A Calculated Life (7 page)

An internal communication flagged
Sad News
hit everyone’s array shortly after lunchtime:

I’m sorry, yet relieved, to inform you all that Tom Blenkinsop’s body has been found by the local coastguard. An autopsy is required before the body can be released to the family. However, when funeral arrangements are eventually finalized, Mayhew McCline staff will be informed and anyone wishing to attend will be given time off to do so. If any of you are struggling with this sudden loss and require counseling, please contact HR.

Olivia

Why would counseling help
, wondered Jayna? Why would talking about Tom’s death to a professional be any different to chatting with colleagues? Scheduling a meeting with HR seemed so unnecessary. The junior analysts, she noticed, were congregating yet again in the kitchen.
And, after all, it’s not as though anyone here were related to him.

Leaving precisely twenty minutes early, Jayna called into the small floristry tucked into the ground floor retail outlets below Mayhew McCline. Some succulent foliage might prevent any further malaise among her stick insects. The second smallest, she thought, had never had a name…Eloise kept a projection of her cat at work; it wandered around her work array. She called it Freud but Jayna could make no connection. So puzzling. People seemed to harbor a delusion that animals were like them, thought like them, which, of course, they
patently could not, any more than the pigeons in the park or her stick insects. Why didn’t they just appreciate animals, birds, insects for that matter, for what they were?
Obviously,
I
have my own proper name. I
am
perfectly human, as organic as any bionic. Much smarter of—

“Yes, love? Is that all you want, just that bit of greenery?”

Jayna held out a limp straggle of variegated ivy. “Yes, it’s for my stick insects.” She presented a particularly endearing smile.

“Take some of these offcuts instead. I won’t charge you. My nephew has stick insects and he says they really gobble up rose leaves, and they like all types of ivy. It’s all organic, too. No pesticides. You see, I know about stick insects. My nephew tells me everything.”

“Thank you, that’s really very helpful. It’s difficult to find the right kind of greenery in the city center. I depend on handouts from friends.” A look of pained resignation crossed Jayna’s face.

“Well, call in any time. It’s only going to waste. And if Geena’s here instead of me, tell her it’s all right with Prudence.”

“Thanks, Prudence.”

The assistant wrapped the offcuts as if dealing with a Valentine’s gift. Jayna took hold of the precious package and murmured, “My name’s Jayna.”

The tentative nature of her statement provoked a gently spoken response: “That’s a nice name.” Prudence evidently recognized a less robust creature than herself.

On her way out, Jayna nodded to her reflection in a mirror behind the flower racks.

She set off for C7, merging with a mish-mash of adults who walked with greater or lesser determination in the direction of the Library Theatre. She walked in step with the two people nearest to her.
Walk the same streets, breathe the same air
. And she considered carefully the range of people she’d met over the past six months—her colleagues, her friends, the staff at C7, and now Prudence.
I inhabit their worlds and they inhabit mine; it’s a seductive thought. But…do
some people inhabit other people’s lives in a more…demonstrative, more invasive manner? Maybe I should see it differently.
She conjured a three-dimensional timeline with thousands of colored tubes weaving in and out.
Our lives run parallel for a while then intersect or shoot off. Take Jon-Jo—he’ll have more intersections than I ever will
.

A young man ran past Jayna from behind, the flapping material of his jacket making violent contact with hers. In that instant, she saw zebras bolting…and a lioness…teeth and claws sinking into striped flanks. A bloodied mouth.

She was the first resident to return to the rest station that afternoon. A lengthy, uninterrupted dousing in the communal shower offered a cure for how she felt, which was…unsettled: an unsatisfactory negative. In truth, she longed to feel waves crashing over her, just like the images she’d seen above the Opera House last week, an advertisement for surfing holidays in Cornwall.

The bathroom was deserted. She undressed, adjusted the shower controls for maximum pressure, and allowed the water jets to blast and abrade her skin. Within a minute, her skin became reddened and sore. She turned slowly, and repeatedly, through 360 degrees so that water was constantly flowing down her unmarked skin. After two minutes, there was no appreciable temperature difference between the front and back of her torso. She became hot and then hotter still. What would happen, she wondered, if she didn’t stop? Like a child twizzing around, and around, and around, just for the experience, not caring for the consequences. She increased the water temperature. After a further three minutes, the room was filled with dense white steam and she felt light and lost. The whiteness absorbed her. And, as she continued turning, perspiration evacuated her skin, flowing in sheets. She felt a dull ache throughout her body. At last, she stilled herself,
allowing the jets to shoot needles at her flat belly, her small breasts. As blackness closed in, she felt repeated spasms deep inside and her body buckled.

