A Calculated Risk

by Katherine Neville

  Because I worked mostly in the field with clients, I managed to avoid much of that Dickensian atmosphere.

  “Verity,” Alfie said when we were seated behind his glass wall, “I’m going to ask you to take on some new accounts.” He pulled out a lengthy list and passed it to me. I ran my eyes over it.

  “But sir, I already have more clients than anyone else,” I said. “And some of these firms use different hardware and programming languages than the ones I’m familiar with. It may take some time—”

  “There is no time,” he informed me, with what suspiciously resembled a trace of glee. “If you didn’t want to work hard, you shouldn’t have come to Monolith; there’s no place for idlers on our payroll. Half your colleagues out front would give anything to be in your place—and I’ll put them there, if you botch up. That will be all.”

  I was over my head now—and I knew it. I had twice as many accounts to service as anyone in the office. Many of these were the most sophisticated of “users” as well as those with the heaviest back list of work to be done. They’d find me out in under a month.

  By the end of that week, I was exhausted from working dawn till the wee hours; my desk was piled with things to take home and work on over the weekend. It was well after quitting time on Friday, when Alfie showed up with a forbidding pile of manuals. He dropped the load with a thud on my desk.

  “Louis is going to bestow a great honor on you,” he informed me. Louis Findstone was Alfie’s boss—the division manager. “On Monday morning, crack of dawn, you’ll be presented to the board of directors of Transpacific Railroad—our largest client—as their new representative. You won’t be asked to say anything at the meeting, but I thought you might want to read up on Transpacific over the weekend, just in case you’re asked any questions.”

  It certainly was a great honor, as I knew. Teckies were never brought out in public before a lofty group like that. But how on earth could I read all those books, and also get my other catching-up done?

  As if he’d read my mind, Alfie added, “Frankly, I don’t agree with the choice of you for this assignment; you’re still wet behind the ears, and it seems to me you’ve been treading water, just trying to stay afloat with your daily work. But I leave it to Louis’s judgment.” And with that, he departed.

  So I remained there that night, after everyone had left for the weekend, trying to wade through the books Alfie had left—too many and too heavy to carry home on the subway, since I certainly couldn’t afford a cab.

  It didn’t take me long to understand that I was in real trouble; these books were like witches’ brew. The terms might have meant something to a person schooled in business, but I was a math major—I couldn’t even read a financial statement!

  I decided to wander through the building, on the off chance that someone might have stayed late on Friday night. But as the elevator doors opened upon floor after floor of empty darkness, my hopes waned.

  I went downstairs to the all-night data center, packing with me a heavy tome, thinking one of the night machine operators might be able to explain it.

  “Looks like mumbo jumbo to me,” said the one I found there. “All the others are out having dinner, and I think the rest of the building’s shut down for the night—but let’s have a look.”

  He went over to the building control panel and searched the floors. “Hmm—some juice is still running on twelve—maybe somebody who’s burning the midnight oil like you. I’d give it a try.”

  When the elevator doors slid open on the twelfth floor, a few corridor lights were on—but the rest of the floor lay in complete darkness. I walked down the glassed-in corridors to each corner of the building, but indeed, all the offices were dark and empty.

  “May I help you, little girl?” The soft voice was just behind me.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin; I felt my lip trembling from the sudden fright as I swallowed and turned.

  There stood the most amazing-looking man I’d ever seen. He was tall—perhaps five or six inches over six feet—and he stood bent forward with one ear cocked, as if accustomed to dealing with people far smaller than himself. He was as thin as he was tall, with pale skin, close-set intense eyes above a hawk-like nose and a narrow mouth. His hair was precisely the color of copper. Though his manner suggested he was older, he could not have been more than thirty. Something about him put me at ease at once; I later learned he did not have that disarming effect upon everyone.

  There was something else about him, too—more difficult to explain, but still vivid in my memory after all these years. There was a sort of volatile energy, like a harnessed atom kept under control only through great restraint. Having seen this trait in just a few others during my lifetime, I’ve come to believe that it is, purely and simply, intelligence—but intelligence of such enormous quantity that it’s hard to imagine how it might all be used. Those who possess this rare quality seem to contain a huge explosive, whose trigger mechanism might go off with the slightest jar. Such people speak softly, move slowly, and seem to bear with infinite patience the traffic they must have with the outside world. But inside are seas and mountains of upheaval.

  I stood there for a long time in silence, before I realized he was watching me with a bemused expression—almost as if he, too, were seeing something for the first time. I hadn’t a clue what that was, but I had the uncomfortable feeling he could observe the cogs moving inside my head, an impression I was to have on many subsequent occasions. At the time—in the dim corridor light—I didn’t register the color of his eyes.

  “My name is Tor—Zoltan Tor,” he said, speaking gingerly, as if unused to having to introduce himself. “Have you lost your way? Perhaps I could help you out.”

  The way he said it—he pronounced each word as if cutting it with a knife to make it more precise—made me pause in replying. Though he’d only asked whether he could help me out of the building, it seemed as if he’d asked whether he could help me out with my life.

