Normal

by Francine Pascal

easy answers

  All she could do was sit there like a tortured zombie.

  Immeasurably Grateful

  WHAT AM I DOING HERE?

  Gaia wasn’t sure. She was back in the Rodke and Simon building on Sixth Avenue. She was shivering—the waiting room’s air-conditioning was going full blast. Pleasant music was playing quietly in the background. Gaia sat in one of the comfortable leather chairs, holding her package in her lap, looking around.

  The room was empty except for the white-coated receptionist behind the desk. The receptionist had smiled at her and told her to wait (in a British accent) and then ignored her. Every time the phone rang, the receptionist answered quietly, “Rodke and Simon, Advanced Resequencing Labs.”

  When Mr. Rodke had arranged this meeting from his office, he’d told her to expect a bit of a “madhouse” since the laboratories were so new. Gaia wouldn’t have called this a “madhouse,” however. Like the Rodkes’ apartment, the office had stacks of plywood and construction materials around, but each person she’d seen—the receptionist and the passing scientists in lab coats—had appeared very calm and professional. The atmosphere of high-end science was unmistakable.

  So why am I here?

  It was a funny series of events, now that she thought back on it. If she hadn’t played chess in Starbucks. . . if she hadn’t gotten an opportunity to meet Mr. Rodke. . . if he hadn’t graciously invited her to come find out about his company. . . she wouldn’t be sitting here, with this package in her lap, about to have a private discussion with one of the world’s premier geneticists.

  Gaia was rehearsing the things she was going to say. In her fingers the package turned over and over. She could still leave, she thought, turn right around and take the elevator down to Sixth Avenue and get a subway home to Collingwood. She’d tell Mr. Rodke that she’d changed her mind.

  But she hadn’t changed her mind. She wanted to be here. It was as simple as that. I’m just learning, she told herself. The more knowledge I have, the better off I am.

  “Miss Moore?” the receptionist said. Again her British accent struck Gaia. It made her sound so reasonable, so professional. “Dr. Ulrich will see you now.”

  “Thank you,” Gaia said. Clutching her small paper-wrapped package, she rose to her feet and followed the receptionist’s gesture toward a white metal door.

  Resequencing Analysis Systems, a sign on the door said. And beneath that, in smaller letters, Karl Ulrich. No alphabet soup of initials and credentials; just his name. Gaia found that reassuring somehow.

  She noticed that the door had a complicated electronic combination lock. The lock wasn’t engaged—she could push the door open.

  The room inside was much colder and much larger. Gaia’s breath was actually fogging before her face. There were no windows. The room was dominated by a large Formica-covered table about the size of four Ping-Pong tables pushed together. It was covered in stacks of round petri dishes, piled up like transparent hockey pucks.

  At one end of the table was a large gray machine like a bank safe. The machine had a complicated computer connection coming off it and a big round door on its front, like a washing machine. The interior of the machine was brightly lit.

  “You must be Gaia Moore,” Dr. Ulrich said, coming toward her. He was a short, dark-haired man with a heavy German accent. He had thick gold-framed glasses. He wore a white lab coat and latex surgical gloves; he was pulling off the gloves to shake hands. “How do you do? Sorry about the cold air—it is necessary for the tissue samples.”

  “Hello,” Gaia said. She was still clutching her small paper-wrapped package.

  Dr. Ulrich gestured to one side, where a metal desk stood against the wall. Stacks of papers and more petri dishes covered its surface. There was a chair facing the desk, and Gaia sat down. “This place is pretty amazing,” Gaia said, doing her best to make conversation.

  “Well, yes, but we have a lot of work still to do,” Ulrich said. His accent was pronounced; have sounded like haff. Grunting, Dr. Ulrich dropped into a battered leather chair behind his desk. “This new facility is very exciting. Mr. Rodke has come through on his promises to provide the best of everything. Our work is going very well, mostly thanks to that.”

  Ulrich was pointing at the big bank safe-looking machine. Gaia looked over politely. “And what’s that?”

  Ulrich waved a hand dismissively. “Much too complicated. If I answered your question, we would be talking for three hours.”

