Savant

by Nik Abnett

  No one on the Service Floor that day had ever witnessed the phenomenon before. No one working at College Service had ever witnessed such an event, and only a handful of the most senior staff at Service Central had ever been part of so potentially serious an incident. They had all trained for such an eventuality, but it was still virtually impossible to know what any man would do in a crisis, even an Operator.

  A genuine Code Yellow required a total change of Service Floor staff. All Operators were suspended from their duties and replaced with two of their colleagues. This meant taking Operators out of Recreation and Repast, in the first instance. If the problem persisted, Resting Operators would be Roused, and, finally, supplemented from senior staff at Service Central. Tech and support were not switched out, but were supplemented with an additional pair of hands for each rack.

  Each of the eight original Operators donned his cotton-lined neoprene gloves, and stood behind his chair as the new Operator took his seat, and his colleague pulled out the dicky seat from under the counter, and took up position a little higher and to the left of the primary Operator.

  Strazinsky was escorted to an interview room directly off the Service Floor, so that he was close to his station, if he was needed. The room was a two metre cube with a table, two chairs, and, on the wall to the left of the door, a vid-con screen.

  THE COLLEGE ONLY had five Ranked Operators, so that only one of them was on duty at any one time, but there was always a second available for emergencies. Strazinsky was relieved that McColl was on-call. They had known each other for some time, and McColl was the only Ranked Operator that Strazinsky still found approachable. The tendency for Service Operators to be insular ran deep, and, for the most part, there was a direct link between how naturally private an Operator was and how far he advanced in his career. McColl was a rare being, in that he was both psychologically self-sufficient and affable.

  The meeting required the presence of at least three people: the interviewee, the interviewer and the observer.

  “Who will observe?” asked Strazinsky as he and McColl sat on the chairs in the interview room, facing the screen.

  “I will,” said McColl. Strazinsky looked at him, slightly baffled, and then realised what was happening.

  This was big.

  “Who will interview me?” asked Strazinsky.

  The vid-con screen lit up with drifting snow, and then settled, showing a chair and a computer array, somewhere that Strazinsky didn’t recognise.

  “Let’s see, shall we?” asked McColl.

  A man walked into shot on the screen, his back to the camera. He turned to sit in the chair, but Strazinsky didn’t recognise him. The man wore a dark suit with a light shirt and a dark tie. The picture seemed indistinct, and, while he didn’t recognise him, Strazinsky thought that the man on the screen could be mistaken for half-a-dozen different people that he did know. He had an anonymous, regular face. He was medium height, medium weight and average colouring, apparently without any identifying marks or features.

  The man cleared his throat and looked out of the screen at Strazinsky and McColl.

  “Agent Operator Henderson, interviewing,” he said. “Interviewee?” he asked, and there was a pause before Strazinsky answered, leaning forward slightly, and speaking more slowly and clearly than usual. He was nervous.

  “Named Operator Strazinsky, Agent Operator,” he said.

  “No time for titles,” said Henderson. “Observing?”

  “Ranked Operator McColl, sir,” McColl said, briskly.

  “Initial Protocol,” said Henderson. “Yes/No questions and answers only, if you please.”

  If you please, thought Strazinsky. If you please?

  Henderson cleared his throat again, bringing Strazinsky to his senses.

  “Yes,” said Strazinsky.

  Over the next couple of hours, Strazinsky said yes and no thousands of times. The interview technique was not new, but it proved highly efficient in times of heavy stress. It did not allow for the interviewee to analyse his thoughts too much or try to describe a situation that he didn’t have the imagination or the vocabulary to do justice too. The Yes/No system allowed the interviewer to follow any path he chose, picking out what was important, and homing in on it with the interviewee.