  “I don’t think so,” I told him sadly. “I need a technical expert, I’m afraid.” And he certainly didn’t look like one, in his three-piece custom-cut suit. Perhaps a diplomat would wear a silk shirt and gold cuff links like those, but no teckie would dress that way.

  “Why not tell me your problem?” he said with a smile. “I only dabble in technology, for my own amusement. But sometimes, what I have to say amuses others as well.”

  I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I was so distraught—and relieved at his offer of help—that I rattled off everything nonstop while standing there in the hallway.

  When I got to the part about the great opportunity I’d been offered only that evening, he stopped me with a hand on my arm.

  “One moment, one moment,” he said quickly. “You say you work for a man named Alfie? That’s Findstone’s division—transportation systems—isn’t it?”

  When I nodded yes, a slow smile spread across his face.

  “So, Alfie and Louis are giving you this great opportunity, are they? I find that quite interesting—really I do.” He paused for a moment, not looking at me, and seemed to arrive at some private conclusion. Then he said, “But you don’t believe what they’ve told you.” It was more an observation than a question.

  “No, I don’t,” I admitted—though I’d only just realized it as I said it.

  Tor scrutinized my face closely, as if looking for truth in a crystal ball. “What you do believe is that you’ll be called upon to make some sort of presentation before the client—and that you’ll appear a fool. In fact, even before this situation arose, you’d been concerned about just such a possibility.”

  “I don’t understand all I should,” I admitted, “but I think you’re wrong about Alfie and Louis; it wouldn’t make sense. Why would the very people I work for wish to set me up that way—in front of their own clients?”

  “I’ve long ago ceased trying to comprehend the motives of the ignorant and ineffectual,” he told me. “It’s a poor use of time that might
be better spent learning something of value. How long have you, before this momentous debut?”

  “Early Monday morning,” I told him.

  “Though you’re young, it’s clear you’re wise enough to know that preparation never harmed anyone. The worst result will see you a bit wiser than before. How would you like to understand—by Monday morning—exactly how computers work, and what makes companies run?”

  “I’d love it! I have some more books like this one,” I told him, offering the fat one Alfie had given me; I’d stood there with it still jammed under my arm.

  “You won’t need them,” he said, not glancing at the volume. “They’re probably worthless anyway. I know everything necessary about the Transpacific Railroad. The chairman is a chap named Ben Jackson, I believe?”

  “That’s right,” I said, flushed with excitement.

  At least I’d learned something poring through those books.

  “Come to my office,” said Tor. He seemed satisfied about something, but wasn’t giving out any information. “You’ve got hard work ahead; I hope you haven’t made plans for the weekend. I’m quite free myself, and happy to be of service.”

  I couldn’t believe my luck. It never occurred to me to wonder why this perfect stranger would take his own time, be so helpful, to someone with credentials as unimpressive as mine.

  “I promise to take good notes,” I told him cheerfully as I trotted beside him down the hall.

  “You needn’t bother; I want everything carved into that eager little brain. You have to begin to think as a computer does. Those who cannot keep pace with the revolution in technology will find, in a year or two, that they themselves are obsolete.”

  So began the most important weekend of my life—a weekend when I entered the cocoon as a computer ignoramus, and emerged as a full-blown technocrat. We spent nearly the whole time in Tor’s office, though I was allowed to go home each night to catch a few winks, bathe, change clothes, and return at dawn. What began as a painful ordeal turned into purest pleasure—like climbing a mountain—worth all the agony, once you reached the top.

  I soon discovered that Tor had a remarkable gift: the skill to explain complex subjects and make them crystal clear. Grasping all he told me was as easy as swallowing honey.

  By the end of that first night, I knew enough about each computer, operating system, and programming language to teach a course myself on the subject. After Saturday night, I knew as much about the products of all the competitor firms, and how their products compared with ours. By Sunday, I could explain how each machine on the market was used in major businesses and industries. The details were an adventure story; Tor’s every word stuck in my mind—without notes—as he’d promised.

  But one glimpse of his office had told me more about the man himself than the three days I spent at close quarters.

  I’d assumed his office would be like all the others in our standardized building: glass walls, regulation metal desk, files and bookcases. Instead he had led me to the building core—where elevators and fire doors were located—and marched me into a broom closet!

  When we switched on the light, there were mops and pails, and rows of metal shelves holding supplies—punched cards, pens and paper, technical manuals—all covered with a thin veneer of dust.

  “The space behind the elevator bays was designed for storage,” he told me as he pulled a key from his waistcoat and unlocked a heavy metal door hidden behind the last row of shelves. “But I found a better use. I hate working in that fish-bowl out there, so I partitioned the stockroom with soundproof walls. I have the only key. Privacy—like eating and breathing—is one of life’s basic requirements.”

  We entered an enormous, oblong room with parquet floors, walls paneled from top to bottom with books: many were leather-bound, and a glance informed me that few, if any, dealt with computers.

  Fine Persian rugs were scattered about, as well as worn leather chairs, greenish-blue Tiffany lamps that looked like the real thing. A Spode tea service was displayed on an étagère, and an old copper samovar with three spigots rested on a table in the corner. At the center of the room was a large, round, leather-topped table, inset with thick green baize. Arrayed on it were dozens of small figurines in metal, enamel, ivory, wood. I went over to examine them, and Tor picked one up, handing it to me. I noticed the carved-out base.