  “But I’m interested,” Gaia protested.

  “Ah, yes, I forget—you are a student of the human genome.” Ulrich beamed at her, his glasses glinting in the fluorescent light. “Robert Rodke told me as much. So—that machine is our pride and joy. It is an advanced electron microscope specially configured to allow a complete examination of any chromosome from any tissue sample. It is connected to very powerful computers in the basement of this building.

  “Simply put, with this device we can now determine the genetic properties of any living organism and so probe the mysteries of heredity. It takes mere moments. It is no exaggeration to call this the most advanced gene sequencer on the planet. For this machine alone, the company has spent close to two hundred million dollars.”

  Gaia kept looking at the machine. It looked so normal, so boring.

  But that could be the key, she realized. The key to my whole life. That machine could look at her blood and see what made her fearless.

  “But you can’t change people’s genes with that thing, can you?” Gaia asked.

  Ulrich leaned forward, intently nodding. “Just so. We cannot do this here. To alter genes, a much more complex procedure is involved over at the hospital, where we have set up our new facility. But again, I talk too much about details.”

  “It’s interesting,” said Gaia truthfully.

  Our new facility. . . over at the hospital. It was clear that these people meant business. The whole thing seemed very serious and professional. Gaia was impressed, and, more importantly, she was realizing again how lucky she was. Lucky that she’d met the Rodke kids. Lucky that they liked her. Lucky that they’d started talking about genes. And now here she was, sitting in the same room with the most advanced gene sequencer on the planet.

  “So what are we to discuss?” Ulrich asked politely. He had taken off his glasses and was polishing them with a white cloth. His face was craggy and kind; his eyes were dark brown. “I understand that you have some questions for me.”

  “Yeah,” Gaia said. She had spent some time planning this the night before; she knew exactly what she wanted to say. “Dr. Ulrich, can I make a deal with you? Can we agree that this conversation is private? Strictly between us?”

  Ulrich frowned. His glasses glinted as he put them back on. “Of course. You must understand that this goes both ways: when you leave this room, you must be careful not to give away any of the company’s valuable trade secrets regarding techniques that are not yet available to the general public.”

  Gaia was unwrapping her package.

  “I know a person,” she explained, “who has a. . . disease. I guess you could call it a disease. There’s something. . . unusual about this person.”

  “Go on.”

  “There’s a family history of disorder,” Gaia went on. She was choosing her words carefully. “There’s a direct genetic cause for all of it. This person’s uncle had a rare blood disease in childhood, and there’s a younger sibling with very unusual psychological traits. But the point is, this person might want to be. . . cured of the disease if it’s possible.”

  “I would not know how to discuss this,” Ulrich said. “I do not know the details.”

  “Look,” Gaia said.

  She’d opened her package and brought out a very small glass bottle the size of a thimble. The bottle was tightly sealed, and sliding around inside were a few drops of dark red fluid.

  Human blood.

  When Ulrich saw the bottle, his eyes widened. He leaned forward, peering at the object i
n Gaia’s hand.

  “The person I’m discussing is very concerned about privacy,” Gaia went on. “But the possibility that the. . . disease. . . could be treated is very attractive to this person. So the person agreed to give me a blood sample for you to examine.”

  “Just so. Please, let me see?”

  Ulrich’s hand reached toward her across the desk. Gaia handed over the bottle—the bottle she’d stolen from the Village School’s science lab and filled with her own blood that morning in the bathroom at the Collingwood boardinghouse.

  “Arterial blood; drawn in the last six hours, judging by the color and coagulation. Come this way,” Ulrich said, quickly snapping a new pair of white surgical gloves onto his hands. “Let us see what you have.”

  Here goes, Gaia thought as she followed the small man across the room toward the big table and the hulking gray machine. Now we’ll see if this guy’s as good as he thinks he is.