  Civilians were seldom required to undergo such intense interviews, and the method was seldom used on them. Creatives often found it difficult to stick to the Yes/No formula, with their tendency to use more qualifications, both verbal and gestural, and often did better telling a story, wholesale, or making pictures or acting out scenes. The best interviewees were the empirical personality types, which included most grades of Drafted, particularly Service Operators. The Yes/No interview was fast and efficient, and a low-stress way of getting the best information in the shortest time. Interviewees were not asked to think or speculate, so, during the course of the interview their answers became automatic responses, which were considered more reliable as evidence, if and when the time came.

  “Is your name Strazinsky?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is your designation Ranked Operator?”

  “No.”

  “Do you work station 3?”

  “No.”

  “Were you called in on a Code Green?”

  “Yes.”

  The first dozen questions established the basic facts that were already a matter of record, and by the end of them Strazinsky was feeling a little more relaxed. He would have to explain nothing. If he was asked to explain what had happened, he might not have been able to.

  His instincts had told him that there was no case for upgrading to Code Yellow, and yet, he had done it. He would not be asked about his instincts or about his decisions. He would not be asked to explain himself. There was no wrong answer. He would not be asked, “What were your criteria for instigating Code Yellow?”

  Interviews were used to glean the facts of an event on the Service Floor, quickly, without recourse to surveillance, which was always reviewed, but not always prioritised. When it was prioritised, as on this occasion, it could take twice as long to review footage as it would simply to view it in real-time, and as much as ten times as long to review footage as it would take for an experienced interviewer to extract the same information.

  Strazinsky had spent more than 36 hours at Station 2, Code Green, before the ramp-up to Code Yellow. Service Central needed all the relevant information now, not in three days time. Agent Operator Henderson had allowed a four hour window for the extraction of the key facts.

  Chapter Eleven

  “TOBE,” SAID METOO, “it’s time to go home.”

  “I’ve got a tutorial,” said Tobe.

  “It’s been cancelled. The Student isn’t well.”

  “I’ll work.”

  “It’s time to go home.”

  “Who’s that?” asked Tobe. Metoo didn’t know who he was referring to; he seemed to be looking right at her. She hesitated.

  “Who’s that?” asked Tobe. Metoo turned, and realised that the Police Operator was still standing at her shoulder. She’d been so busy trying to work out how to keep Tobe calm and get him home that she had quite forgotten he was there. She fished around in her mind for a benign, plausible answer.

  “Who’s that?” asked Tobe.

  “Nobody,” said Metoo, answering reflexively. She knew as soon as she said it that it wouldn’t work.

  “Somebody’s there, not nobody.”

  He could be so bloody literal at times.

  “Who’s that?” asked Tobe.

  “This is...” she began, hesitating as she turned to the Operator, gesturing up at him with a shrug.

  “... Saintout,” said the Police Operator.

  “French,” said Tobe.

  “Yes... French... a long time ago,” said Saintout, pushing his bottom lip out in an oddly Gallic expression that was not lost on Metoo.

  “He’s my friend,” said Metoo, intending to make Saintout seem as unthreatening as possible.
>
  “Tobe’s your friend,” said Tobe. “French is not your friend.”

  “You are my friend,” said Metoo, glad to have something useful to latch on to. “Do you remember what friends do?”

  “Tobe’s your friend, so Tobe helps you,” said Tobe.

  “Exactly. Will you help me now, Tobe?”

  “Tobe’s your friend.”

  Metoo took that to mean yes.

  “Just hop across the floor, and come home with me.”

  “The floor,” said Tobe, looking down.

  Metoo was afraid that she’d drawn attention to the wrong thing, and was annoyed at herself for asking the sort of combination question that Tobe found impossible to answer. She tried to bring his attention back.

  “Let’s go home,” she said, quickly. Tobe continued to look at the floor, turning his body slightly away from her.

  Metoo waited for a moment, gesturing frantically with her hand to Saintout to get out of sight. Saintout moved to his left until he could no longer see into the office, or be seen from it, but stayed close enough to be useful if Tobe became a threat.

  “Tobe,” said Metoo, and then again, “Tobe.”

