DEVIATION
THE FIRST

RAIN BLEW against the window of Uriel’s cubicle.

A window. He had worked hard for a window. Mary had pushed him to reach for that achievement. When you worked every day with numbers and abstractions, she said, it was good to be able to look out and see the world as it was—not as simply figures on a page, to be added and assessed.

There are numbers out there too, though, Uriel thought, looking out the window. Natural laws commanded the rain. Unseen statistics and figures determined where each drop would fall, how hard each would hit, the precise route each would take sliding down the glass. It was well beyond the abilities of mankind to calculate those figures, but that didn’t mean they didn’t exist.

“So,” Adram said nearby, “I told her that she’d better turn down the oven, because it was about to get a lot hotter inside!”

The regular team of coffee-mug-holding, suspender-and-tie-wearing marketing fellows laughed at Adram’s joke. At least Uriel assumed it was a joke. He didn’t understand why it was funny. Too many jokes didn’t make sense when you broke them apart, not logically. The numbers didn’t add up to laughter. Not for him.

He turned back to his smartdesk, lifting his stylus and making a few notations on a screen already full of numbers and ledgers.

Nearby, Adram leaned with one arm on the wall of the cubicle nearest him. He continued to chat as people passed. Some joined his group while others moved off. But Adram kept talking. Always talking. The man never seemed to get anything productive done.

Normally, Uriel could ignore him, but today it was tougher. The numbers . . . the numbers were so worrisome. Uriel needed quiet, not this constant blathering. Who had thought it a good idea to put an actuary next to the marketing department?

Uriel raised his hand to his forehead, kneading it as he tapped his smartdesk screen, bringing up percentages. If this happens . . . He brought up another list of percentages. Not if. When. It will happen.

Each calculation spelled out disaster.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t what people wanted to hear from him. They got angry when he told the truth—as if it were his fault. As if he could make the numbers do anything.

He wished so much that he could.

Perhaps I can sugarcoat this, he thought. I could present the more optimistic side. Like they’re always telling me to.

He glanced at the picture on the top of his desk. Jori, wearing a baseball cap. No. No, Uriel would not sugarcoat what could happen if this technology were released. He would have to tell the truth. For his son’s sake.

That would make him unpopular, but why did they order a risk-assessment analysis if they didn’t want to hear the findings? Executives were so odd. All except for Mr. Galath, chairman of the board. He always seemed to listen. He was one of the only people who made Uriel think this company had anything of a future.

Adram’s chatter finally died down. Uriel glanced over. It looked like people had passed on to do actual work for once, leaving Adram alone. The tall, overly smiling man glanced at Uriel.

Please, no.

Adram sauntered over to Uriel’s cubicle. “Ho there, Spunky!” The man placed a hand on Uriel’s shoulder. “You’ll have good news for us at the meeting, right?”

“I will have facts, Adram,” Uriel said, prying the man’s fingers from his shoulder. “Nothing more or less.”

“Sure, sure.” Adram took a sip of coffee, then gestured toward the desktop and its display of neat ledgers. “You can really make sense of all that?”

“This is my domain,” Uriel said. “I can make the numbers speak—assuming I care for them, encourage them. Control them.”

“You make it sound like you’re a king, Uriel.” Adram laughed. “King of the ledgers.” He leaned down. “You’ll make them speak good things about Project Omega, right?”

“The numbers do not lie. I will say what they tell me.”

“They don’t lie. Cute. Look, Uriel. If you are so good with numbers, why do you always see the opposite of what everyone else knows?”

“Everyone else is wrong.” Wasn’t that obvious?

Adram sighed. “You realize that this is why nobody likes you, Uriel.”

“That statement is patently false. My wife and son both like me.”

“I wasn’t trying to pick an argument,” Adram said. “I was trying to help you out. As a bud.”

“A . . . bud.”

“Sure.”

“You.”

Adram sighed again, standing up straight. “Project Omega is going to happen, and it’s going to make us all very rich. You count those beans, Uriel. Count them well. And take a piece of advice—for once? Make them say that Project Omega is ready to go live.”

Adram patted Uriel’s shoulder, as if with affection, then he ambled away, raising a hand toward Jane and calling out something flirtatious.