A Calculated Life (9 page)

And, specifically:

Illness and accidents can result in disorders. Less frequently, the olfactory system is affected by genetic traits. Hyperosmia is a
heightened sense of smell. Anosmia is the inability to smell, which can be general or specific to one odor, though sufferers retain some sense of taste.

At her work array, she refocused and read her latest messages: Hester requested Jayna’s comments on the final draft of Olivia’s forthcoming paper for the Royal Society of Arts, which Jayna herself had ghostwritten. Benjamin wanted her to observe a contracts meeting with their public relations agency and then write a summary with recommendations.

No problem. Olivia’s RSA paper would slot between her own priorities: find more hydrogen factors, investigate anosmia, and some digging around at the Institute of Forensic Accountancy. Exactly why had Nicole’s time-keeping gone awry? Finding the answer, Jayna realized, would demand invasive maneuvers; serious risk-taking. So, as a precaution, she made a number of downloads on tax evasion prosecutions, which she reckoned would mask her true intentions. Then she searched for a path into the IFA’s internal comms, keeping an eye on the time.

Eventually she infiltrated the IFA through the Metropolitan Police Department’s Statistics Division. It was circuitous, but with her current access rating she knew she could slip through with little risk of detection. But just as she dipped into IFA’s comms, Benjamin called her to his office.

“A couple of things, Jayna. You’ve approached Warwick University for progress reports on current research into olfactory disorders. What’s that about?”

She feigned a bored sigh but her pulse leaped to 135 beats a minute. “It’s going to be very time-consuming, Benjamin, if I have to justify all my lines of investigation.” She decided to lower the pitch of her voice to mask an irregularity.

“I’m curious. I just want to understand how you work.”

“The way I work is complex.”

“Yes, and that’s why you’re here. Indulge me.”

“Well, it’s an established fact, isn’t it, that diet has a causative link with hypertension and anti-social behavior?”

“Yes, and now we have urine alerts for dietary—”

She cut him off. “Not everyone has bathroom detection. Certain types of criminal behavior are on the increase among organics. So I decided to investigate the underlying urges that might cause these people to eat inappropriate foods. Hence, the smell and taste uploads. You see, in most of my investigations I’m propelled by my own curiosity. I make the retrievals instinctively, almost impulsively, once I have a line of thought.”

“Hmm…I’m more selective, can’t handle the same volumes of data. I have to be far more strategic.” Benjamin raised his index finger towards his face and kneaded the flesh of his chin. He looked beyond Jayna, lost in private thought.

“You said you had a couple of things…”

“Yes.” He stared at her, then remembered. “I considered your request. I’ll let you visit a few people at home. Two conditions.”

“Okay.”

“I want you to visit only Mayhew McCline staff.”

“I don’t really know anyone outside Mayhew McCline.”

“And I want to restrict this to two visits initially. Then we can review what you’ve gained from the exposure. I suppose you could visit me. I live close to the center.”

“Yes? When?”

“Not this weekend. How about next Saturday?”

“So soon?”

“Why not? Let’s say two o’clock if that fits your schedule. We’ll have a barbecue.”

Jayna’s eyes widened.
What’s his home like? Will his daughter be there? Is Benjamin a different person away from the office? Does he have
a happy family? What will he put on the barbecue?
“Oh! Thank you, Benjamin. How kind of you.”

“Get my address from the personnel files.”

“I don’t have access,” she said, abruptly.

“Ask Eloise, then.”

It was purely a precaution, she thought, as she left Benjamin. She’d only dipped into the personnel files. Not really worth asking permission. She wouldn’t misuse the information. Why would she? Just avoided embarrassments. She’d learned that Craig had taken special leave last year when his marriage disintegrated. She knew that Dave was excluded from implantation and that Eloise had late implantation. And the recruitment files were interesting, too. Tom hadn’t worked more than eighteen months for any employer over the past twelve years. Even with that record, Benjamin had been obliged to offer Tom a massive inducement to join Mayhew McCline.

Arriving back at her work array, she immediately resumed sifting through two months of IFA interdepartmental communications. She homed in on obvious keywords:
Nicole
,
recall
,
absence
. New keywords then emerged:
investigator
,
Barry
, and the surprisingly common double occurrence of
sick
and
bastard
.

All was now clear.

Nicole had formed a relationship with a man called Barry. He worked at the IFA in maintenance and cleaning services. That is, Nicole had formed an intimate relationship with an organic male. Strange! Jayna detected outrage in the communication streams. Not only had Nicole violated her protocols but apparently she had also shown appalling taste. Jayna found no official reason for her recall and it seemed only a handful of people within the IFA knew about her
cavortings with Barry in the broom cupboards
. Senior colleagues expressed bemusement that the organic could be sexually interested in a simulant but they inferred that Barry was
too thick
to realize what a
sick bastard
he was. Nevertheless, it appeared he had been dismissed with a payout from the Constructor to keep his mouth shut.

