I know I have a good job and an easy life but I feel…I don’t know…For one thing, someone’s spraying yellow paint across the rest stations and writing
No
with an exclamation mark—four this week, including ours.”

“Graffiti?”

“Is it?”

“They’ll soon be picked up. Could be some crank worried about their job.”

“Well, it’s not just that. The fact is that my status is highly ambiguous.” Dave burst into laughter but she persisted. “Please. I’m serious. I have no past and that seems to lessen all my rights. You know, at any moment I could be recalled and reinitiated. I’d be a blank slate again. Dave, I wouldn’t know you if I fell over you in the street. And I wouldn’t be interested in stick insects and wouldn’t crave fresh coffee or fantasize about eating Singapore Style Rice Vermicelli…”

“Whoa! Wait there. Why would they want to recall you?”

She stood, took her cup to the sink, rinsed it and lay in gently on the wooden board. “I think there might be something wrong with me; a glitch.” A faint shudder ran across her shoulders and she turned to face him. “It’s happened to other simulants, and they’ve been taken back to the Constructor.”

He studied her. “What’s gone wrong with them?”

“Different things.”

“Like?”

“Poor time-keeping, sneaking into restaurants, sexual liaisons.”

He leaned back, lifted his hands to the back of his head, and pulled them forward, ruffling his hair as he did so.

“It’s not supposed to happen,” she said.

After a moment’s silence: “Who else have you told about this?”

“No one. No one knows. No one knows I’m here. Not even my friends at the rest station. I haven’t told anyone about what I’m doing or thinking.”

“Better keep it that way. Let’s hope the Constructor isn’t watching you all. And don’t raise any suspicions at work.”