She regained consciousness. It might have been five seconds or five minutes. Staggering around the shower room, her right shoulder and knee throbbing, she pushed open a window and turned off the hot jets. Then, lurching towards the toilet cubicles, she retched and for the first time in her life she saw the semi-digested remains of her previous meal.

Jayna lay aching and unmoving on her bed.
What’s wrong with me? I acted like a child and I nearly killed myself
. Remembering the final moments before she collapsed, she saw the white steam clouds and the black halo, which first filled the edges of her vision and then closed down her senses completely. She rewound, and recalled the pounding hot jets and the deep spasms. They seemed to come from nowhere as though a button had been pressed.

Her bedside companions twitched. She mustered a groan.

Her head was in a vice and she felt bruised. But she knew she ought to eat something. If she didn’t appear in the canteen she’d have to offer some explanation tomorrow. Or, worse still, her friends would call by her room later.

Approaching the serving hatches a new, slightly-too-sweet aroma hit her, just what she didn’t need. The canteen assistant looked up in her direction and proffered his slowly enunciated, open vowels: “Somethin’ special today. Lemon chicken with spicy noodles.” Confirmed by a new text display.

“Is this a menu?”

“Sort of. It’s what we’ve got to do now. Orders from above. We ’ad some big toffs down ’ere askin’ all sorts of daft questions.”

“Oh? What about?”

“What food got wasted. If you residents liked some meals better than others. Things like that.”

“Well we don’t comment on the food, usually.”

“That’s what I said. But then they wanted to know if any of you lot had said anything at all, y’know, out of the ordinary.” Their eyes fixed, for a moment only. He turned away. “I told them: ‘What yer on about? ’Course no one’s said owt.’”

“Right,” said Jayna. And she took her tray, feeling the weight pulling through her right arm on her bruised shoulder. Why didn’t he tell them? And why was he letting her know he didn’t tell them? By the time she reached her table she’d decided the explanation was simple. He didn’t like the toffs with the daft questions. He felt no obligation to cooperate. And he must be trying to warn her.
Warn
?

“How’s the food?” she said to her companions, hoping to distract attention away from her inflamed face and neck. She was still steaming hot.

Julie looked up and Jayna was taken aback to see her looking…forlorn? “There’s been another recall, Jayna. Another of our generation.”

“Not around here,” said Lucas, jumping in.

“Another?” said Jayna. And with studied calm, “But why?”

“All I know,” said Lucas, “is that a female was taken out of service as a result of erratic time-keeping at work.”

“Which was where?” said Jayna.

“The Institute of Forensic Accountancy near Birmingham. They have links with the Tax Office and I had dealings with them over a particularly complex case of evasion, which—”

“But, Lucas, what was the cause of her poor time-keeping?” said Jayna.

“I don’t know. I was simply informed that Nicole had left. My colleagues gleaned a little more information and I overheard them.” Jayna could imagine Lucas straining to listen in, just so he could report back. “Apparently, she’d missed a critical meeting and had also been absent without specific reason on a number of other occasions.”

“And that merited a recall?” said Harry.

“They can’t afford to take any risk with a breakthrough model,” said Jayna. “The research and development costs have been astronomical so they’ll want to maintain customer confidence. I suppose the Constructor could instigate a general recall but that would damage the brand severely, impact the subsequent uptake of new leases.” The sounds of knives and forks contacting crockery seemed to amplify as Jayna waited for some response.

Julie raised the question on Jayna’s mind. “Why should this start now? This never happened with the Franks, as far as we know.”

“I think a general recall will be unavoidable if this carries on,” said Jayna.

“But maybe it won’t make much difference anyway,” said Harry. “If the Constructor saves our extended knowledge, we could be re-initiated and sent back to work.”

“If there were a complete recall, it would be a crisis measure aimed at rescuing some market credibility,” said Jayna. The others nodded. She had deftly disguised her own uncertainty. However, she imagined she’d be quite a different person after reinitiation.

“There’s something else,” said Harry, reluctantly. “More yellow paint, at C3 and C8.”