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  Hattie pulled a face. “That data’s probably just an anomaly. Anomaly. A-nom-a—”

  “Shush.”

  “They used to say in the twentieth century,” Paulette was saying, “that there was more content in a single day’s edition of the New York Times than the average seventeenth century person was able to access in their entire lifetime. Now, we can say that the average Jaffle Tech enabled brain does more thinking and processing in a year than a non-Jaffle brain does in a lifetime. You are superheroes.”

  The staff clapped and cheered. Paulette held out her hands for calm.

  “We have an important safety briefing this afternoon,” said Paulette. “This is a mandatory refresher and—”

  “Yes, thank you,” interrupted Levi, stepping up onto the stage. He stumbled over the stage edge, gave it an accusing glare and put a swagger in his stride to compensate as he strode to centre.

  “I thought we were just running the video,” Paulette said to him.

  “Yes, yes, thank you,” said Levi. He turned to address the audience. “We’re going to run the safety briefing but—” He wasn’t in the right place for the microphones to pick him up. He stepped to the side and politely but firmly pushed Paulette away. “Name’s Levi Krasnesky. I run security checks in your section. There have been some recent disturbing incidents in our very own workplace which have indicated a training need.” He changed the screen. “Some very serious near misses, oh, yabetcha. Would you look at this? Jeez.”

  On the screen was a camera feed of an access space in the cubicle jungle. People walked back and forth.

  “This fills me with horror,” said Levi.

  I squinted. There was nothing to be seen. People. Cubicles. A drinks machine. Levi zoomed in on the floor.

  “A pencil,” he said.

  There were a number of gasps.

  I wondered where the pencil had come from. Physical stationery was fairly uncommon, and people tended to take good care of it.

  “Stationery is forbidden for call operators,” said Levi, “but apart from that, it’s a huge risk for trips and slips, ya know.”

  Levi looked around the amphitheatre and tried to hold the gaze of every single person, which was a challenge in so large a space.

  “Now, hold onto your hats, folks. This second incident was a disaster from start to finish. We had an unauthorised intruder in the section this morning. Instead of alerting the security team and remaining calm as per your training, an employee in this very room who shall remain nameless gave chase.”

  On screen, camera footage showed me in a crouched run, moving from cubicle to cubicle, peering under each.

  “Wowzers,” whispered Hattie.

  “Furthermore,” said Levi, “that unnamed employee was observed to be running in the workplace. Heck, I don’t think I’ve ever seen recklessness like it.”

  Levi’s eyebrows went up. He’d spotted me in the audience and gave me a nod of recognition. Shame washed over me.

  “On top of that, call records show that the employee was talking to a customer for some of the time that she was running through the workplace.” He swiped and audio feed played around the hall.

  “Good morning! Jaffle Tech incorporated – Complete peace of mind for a little piece of your mind. My name is Alice. How can I help you today?”

  “Ignore that,” said Levi, fast-forwarding. “Ignore the names. This isn’t about pointing the finger of blame.”

  “Where did you come from?” said my voice over the speakers.

  “I beg your pardon?” said the caller.

  “Sorry, not you, Jackson. I – I mean, I see what you mean.”

  “You see?” said Levi, stopping the playing. “Not only is Alice – I mean the nameless employee – failing to give the customer the benefit of her full attention, but she was also distracted from taking extra care while she put all of our lives at risk with her running. It is fortunate that I was able to intervene, and my skills and training averted a disaster, but if this were to happen again…” He sucked through his teeth and let the implications speak for themselves. “Now watch the film and take careful note of how far we’ve come,” he said.

  “I don’t like The Film,” whispered Hattie and gripped my hand in the dark.

  Levi gave them all another stern look then stepped back into the shadows as The Film played.

  I realised with a sinking feeling that I had seen this section before. Hattie had obviously recognised it too as she gave a small whimper and gripped my hand all the tighter. I forced her to pay attention, knowing that Levi would be watching her.

