Quality DNA

by Beth Martin

  Only after getting in her car did she make up her mind. “Drive to Baker Elementary School.” When nothing happened, she sighed and repeated herself. “Cha cha cherry, drive to Baker Elementary School.”

  Instead of going into the school where hundreds of children were milling around and trying to make it to their classrooms before the bell, she went straight to mobile unit G. She walked in to find Sean sitting at the desk with Aiden dressed in a button up shirt, tie, and slacks standing behind him. They both looked up from the screen on the desk as she entered.

  “Irene, I didn’t think I’d see you again after yesterday morning,” Aiden said.

  “I apologize,” she said. “I was feeling a little ill and had to go home to rest.”

  Aiden stood up straight and scratched his neck. “What made you feel ill, the crazy man rambling in those notebooks or the surprise visit from the realtor?”

  She stared at him blankly for a moment before he burst out laughing. Even Sean cracked a smile. “You’ll have to forgive me,” he said. “That was sort of a test I do to see if prospective employees are committed. I don’t want people working for me who just need a job. I want people who truly believe in the AQD tenets. Most new hires don’t come back.”

  Irene wasn’t amused. A test like that to check someone’s dedication was abusive and unprofessional. She kept her opinion to herself and forced a smile. “So, I passed?”

  “With flying colors,” Aiden said, holding out a hand. “Welcome to the team.” She shook his hand enthusiastically. She was in.

  “Well, why don’t I show you the office,” he said. “I’ll drive us there.” He waved bye to Sean before leading Irene out of the mobile unit and to the parking lot. He walked up the flashiest car in the lot. The bright red muscle car stuck out amongst the modest teachers’ sedans and mini-vans.

  They got in the car and Aiden opened the glove compartment which appeared to be lined in a metal mesh. “If you’ve got a device on you, place it in here.” Irene complied, putting her Cherry in the compartment and closing it. “You’ll want to pay attention to where we go, because you won’t be bringing a device with you to work.” She knew his caution was well founded. The FBI seemed to know all the information from everyone’s electronics. If anyone brought their device to the AQD office, it would likely be tracked.

  The engine of the muscle car roared to life. There was something about the raw power of a combustion engine that felt both exciting and dangerous. Irene held tightly to the door as they sped out of the parking lot and onto the road. They drove along small roads, avoiding the freeway. After fifteen minutes they came to a more agrarian setting with fewer houses dotted between orchards. Irene began to wonder if this was another test as they drove into the driveway of a two-story farmhouse. Beside the house was a carport where a few other cars were already parked.

  Instead of going in the house, Aiden led her around the back to a pair of storm doors. He opened them up and descended down the stairs to the basement. “Don’t forget to close the doors behind you,” he said as he continued the descent down.

  After carefully closing the doors, Irene looked around the basement. There were antique-looking woodworking tools along with yard work equipment. In one corner stood a metal shelf filled with cans of food caked in dust.

  Aiden lifted a large trap door in the concrete floor revealing a spiral staircase. As he descended, lights automatically turned on. Another flight down and they were at the AQD headquarters.

  The space didn’t look like any other office Irene had seen. It was just one large space with simple painted cinderblock walls. The length of the room stretched to the left and right with a single long table spanning the room in front of her. The wall facing her was filled with filing cabinets. The three other workers sat in their own area of the long table and all looked up to take notice of Irene.

  “Welcome to AQD HQ,” Aiden said, extending out an arm to indicate the space they were in. “I’ll have you learn the ropes of data entry with Sharon.” A pale woman with light brown hair lifted a dainty hand at the mention of her name. “I need to head out and do some recruiting. You’ll report here for work at eight am from now on.”

  Aiden disappeared up the spiral staircase.

  “Nice to meet you. My name is Sharon.” She talked slowly, but Irene couldn’t tell if she was slow herself or just spoke with a non local accent. She was sickly slender with large brown eyes.

  “Irene,” Irene said. She walked around the table to get to the other side and took a seat next to Sharon. What she thought at first glance was a screen at Sharon’s work area was actually a light box projecting a magnified image of the paper below it. A modified mechanical typewriter printed tiny letters onto the page.

  “I’m copying down the responses from this membership form to a new page where the information will take much less space,” Sharon explained.

  “Why aren’t you using a computer to store the information?” Irene asked.

