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afford to miss out."
    The lift doors opened on the first floor and they left. Graham remained rooted to the back of the lift, he couldn't even reach out and close the lift doors. Annalise had talked about Paradigm. "It's all linked to Paradigm," she'd said . "People want you dead."
    It was starting again.
    * * *
    The rest of the morning and all through lunch he couldn't stop thinking about Paradigm and what it might mean. Was it coincidence or just the inevitable result of boarding a lift after a count of thirteen?
    He sat down at his terminal as soon as he returned from lunch. He logged in and navigated around the DTI site, trying to remember where the search page was located. Sharmila had shown him once but he hadn't been that interested. It wasn't something he'd thought he'd ever use.
    Until today.
    He found something called search, waited for the page to load, then typed in PARADIGM.
    No matches.
    Perhaps he'd spelt it wrong? He deleted the "g," it didn't look right anyway, and pressed send. He waited, wondering if the "m" was wrong too.
    The result came back. One hit. ParaDim: General project overview and tender information. 
    He clicked on the entry and watched as a new screen appeared. It read:
     
    ParaDim: the future today.  
ParaDim is a vast data collection and analysis project designed to revolutionize the advancement of knowledge. By collating data across all subjects and disciplines and applying groundbreaking artificial intelligence algorithms, ParaDim accelerates scientific discovery. What would have taken decades to accomplish is now achievable in months.
Imagine bringing ten thousand of the world's premier experts together in one room and allowing a spontaneous cross-fertilization of ideas. Now imagine a hundred thousand, a million, ten million. ParaDim makes that possible. It sifts, collates and interprets, using the collected experiences and knowledge of the world to bring a fresh eye onto old problems. No preconception, prejudice or personality. No subject too complex or task too large.
 
    ParaDim seeks partner organizations to help in the collection, storage and processing of data. Partner organizations will be allocated shares in ParaDim Inc. ensuring that everyone benefits from the patents, franchises and new business opportunities that are certain to be generated. The pilot project produced five patents that are widely predicted to revolutionize the electronics and manufacturing industries.
 
    The amount of data to be processed is vast, as is the amount generated by the AI process in its intermediate scans. ParaDim envisages approximately five hundred partner organizations in ParaDim Phase One, increasing to three thousand by ParaDim Phase Three. Exact specifications are detailed in the appendices.
 
    Knowledge has always been power, now it can be profitable too. Be a part of the new technological revolution: ParaDim. 
     
    Graham clicked on the appendices but soon got lost in a mass of figures and technical specifications. How many bytes were there in a terabyte? And just how big was an octillion?
    He returned to the previous page and reread the overview. And wondered how any of it could have anything to do with him?
     

Six
    Graham left work that evening determined to put ParaDim out of his head for the entire weekend. He'd dig out his hardest jigsaw—The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania—the one with all the faces, five thousand pieces of obscure fairy parts and water lilies. Guaranteed to tie up anyone's mind for two days.
    The thought pleased him, he loved jigsaw puzzles, he loved to lose himself in the pursuit of a puzzle that, however complex, never had more than one answer. The cover picture never changed, the pieces never altered shape or disappeared. Everything stayed as it should.
    If only life could be that constant.
    He paced between the flagstones, imprinting his brand of stability into the fabric of the street. The usual Friday evening rush milled discordantly around him. Up ahead