  The Film had various titles and designations but everyone just called it The Film. When you mentioned The Film, everyone knew what film you were talking about.

  I wasn’t sure how old The Film was. It was in black and white – as though viewed through the eyes of someone on Jaffle Economy or Jaffle Lite – and the quality was very poor. I hoped that a vast gulf of time separated me from the unfortunate people who featured on the screen because their suffering was almost too much to bear. Some of the dangers that featured in this workplace were very unfamiliar to me. It was fortunate that modern standards had made us all safe from tumbling masonry and huge trains, but the film made it very clear that running and danger went hand in hand.

  The Film seemed to be without end, an infinite parade of pitfalls and accidents. Hattie made repeated Ooh and Aah sounds, wincing at the continuing horror and I could see, from the corner of my eye that several of my colleagues were looking away to avoid the worst of it.

  Eventually it ended. Levi stood centre stage. “Hoo-ee. I hope ya all found that film as sobering as I did. Ya must realise that danger stalks us constantly in the workplace, like a savage … savage…”

  “Badger!” suggested someone down near the front.

  “No. No! Bigger than a badger!”

  “Tiger!” shouted someone else.

  “Okay, maybe too big now. A bear! Yes! Like a savage bear,” said Levi. “But ya can count on the security team to have your back. Any questions?”

  “Have you found out who stole Brandine’s bagel yet?” someone shouted.

  “I cannot comment on an on-going investigation.”

  “What kind of bear?” shouted someone else.

  ***

  After the meeting, as everyone was trooping out to return to their cubicles. Levi stepped down from the stage to intercept me.

  “Alice,” he said.

  “Levi,” I replied.

  “Hattie,” said Hattie.

  “I hope ya weren’t disturbed by what happened today.”

  “Discombobulated,” said Hattie.

  “You mean calling me out in front of all my colleagues?” I said.

  “I meant having to see me deal with that intruder so sternly. I wouldn’t want ya to worry yourself over it.”

  “No,” I said because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “You’ll be aware that I have many ways that I can monitor your behaviour,” he said. “Not all of them are known to you, but ya can be certain that I am always watching. However, I can see that you’ve learned a lot today and, remember, that business with the mouse: that was a rare occurrence.”

  “Anomaly,” said Hattie.

  I didn’t know how to respond to him so I did as I always did in the same situation: putting a smile upon my face and carrying on.

  “And just to check,” Hattie asked Levi as I moved on, “this bear – it’s not a real bear, is it?”

  Section head Paulette stood by the door as people exited. “Alice, a word,” she said frostily and beckoned me over.

  ***

  Chapter 3

  “Anomaly.”

  Clap clap.

  “Anomaly.”

  Clap clap.

  “A-nom a-nom anomaly.”

  Clap clap.

  In the cool of the early evening, I found Hattie outside by the pick-up zone. Hattie was playing a clapping game of her own devising while she w
aited. A guy in orange coveralls which identified him as a Jaffle Lite community service worker moved between the concrete pillars, collecting litter. He worked around Hattie, treating her no different to the pillars. Jaffle Lite users were aware of other people but they didn’t see them as people unless you really pointed it out to them. It wasn’t part of their package. In many ways, they were little more than bots and the services they provided to the community could as easily be handled by machines.

  “Sorry, I’m late,” I said.

  “Have you been fired?” said Hattie.

  “No. What? No!” I shook my head. “Paulette gave me a ticking off, the usual systems and procedures talk and calculated I’d lost forty two point something minutes because of my little adventure.”

  “Adventure,” said Hattie, flushing.

  “I’m sorry I’m late.”

  “It’s okay,” said Hattie, “at least the cars will be off peak now.”

  “True.”

  I called a car over and we got in. I jipped the car to pay.

  “Home,” I told it.

  “Maybe,” said Hattie once we were beyond the landscaped greenery of Jaffle Park, “we should start taking off peak cars every day. A bit more money-saving might be good for us.”