Jayna felt herself slump. She couldn’t compete with that; Nicole had gone too far. And what had prompted her? Simulants didn’t do sex.

A final exploratory foray unearthed a statement by the organic Barry.

How careless of them to leave that lying around
. But she couldn’t dwell on Barry’s version of events; time was pressing. She withdrew from the IFA data, dusting her path, laying false trails, creating diversions, and finally she was back in friendly territory. Her heart was thumping.

Immediately, she prioritized her studies for Mayhew McCline and spent the rest of her working day weaving through official and unofficial texts, dispatching requests for clarifications, proposing hypotheses, and conducting tests through mathematical models; rejecting, refining, reiterating. She compiled a progress statement and dispatched it to Benjamin.

The communication from Dave was short and achingly sweet:
Would you like to meet up tomorrow afternoon?

Jayna made no reply. She deleted the message from the entire Mayhew McCline system—a rigorous exercise that resulted in her working ten minutes late. On the way out, she called into Archives. “Don’t do that again,” she said, and placed a paper note in front of Dave. She turned on her heel and left. Dave unfolded the note:
13:15 hours, Antiquarian Bookshop on Portland.

Julie called by Jayna’s room that evening. The atmosphere over dinner had seemed subdued.

“Am I disturbing you, Jayna?”

“No, but I’m pretty tired tonight.”

“I won’t keep you. Just wondered if you want to do anything tomorrow afternoon.”

“Rather not make any firm plans, Julie.” She had to invent something. “I may need to work some extra hours.”

“More than your contracted hours? You know you can report them.”

“I know. But I want some solid results for my boss. I’d like to see him doing well—become a vice president.”

“He’s not your responsibility.”

“I know but I feel I owe him. It was largely his decision to take my lease. And if he gets promotion, I think I’ll be there long term. I don’t like the idea of being reassigned.”

“Oh! Jayna. I hadn’t thought of that possibility.”

“I expect you have more job security in the state sector.”

“Maybe. But I think you’re worried about nothing.”

Jayna yawned. “I’m definitely not worried.”

“Well, anyway, let me know if you want to meet up tomorrow.” And she left.

Jayna flopped back on her bed and kicked off her shoes. She could quite happily have slept there fully clothed. She decided she’d try that some time.

As she studied the cracks in her ceiling plasterwork, she re-enacted the day’s events: her morning detour to work, meeting Dave in the park, her reckless incursion into IFA data, Dave’s potentially incriminating message, her reply, and the revelation of Nicole and Barry stealing moments together among mop buckets and paper towels.
I tell yer, there’s no difference
. It was right there in his fragmented verbal statement, made in answer to a string of questions from a panel of directors and a constructor’s representative:

I saw Nicole most days around the place, in the corridors. She usually spoke to me. Nothing much, just “Hello!” or “How are you?”
She was polite and always smiled. Then we started having a bit of a banter…Yeah, I thought she fancied me. I know she did. Other women do, too…So what’s the big deal?…What’s the difference? I tell yer, there’s no difference. That’s a fact…Mind yer own fuckin’ business. All right, she responded…It was her fault if she missed important meetings…Well, sack me! It’s a shit job anyway.

Fascinating. But Jayna was none the wiser about Nicole’s motivation. She hadn’t attended any disciplinary meeting. She hadn’t made a statement. She’d simply disappeared.

One thing Jayna did notice from IFA timesheets—a correlation between a small number of Nicole’s absences and the company chauffeur’s stand-down time. They’d missed that.

CHAPTER 6

T
here was no actual rule about sitting
in the recliner but its intended purpose as an aid to deep thinking was clear. So, for the first time, Jayna abandoned the recliner, stretched out on the bed, shut her eyes, and launched her Saturday processing session.
Let’s stir things up
, she said to herself.
A less rational, less pedantic interrogation of the data…see what happens
. Selecting a three-dimensional oceanic construct, she scattered her data sets with a sower’s sweep, forcing random encounters within the data, lots of them. She added churning currents; they would shift the data sets during the session. Maybe too complex but worth a try. She dived into her virtual ocean, straight through the statistics on world hydrogen production. Absorbing the information in an instant, she reached towards a cluster of data sets below—electrical goods recycling, locations of community nuclear power plants, water purification costs—sifted, regressed, correlated, pushed aside. She swam down through a vast swarm of data lying near the base of her construct—transport profiles for Londoners and New Yorkers, fueling depots across the road and rail networks, hydrocarbon production and refinery capacity, rare earth prices. Pointing her fingertips to the surface, she floated up through the energy stocks and modeled each company’s performance, searching for those with statistically significant, positive alphas—those that out-performed the market.