  Gaia watched as Dr. Ulrich’s gloved hands quickly transferred her blood onto a small metal grille the size of a quarter. He moved very fast. First he used tweezers to put the blood-soaked metal disk into a steel bottle shaped like a soup can. Next he screwed its cover down tight, creating a vacuum seal. Then he swung open the big round door on his machine. Inside, the walls were copper mesh. He carefully placed the steel bottle in the center of the machine’s cavity and then closed the door and latched it tightly shut. Unexpectedly, he then reached for a telephone on the table and dialed.

  “Donaldson?” Ulrich said into the phone. “Ja, it’s me. Could you please start a sequence now? The chamber is loaded.”

  As Gaia watched, the machine suddenly started clanking and humming all by itself. A brilliant light shone out of its round window; Gaia’s eyes watered and she had to look away.

  “This will now take just a few moments,” Ulrich said, leading Gaia back to his desk. Behind them the machine kept humming and clicking. “The computer lab is downstairs; this is where they control the genetic examination. We will see the results here.”

  “Okay,” Gaia said. She resumed her seat as before, facing Ulrich across the desk. “That’s pretty amazing, that it works so fast.”

  “Amazing, yes. But we have paid for that speed with years and years of testing. The technique is only just now becoming feasible; a few months ago it would not have been possible to get the results so quickly. If all goes well, soon every hospital will have one of these. Then the treatment of—ah!”

  A laser printer on the floor was making clicking noises as pieces of paper slid out. Dr. Ulrich reached down and picked them up. He began reading.

  Then he frowned.

  Gaia glanced back over at the two-hundred-million-dollar machine. It was silent now. Its lights had gone out.

  The phone rang. Ulrich picked it up; he was still squinting at the pages. “Hello? Ja, I see it, too. And the missing portions. . . are you sure this is not another software problem?”

  There was a pause, during which Gaia could hear a man’s voice speaking loudly on the other end of the phone.

  “Of course I loaded the machine correctly,” Ulrich said angrily. “What do you take me for, a fool? But you are correct: it cannot possibly be faked. . . . Well, if you are sure, then I am sure.”

  Ulrich slammed down the phone. “That was the computer lab—they can be troublesome,” he told Gaia. “This is perhaps the most extraordinary human chromosome I have ever seen, Ms. Moore. A person with these genes. . . ” The man shook his head, as if lost in thought. “Well, the results would be remarkable. There is no way of telling how a person would exist without. . . ”

  He can see it, Gaia thought. He can actually see it.

  “Remember,” Gaia said, “that you promised to keep this a secret.”

  “Hmmm?” Ulrich looked at her sharply, as if suddenly remembering that he wasn’t alone in the room. “Oh, yes—of course. But you must understand, Ms. Moore, this person whose blood you have shown me—this ‘disease,’ as you call it—is unique in my experience. Such a person could be exhibited in scientific conferences around the world for years, if it were permissible.”

  “But you could treat it?” Gaia asked, leaning forward in her chair. Her breath was fogging in front of her face; the coldness of the room was getting to her. “If the person came to you. . . you could fix the person’s genes? Make them normal?”

  Ulrich stared back at Gaia. He was reaching into his breast pocket. He pulled out a business card and handed it over. He was still wearing his surgical gloves.

  Gaia looked down at the card. It had Ulrich’s name, a Rodke and Simon logo, and, penciled in underneath, another phone number and address.

  “It is as if you had read my mind,” Ulrich said intently. “That is precisely what I would be most interested in doing. The successful completion of such a procedure would be a tremendous scientific breakthrough. It would bring me and my colleagues immeasurably closer to our goals. I simply never dreamed that such a person. . . that such a unique genome. . . could naturally occur. By correcting nature’s ‘mistake,’ I could take a quantum leap in understanding blood-related diseases and imbalances. So, yes, Gaia,” the doctor concluded. “I would be quite willing to do what you say.”

  “I see.” Gaia tried to appear calm, but she wanted to scream with excitement.

  “I understand that you are interested in confidentiality,” Ulrich went on, “so I give you my home number. If the person you speak of wishes to discuss this condition and how to treat it, he or she may contact me in confidence. But as I have said, I would be immeasurably grateful for an opportunity to study this incredible chromosome in more detail, even as its effects were corrected and removed.”