  Sharon smiled at Irene. “Mr. Stone doesn’t trust computers,” she said.

  “Not even for just storing data?”

  “Especially not for storing data. Computers run algorithms and do analysis on any information you give them. When everyone just lets computers make all the decisions for them, that's the beginning of the end of humanity.”

  Irene knew computers didn’t automatically analyze anything; people had to program them to do that. She kept her thoughts to herself. Hadn’t she been watching Sean use a computer earlier that morning? Surely he was working on something for the association.

  “So for this part here,” Sharon said, pointing to the membership form she was transposing, “each response gets a point value. You check the response against these sample responses,” she pointed at a booklet of instructions, “and that gives you a number. At the end of the form, you’ll need to total all the points.” She added the points for the form she held and typed the sum at the top right corner. “See, this person got a total of seventeen, so he doesn’t meet the cutoff.”

  “What’s the cutoff?” Irene asked.

  “Thirty or more out of a possible total of fifty.” Sharon got up and took both the original form and her transcribed copy and walked to the left end of the filing cabinets. “We still hold on to the forms of those below the threshold, but they’re not as important. They go in the last cabinet.” She opened the top drawer and stuffed in her transcribed copy. “The originals get incinerated,” she said, tossing the green form in a trash bin.

  “Let me show you what happens when we get a good one,” Sharon said, walking to the cabinet on the far right. Irene noticed that each drawer had a number and sex like ‘Male 42’ and ‘Female 38.’ Sharon opened ‘Male 48’ and took out a page and brought it to her magnifying box. She slid it under and Irene began to read the page.

  “Forty-eight is the highest score anyone’s ever gotten,” she gushed. Irene read it over. This man was well-educated, described himself as physically fit, and enjoyed volunteer work. In a hushed voice, she continued, “This is Mr. Stone’s profile.”

  “What happens to the members who make the cutoff?” Irene asked.

  Sharon gave her a vacant look for a moment before another one of the workers spoke up. “They get recruited,” a young man said. He had curly black hair similar to Irene’s and wore a red bow tie with matching red-framed glasses. He walked over and shook Irene’s hand. “You must be the social worker,” he said.

  “I am,” Irene said. “Well, I was.”

  “I’m Bobby. I’m the matchmaker.” He wagged his finger to get Irene to follow him back to his spot at the middle of the long table. “Hopefully, Aiden will have us working together. We’ve had a little bit of pushback from the Social Department in our matchmaking. You should be able to help us avoid that.”

  “Of course,” Irene said. She couldn’t imagine what kind of matchmaking would get the attention of the Social Department. As long as they didn’t match two people who were carriers for the same g
enetic disorder or two people who were too closely related, they would be fine.

  “We have two types of DNA that we want to highlight. One is the well-rounded, like Sharon is identifying with the membership forms. The other is that of the savants: people with extraordinary skill in a particular area. This includes brilliant artists, multi-billionaire business managers, olympic gold medalists, mathematical geniuses, etc.

  “Now, one would think that mixing two savants would have the best outcome, but that isn’t the case. Savants tend to have glaring areas of deficit, and pairing two together can actually produce a child with an even worse handicap. However, if a well-rounded person is paired with a savant, the resulting offspring tend to be well-rounded while also exhibiting the savant’s special ability.”

  “How do you identify a savant?” Irene asked.

  “Those are easy,” Bobby said. “Just find a hugely successful person and recruit them.”

  “What happens when you make a match?”

  “We let each person know they’ve been matched, and uh, well, I don’t have to explain the biology, do I?” Bobby flushed, his dark cheeks turning red.

  “The pair are expected to have sexual intercourse with each other?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Bobby held up his hands. “I didn’t say that. There is a meet up scheduled at a mutually convenient location where the two individuals exchange fluids however they see fit. That seems to work best.”

  “What about freezing sperm and mailing it?” Irene asked.

  Bobby pushed up his glasses. “First, that’s, like, super illegal. Plus, it hasn’t really worked in practice. Freezing and thawing a guy’s stuff safely so it would still be good isn’t feasible for most individuals. Basically, we’d have to have the man come here to, eh, produce a sample so we could freeze it, then have the woman come here so that we could safely thaw it. In the end, it’s just best to do the trade in person and avoid having them all go through here.”

  “But wouldn’t it be easier to have them all come here where the ‘exchange’ could be controlled?” Irene asked.