  “We might be able to afford Jaffle Enhanced upgrades sooner,” I said.

  “I don’t know,” said Hattie. “I was thinking on splashing out on that Smiley Tot.”

  “No,” I said firmly. “You’re not to buy any more Smiley Tots.”

  “Not to buy any more?” said Hattie. “As in, in the future?”

  I gave her a look. “Did you already buy it?”

  “It was a One-Click special.”

  “Oh, Hattie.”

  “It was an impulse buy.”

  “Yes, but still…”

  “I was still shaking after watching The Film,” said Hattie. “You know how I can be.”

  “I do. I really do.”

  Hattie’s addiction to Smiley Tots had been a fixture of our lives ever since we were matched up as roommates at the Shangri-La Towers apartment complex. She loved their dimpled cheeks. She loved their chubby thighs. She loved their big dewy eyes and their small pink mouths. And one Smiley Tot was not enough for her. No number of Smiley Tots were ever enough for her. Sometimes I had to bite my tongue and not say the obvious – that my best friend and roommate should simply get herself a baby, a human one. But who could afford one of those on our salaries? They wouldn’t even let us in the showroom.

  The car bipped as it tallied up the cost of using the pay-per-metre road. It requested permission to pull out on a faster, more expensive lane. I denied the request. Hattie looked out of the window of the whirring car.

  “Can you believe things used to be that bad?”

  “As The Film? I know, people in the past had it pretty hard,” I said, “although Levi makes it sound as if he’s the only thing holding back all the bad stuff.”

  “Maybe he is,” said Hattie archly, “with his skills and his training.”

  “With his skills and his training and that little moustache of his.”

  “Oh, no,” said Hattie seriously. “I don’t think his moustache does anything. You think it does? You think it’s like a secret gadget moustache?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Well, you would know. You’re the one with a secret agent for a brain.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  There was a cluster of Empties in the drop-off zone near their apartment block. There seemed to be more each week. No one seemed to be doing anything about them.

  The car pulled up further along, away from the Empties, and we climbed out. It glided away to find a parking station.

  Hattie tutted about the dust and debris that littered the communal stairs as we climbed. On our landing we found one of Helberg’s bots. It was cream-coloured with a curved shell. Its underside was equipped with rod-like legs for climbing stairs and spinning bristle brushes for sweeping them. We could see them clearly because the bot had fallen down the stairs and onto its back and was waggling its legs uselessly. Jet-Set Willy, was printed on its side.

  We both ignored it. It was not the first time we had found Jet-Set Willy at the bottom of a set of stairs. We could turn it upright but Helberg didn’t like it when tenants touched his things. Hattie would no doubt be out here later, sweeping up what the bot could not. Of course, it was Helberg’s job to keep the complex clean but Hattie would do it anyway.

  “I’m not so sure about waiting for the off peak cars in the evening,” I said. “I like to be home before Non-Stop Smile Hour ends.”

  “You don’t watch Non-Stop Smile Hour,” said Hattie.

  “I don’t,” I said. “Count together?”

  “Come on then.” Hattie jigged briefly on her tip toes and the two of us timed our steps with the numbers as we counted along the doors of our landing. Most people in the apartment block counted the doors, because it was so difficult to tell them apart on the landing. Each door was painted in the same faded colour with the numbers printed on in white. Over the years the contrast between the background and the numbers had become negligible, so it was fairly common for neighbours to mistakenly walk into each other’s apartments.

  “…thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five…”

  The door to the apartment two doors down from ours opened. Non-Stop Smile Hour had evidently finished.

  “Crumbs,” I muttered.

  “My apartment’s wet. What are you gonna do about it?” said Jeanbee Swanager.

  “Sorry?” I said.

  “Sorry don’t milk the cow or fill the pantry,” said Swanager.

  “I meant … pardon?” I said.