  Tobe swivelled back to face her again. His head was still bent, but he was looking up through his fringe at her.

  “Take me home, please?” she asked.

  Tobe tiptoed out of his office, gently stepping into the small gaps left between his calculations. He crossed the floor without apparently disturbing anything.

  Metoo put her hands out, her arms horizontal to either side of her body, keeping the Operators at bay. The two men on either side of the door nodded at her to acknowledge that they understood her instruction. Saintout brought his right hand up to his waist, in case he needed to deploy his weapon.

  As Tobe crossed the office threshold, Metoo reached out and placed a hand on either side of his face. His eyes were cast down.

  “Thank you, Tobe,” she said. “Now, let’s go home.” She turned him as she spoke, still holding his face, so that his vision was, effectively blinkered. They were soon walking down the corridor away from the office, with Saintout at a discreet distance behind them. Tobe had not seen any of the Service Operators.

  The Operators on either side of the office door turned to face each other, and then turned to face into the room.

  “Bloody hell,” said the man on the left.

  SAINTOUT ESCORTED TOBE and Metoo back to the flat, and waited outside. Metoo set the bath to run, and told Tobe to undress. He went to his room, and she ducked back into the corridor to speak to Saintout.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I think he’ll be fine now.”

  “I’m sorry, Assistant-Companion,” said Saintout, “but I’ve been assigned, and I’m not going anywhere. By rights, I should be in that flat with you. In fact, Assistant-Companion, I must insist that I accompany you back into the flat.”

  Metoo looked at him.

  “Now,” said Saintout.

  Metoo would not jeopardise Tobe’s work or life by having someone, anyone, come into the flat while he was there. From time to time, a Student would come in, usually for something to do with Service, but she always ensured that their visits happened when Tobe was in his office. Since he kept to a fairly rigid timetable, and, since he tended to work longer hours than Students, their visits had never been a problem. It helped enormously that Tobe was a creature of habit. He had established routines, and he hated to deviate from them. Leaving his office so early in the day, today, would cause enough trouble. There was no way that Metoo was going to allow Saintout to walk into the flat.

  Saintout, however, was insistent.

  TOBE WALKED, NAKED, to the bathroom, leaving the door open as he stepped into the bath and sat down in the water that was still running.

  Metoo went to the closed door of the Companion’s room, opened it, barely far enough to let her pass through, and closed it quietly behind her. She crossed the room to the window, without looking at any of her plants. She opened the window as wide as she could, and stuck her head out.

  “You really ought to be careful of that, Assistant-Companion,” said Saintout, who was standing with his back to the wall adjacent to the window.

  “I didn’t think you were there,” said Metoo, clutching her chest with the shock of suddenly hearing Saintout outside the window, before she saw him.

  “I was told, most emphatically, that I must not be seen by the subject, Assistant-Companion,” said Saintout.

  Metoo didn’t answer him. She knew he was being amusing for her benefit, but none of this was funny; she needed to be particularly vigilant with Tobe. Things had not been going well for days, since the stupid sock thing, and she had no idea what the fallout would be.

  Colleges were set up with the sole purpose of catering to the upper echelons of the Drafted, which, basically, meant the Masters, since no one ever knew who was Active. Things did not go wrong. Companions kept their Masters’ home-lives simple and regulated, with specific reference to their individual personality maps. Assistants did a similar job in the Masters’ offices. Beyond that, Students were Scheduled according to their Masters’ needs, and Service was on hand at all times to monitor everything.

  She had asked more than a dozen times in the past two days, “Anomalies?” They had answered, “Minor and monitoring”. What the hell was going on?

  Tobe was in the bath, and Saintout was in the Companion’s room. Metoo signed into Service.

  “Anomalies?” she asked.

  There was no answer.

  “Anomaly status on Master Tobe?”

  “Thank you for signing in,” said Service. “Service will resume shortly.”