  Corrected and removed, Gaia thought. She almost felt dizzy. Those two words contained the magic formula for changing her entire life.

  “Okay,” Gaia said, taking a deep breath. She rose to her feet. “Okay. Thanks, Dr. Ulrich. Thanks for taking the time to see me.”

  “No, thank you,” Ulrich said sincerely, reaching to shake hands. “You are a most interesting young lady. And you have brought me priceless blood.”

  Tortured Zombie

  THE MORE SHE THOUGHT ABOUT IT, the lonelier she felt: her big fat secret, her big fat genetic glitch and all its pros and cons and ups and downs and joys and pains—Gaia had run her options through her head so many times that they had grown ragged and stale and downright unbearable. But she just couldn’t focus on anything else. Certainly not school.

  So here she was, sitting on the hot stone stoop of a brownstone, staring at the dark weathered doors of the Village School with her mind in a horrible mess of impenetrable knots. She might as well have had a forty in one hand and a cigarette in the other, like every other pathetic squatter in the village. All she could do was sit there like a tortured zombie, cutting class for no reason at all, like the most clichéd juvenile delinquent in New York.

  The real agony was the not talking, trying to carry on the entire dialectic in her own head. But she couldn’t talk about it. Who was she going to talk to? Oliver? She was thrilled to have the real Oliver back in her life, but they hadn’t reached that level of trust just yet. Besides, it would just be too weird looking into the face that once belonged to Loki and trying to talk about this. Way too much nightmare flashback potential. Jake? She was already avoiding Jake in her own inimitably pathetic style. She wasn’t even ready to have the whole commitment conversation, let alone try to figure out how to broach this monster subject. No, there was no one. The subject was simply undiscussable.

  Unfortunately, it looked like Chris Rodke was going to try to discuss it anyway.

  Chris pushed through the old school doors and immediately spotted Gaia across the street.

  Keep walking, she begged silently. Please, Chris. Just keep walking.

  But it was no use. Before she could even open her mouth to say no, Chris had jogged the few steps across the street and sat himself down right next to her on the stoop. The look on his face was so damn k
ind, she almost felt guilty for wishing so very much that he would just leave her alone.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t like Chris. She did. She liked his intelligence and his straightforwardness and his brotherly ease. She’d found an unexpectedly high comfort level with Chris and Liz, and that was no small feat in the social life of Gaia Moore. But on this particular day, at this particular hour, she really just wanted to sit with her irreconcilable thoughts and stew in a pool of old-Gaia futility. Chris wouldn’t allow it.

  “All right, look,” he said, leaning forward and bumping his shoulder against Gaia’s. “I have no idea what it is that’s put that dreadful look on your face. But I know you’re going to burst a blood vessel in your brain if you don’t talk about it.”

  “I’m fine,” Gaia mumbled. She had too much respect for Chris to give him her patented “piss off” stare. “Really, I’m fine. It’s just. . . a mood.”

  “Uh-huh.” He smiled dubiously. “Right. A mood. You’re a bad liar, Gaia, did anyone ever tell you that?”

  “It’s not my forte,” she admitted, keeping her eyes fixed straight ahead.

  “Hey. . . ” He leaned his face closer to hers and bumped her shoulder even harder. “Hey.”

  Gaia finally turned toward him. Anything to avoid another shoulder bump. “What?”

  Chris pulled off his shades, revealing his inhumanly blue eyes. “Look,” he sighed, “I know we’re not exactly best buddies just yet. But in my personal opinion, if you’ve got a problem—if you’re mulling something over right now—it’s actually far better to discuss it with someone you don’t know so well. Objective advice is what you need.” Chris suddenly thrust his hand out for a handshake. “Chris Rodke.” He grinned. “Teen psychiatrist. I specialize in pain, confusion, and unbearable existential angst.”

  “Chris,” she said as gently as she could, “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Yes, you do,” he insisted.

  “No. . . I really don’t.”

  “Um. . . yes. You really do. Try me, Gaia. You won’t be disappointed. Ask Liz. I’m good at this stuff. Tell me what’s going on in that fashionably disheveled head of yours.”