  “What? Are you deaf now too?” said our neighbour. “Don’t they teach you young ’uns to listen anymore?”

  She called us young uns but I suspected that Swanager wasn’t as old as she made herself to be. It was as if she had taken a look at the cardigans and the big knickers and the casual bluntness and, liking what she saw, decided to get in on the old lady action before the rush.

  “We’ve just got in from work,” I said, which was a sentence I hoped would say far more than it actually did.

  “I’ve seen where you work,” sneered Swanager. “Big tall swanky building. Too much glass for my liking. While the rest of us have to cope with wet apartments and worse.”

  “Worse?” said Hattie.

  “Worse!” said Ms Swanager, failing to elaborate. “And I asked you, what are you gonna do about it?”

  “The glass?”

  “The water! And don’t you be giving me no attitude.”

  “We’re not,” I said.

  Hattie was afraid of Swanager and there was plenty of Swanager to be afraid of. She stood behind me, trying not to look like she was cowering. I realised Swanager’s clothes were completely sodden from the knees down. Perhaps she’d been trying to mop up the puddle herself.

  “Do you want me to come look at your wet apartment?” I said.

  “It’s like I’m talking to myself!” cried the not-quite-old woman. “Yes!”

  “It’s just—”

  “What?”

  “Just that—”

  “What?”

  “It’s not exactly my—”

  “Now, don’t you dare say it’s not your responsibility, young woman. I’ve seen where you work.”

  “But this building isn’t managed by Jaffle Tech. Patrick Helberg’s the complex manager…”

  I stopped. Swanager was making a noise like a noisy exhaust, a throaty and rattling exhalation that was simultaneously disgusted and disgusting.

  “I never took you for a shirker, Alice Tennerman.”

  “I’m … I’m not.”

  “Then you scuttle your butt in there and look at my wet apartment.”

  “We’ve not had dinner yet,” I said. “I’ll happy look later after –”

  “Come in now,” said Swanager.

  “Right.”

  “That way, you’
ll have longer to fix things.”

  “Right.” I glanced back at Hattie. “Maybe Hattie could go back to our apartment and start on dinner.”

  “I don’t care about your personal arrangements,” snapped Swanager. “Time’s a-wasting.”

  I gestured for Hattie to leave me to it and Hattie all but fled to the safety of our apartment.

  Swanager turned to go back into her apartment. Her slippers squelched on the thick carpet.

  “Oh my, it is, er, damp in here.”

  “I did say!”

  In the living room, Clifford Pedstone sat watching a Smiley show on the TV. The sofa was an island in the swamped carpet but he had elevated his feet on a stool and grinned at Mr Smiley.

  “Do you have any idea where it’s coming from?” I asked.

  “Do we look like water technicians?” said Swanager.

  Pedstone made a wordless grumble.

  “Don’t you be offering opinions when they’re not asked for, mister,” said Swanager fiercely.

  Pedstone grunted and rested his hands on his huge belly.

  I squelched through to the back of the apartment. The bathroom door was closed. A stream of water trickled out along the gap at the bottom.

  “You closed the bathroom door,” I said.

  “Seemed sensible,” said Swanager, following.

  I opened the bathroom door. Water gushed out like a small river, bobbing with minor detritus from inside the apartment. A hairbrush and a loofah washed past me.

  “You’re meant to make it better, not worse,” said Swanager.

  “Yes, I just…”

  There was a large hole in the bathroom ceiling. Tiles and soggy plaster hung downwards. Water poured through in a light but constant stream.

  “There’s a hole in your bathroom ceiling,” I said.

  “Nothing gets past you, does it? I was going to raise a new call for that after this one was solved. We’re always told that each separate issue requires a new call, aren’t we?”

  “Yes. Yes we are,” I said. I looked at the hole. “I can’t fix this from down here.”

  Swanager snorted.

  “I’m just going to have a look upstairs,” I said.

  Swanager frowned. “But what about us? You’re supposed to be helping us.”