  “These are signets,” he told me. “Do you know anything about them?”

  “Only that in the old days they were used to seal the wax on letters,” I said.

  “The old days—yes,” he agreed, laughing. “With that, modern man sums up everything that has occurred in the last five thousand years. Yes, signets were used to seal documents—but more than that: they were the first encryption. The intaglio imprints were used as a sort of code, depending upon where they were placed on a document, or in what combination.”

  “You’ve made a study of encryption?” I asked.

  “I’m a most avid student of the entire art of secrecy—for it is an art,” he told me. “Secrecy is the only liberty still afforded us, in this ‘best of all possible worlds.’”

  Perhaps I imagined it, but he sounded somewhat embittered.

  “Are you quoting Dr. Pangloss?” I asked. “Or his creator, who said, ‘I laugh only to keep from hanging myself’?”

  “Why, that’s it!” he said, neatly avoiding my question. “It’s Candide you remind me of: that same naive impressionability one loses so quickly by encountering the real world. But you must take care, and see it always works to your advantage—revealing truth, as the child did in the story of the emperor’s new clothes—not ending in cynicism and isolation, as in Candide’s case. Just now, your mind’s like a piece of fresh, hot wax, in which no print has yet been left—”

  “So you plan to stamp your intaglio in me?” I asked.

  Tor, who’d been arranging the signets on the table, glanced up sharply. Now I noticed the color of his eyes. They were strangely disconcerting—an intense, coppery flame burning in the depths—so at odds with his aloof and formal manner. It was as though he could penetrate like a laser—stripping away those layers of veneer with which we all protect ourselves—cutting to the very bone. Then he squinted, and the impression vanished.

  “You’re a strange child,” he said, still studying me. “You have the ability to see truth without really understanding what it means. A mixed gift, and a dangerous one, if you always blurt things out tactlessly like that.”

  I wasn’t sure how I’d been either truthful or tactless, so I simply smiled.

  “I’ve studied this art of secrecy so long,” he went on, “encryption, decoding, intelligence, espionage … but in the end, I’ve been left with one great fact: nothing can be hidden from X-ray vision, regardless how things are concealed. Truth has divine properties, and the ability to see it is a gift that’s given, not acquired.”

  “What makes you think I have it?” I asked, for I knew that was what he meant.

  “Never mind; it’s enough that I recognize a gift when I see it. All my life, I’ve searched for challenges—only to learn in the end that the greatest challenge was in finding a challenge at all. How sad, that when I met it at last, it should arrive in the guise of a fourteen-year-old child.”

  “I’m twenty,” I pointed out.

  “You look fourteen, and so you behave,” he said with a sigh, coming over to set both hands on my shoulders. “Believe me, my dear, when I say that I’ve never been accused of being an altruist. In some languages, there’s no way to express, as there is in English, the concept of time as a commodity—of wasting, spending, or killing it. When I use my time for something, I expect commensurate value. If I pluck a waif from the halls and offer to improve her through my tutelage, I assure you that my goal isn’t to improve the lot of beleaguered mankind.”

  “Then why?” I asked, meeting his gaze.

  He smiled, perhaps the most intriguing smile I’d ever seen.

  “I’m Pygmalion,” he told
me. “When I’m through with you—you’re going to be a masterpiece.”

  By Monday morning, I felt I was a masterpiece—though I didn’t look much like one. My hair was disheveled, and dark rings circled my eyes.

  But my head was jam-packed with knowledge, and just as Tor had predicted, I hadn’t lost a stitch. For the first time in my life, I felt that calm confidence that comes with being truly knowledgeable on a subject—completely prepared. I felt I’d taken a long dip in a refreshing pool.

  I’d wanted to give Tor the good news at once. But the meeting, and what came after, had taken longer than I’d thought. I passed through his floor several times during the day, but even the dingy stockroom was locked.

  I was just about to leave for the day when I received a note at my desk:

  Come to the supply room when you have a chance.

  When I rapped at the door, Tor opened it at once. He was standing there in evening clothes, looking elegant. As he ushered me into the room I saw a large silver bucket sitting where the samovar had been, and before it, two crystal glasses.

  “Champagne, madame?” he asked, folding a linen towel over his arm. “I hear you’ve scored quite a success today.”

  “I’m sorry—I don’t drink,” I told him.

  “Champagne isn’t drinking—it’s celebrating,” he told me, and filled the glasses with dangerous-looking bubbles. “Incidentally, do you own a dress?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “I’d like you to go home and put it on,” he said. “I want to escort someone to dinner who has legs. I’ve been meaning to discuss the subject with you, anyway. Stop trying to look like a boy; you’re fooling no one, no matter how you try.”

  “You’re taking me out?” I was flabbergasted.

  “This compulsive innocence is unbecoming,” he told me. “Drink your champagne.”

  I took a slug, but the bubbles went up my nose and burned my throat and I coughed. I started to hand back the glass.