  Metoo sat, rigid, for several seconds. She could hear Tobe in the bath. She had never known him to take a long bath, so she didn’t have much time. She wondered, for a moment, whether she had remembered to put out a towel and a robe for him. Why did she wonder? Of course she had.

  Metoo willed herself to stay where she was. Tobe was fine; that was all that mattered. So long as Saintout was in the garden room, and did not do anything stupid, Tobe would be quite happy pottering about. He would not wonder, for a moment, what she was doing signed in to Service. He didn’t care about Service. It struck Metoo how odd it was that Service watched Tobe’s every move, while he totally ignored its very existence. He had everything he needed, and he did not need Service. Service needed him.

  “Anomaly status on Master Tobe?” she asked.

  Service buzzed faintly for a moment or two, as if with very distant static.

  Metoo’s hands were sweating slightly, and her eyes were big in her face, again.

  “Anomalies?” she asked, so short of breath that she could not repeat the entire formal request.

  Service buzzed again. Then she realised that it wasn’t buzzing at all, but that her aural acuity was heightened, just as her visual acuity had been heightened when Tobe had been in the garden room, yesterday morning, and she had watched the droplet of water fall on his forehead.

  Tobe had been in the garden room.

  Metoo’s temperature rose, instantaneously, and her skin began to prickle with a sheen of cold sweat.

  Metoo heard Tobe step out of the bath.

  Tobe had been in the garden room. He had been there once, and so he might go there again. Something must have mattered to him very much for him to enter the room for the first time. If the thought occurred to him again, it would be much easier for him to enter the garden room a second time.

  Metoo found herself in the corridor outside the bathroom. She watched as Tobe, his back to her, dropped the towel and threw the robe over his head. He turned to face her.

  “Come into the kitchen and have a cup of tea,” said Metoo. She tried to hold down her panic so that he wouldn’t see it, while knowing, all the time, that he had never been able to read her face; she was in no danger of being caught with her feelings.

  They walked to the kitchen together, and Tobe sat on his stool, while Meto
o began to make the tea. The initial rush of adrenalin had subsided. Tobe was safe, and, apparently, oblivious.

  “MODERATE AND MONITORING,” said Service, to empty air.

  Chapter Twelve

  SERVICE SENT TWO Techs to Tobe’s room. There had been a long discussion, first between the Operators who had guarded the door, during Tobe’s extraction, and then between the three Ranked Operators, who had been brought in from Repast, Recreation and Rest, mobilising the entire Service team, for the College, at Ranked level. McColl was still observing for Strazinsky, and Ranked Operator Dudley was manning Station 2, alongside the Named Operator that had replaced Strazinsky.

  The three Ranked Operators could not come to a unanimous decision about what to do with Tobe’s office, so they called in Service Central.

  The two Techs stood outside Tobe’s room for over an hour, alongside the Operators, who were guarding the entrance. No one went in or out. The door remained open, and the four men standing in the corridor outside barely dared to breathe.

  A decision was made. Service Central was already reviewing footage, various sections being worked on simultaneously, so that the procedure could be completed in the shortest possible time.

  The Techs were sent in.

  After two or three minutes watching the Techs wrangling with each other, trying to decide who should enter the room, one of the Operators stepped towards them.

  “The little bloke goes in,” he said.

  The Techs looked at the Operator, who had said less than any of them during the tense hour they had been together, and had claimed to have no opinion as to what should be done.

  “Stands to reason,” he said. “Small feet, less likely to make a mess of what’s there.”

  The smaller of the Techs, who had ‘Estefan’ stencilled on the back of his regulation overalls, unlaced his work boots, and, using the toe of the other foot, against the back of the boot, removed them, without having cause to use his hands. It was mandatory for Techs to have clean dry hands when they were working, and they all developed habits relating to their hands, either rituals or shortcuts, depending on their personalities. Estefan preferred shortcuts; another Tech might take his boots off with his hands because the last thing he would do before starting a job would be to wash his hands, regardless of whether they were clean.