Free A Calculated Life by Anne Charnock Page B

overhead gantries with their clouds of water droplets. The discs gave way to endless, fuzzy lines etched across the bare earth as though the farmers were primarily tasked with an empirical study in perspective.
    “The vineyards,” she said.
    “The olive farms lie south of here. And the citrus groves are farther west, closer to where I live,” said Dave.
    “It’s beautiful.”
    “I know,” he said. “But way out of reach.”
    She turned to him. “What do you mean?”
    “It’s a business; no room for day-trippers.”
    Facing forward again, she detected something low and shapeless emerging through the heat haze. Even as they sped closer she discerned no punctuations; no towers, no spires, no cranes. This had to be the first enclave, she thought. The shuttle slowed towards the station and the new urban landscape became a reality. No clear signs of economic activity, no factories, only three small warehouses on a siding; minor distribution depots, she supposed. She caught sight of street lights but no vehicles, and monotonous blocks of low-rise housing units, four to six storeys high, clearly set out on a grid pattern, untidy with clothes hanging from balconies, which—as far as she could make out—were largely relegated to household storage. Several balconies, however, were boarded up, possibly to make additional rooms. She wondered if the architects for these miserly buildings had sketched patio furniture for these ostensibly desirable indoor-outdoor spaces.
    The shuttle pulled into the station. Functionality laid bare; no advertising hoardings, no wrought-iron squirls hinting at former glory days. No romance had ever been connected to this place, she thought. “It’s not what I expected.”
    “I did warn you.”
    “Yes, but are all the enclaves like this? Aren’t there any parks?”
    “Parks? You’re thinking of the inner suburbs. We’ve passed those. Our shuttles don’t even stop there. We’re pushed out to the enclaves as fast as possible.”
    “I know…but I didn’t realize the enclaves looked like this.” She sighed. “I guess I didn’t translate the data too well.”
    At each shuttle stop, the urban vista remained a monochrome. But the intervening countryside transformed into a sea of citrus—a whispered reminder, she thought, of the country’s wild and wooded past, when great oaks were felled and carved into giants just like Olivia’s
Jesse
.
    “Put the shirt on, Jayna. We’ll be there in two minutes.”
    She felt her throat tighten. Her breathing became shallow. Her imagination had failed her. Already the reality gap was huge.
I should peer between the lines of data; interpolate rather than extrapolate. I could have deduced something closer to the truth. I simply wasn’t looking for it
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CHAPTER 7
    S tation Five: two concrete platforms, a concrete pedestrian bridge, no platform buildings, no personnel; only the sound of children, screeching, beyond the station perimeter wall. Dave and Jayna walked through an unmanned gateway, out onto a vast hardstanding, bare except for the faded markings of parking bays and the scattered intrusions of lusty flowering weeds. She traced the faint painted lines with her steps and called to Dave above the clamor of the children, “Did your family own a car?” He shook his head. She recalled one of those barren facts: private car ownership in the enclaves, in the ten years following the Major Relocations, fell from an average of 30 per cent to zero.
    “Until I was seven years old, we went on day-trips with the Stephensons, family friends. But they had to sell their car.”
    The children’s game-playing hurtled jaggedly across the open ground; Jayna kept her eyes on them. “The car…too expensive to run?” she said, distracted. The nearest housing blocks stood three hundred meters away. Where exactly were they heading? The children’s chasing game swerved towards them. Instinctively she side-jumped closer to Dave.
    “It’s okay, they won’t