  “That wouldn’t work,” the older man who had been quietly sitting at the other end of table said. He said it in such a way, with so much authority, that Irene didn’t want to argue. She looked down at the forms Bobby held.

  “I’ll show you my matching method,” Bobby said.

  “Yes, please do,” Irene said. She glanced up at the old man. He was still glaring right at her.

  ··OOO··

  The piles of dirty laundry and unwashed dishes in the living room were starting to get to Annette. She didn’t like living as a recluse, but having an infant seemed to require it. Her friends and brother had been good about dropping by and keeping her company, but it wasn’t enough.

  Peering out the window to the sidewalk below, she could see lots of pedestrians bundled up in warm clothing while walking about in the mellow sunlight. There was a coffee shop about two blocks away. She could walk there and back.

  Ophelia was fast asleep in her crib wearing only a diaper, socks, and a shirt. “What’s the temperature outside?” Annette wondered aloud.

  “Current forecast, fifty-two and sunny. This evening, forty-nine and partially cloudy.” Ophelia would need to wear something warmer. Her next bottle wasn’t for another half hour, so if she hurried, Annette could walk to the coffee shop and back before she had to feed her.

  Annette packed her diaper bag with a fresh bottle just in case, along with every other possible thing she could need for a fifteen-minute walk. She might need to change her baby’s diaper, so she packed a few. Also toys, fresh clothes, hand wipes, butt wipes, nose wipes, and lotion. Annette stuffed so many items in her bag, it was ready to burst.

  When she tried to squeeze the bag into the bottom of the stroller, it wouldn’t fit. Perhaps she didn’t need the third blanket. She removed just the one item, then forced the bag under the stroller. It was tight, but she felt better being prepared.

  Since Ophelia was still sleepy, she wasn’t too hard to dress. Annette put her in a soft pink sleeper with rosebud shaped buttons and a matching hat. She set her in the stroller and tucked the coordinating soft pink blanket with a floral pattern around her to keep her warm. Almost immediately, Ophelia started fussing.

  Annette pulled her out and starting bouncing her and humming to calm her down, but it didn’t work. She must be hungry early. Annette set her in the crib and tried to get the diaper bag free from under the stroller. It was jammed tight. She tried to open it and get the bottle out without removing the bag from the stroller, but the bottle had shifted to the bottom and she couldn’t reach it.

  She had to pull everything out of the diaper bag to get it out of the stroller and reach the bottle. Ophelia was now wailing in her crib. She rushed with the ready bottle to her baby, who immediately calmed down as soon as she got to eat.

  Annette sighed, and sat on the sofa while she fed her child. This would take a while. Perhaps after her bottle, she’d stay awake to enjoy the short walk to the coffee shop.

  Bottle done, Annette held Ophelia up and patted her back. She forgot a burp rag, but it was already too late. Part of Ophelia’s freshly consumed bottle now dripped down the back of Annette’s shirt. It was okay, she was still at home. She could just change.

  She strapped Ophelia back into the stroller and went to the bedroom to pick out a different blouse. Thank God for her house keeper who already washed and put away a few clean items. She put on a simple patterned blouse. If Ophelia spit up again, the little shapes would help hide the stain.

  Back in the living room, she packed back up the diaper bag and was finally ready to go. But what was that smell?

  Ophelia was looking around happily as she lied back in the stroller, but the whole front of her sleeper was stained brown. Annette groaned. Her diaper had blown out.

  Not only did she have to change Ophelia’s diaper, clothes, and blanket, but poop had also gotten all over the stroller. After wiping clean the stroller, she put Ophelia back in, now dressed in a green sleeper with teddy bear buttons and matching hat and green blanket.

  They were finally ready. Annette pushed the stroller out of the apartment and to the elevator. When she got out at the lobby, the doorman greeted her and smiled at her baby.

  All that work to get outside had been worth it. Annette felt so refreshed, the warm sun and fresh breeze tickling her skin. It also helped that every person she passed stopped to comment on how beautiful Ophelia was, or at the very least smiled at her.

  She got a hot latté at the coffee shop, then turned around and went straight back to her apartment. By the time she returned home, Ophelia had fallen asleep. Annette decided not to try and move her. She’d be fine sleeping in the stroller.

  Annette kissed her baby gently on the forehead. This. This was what she had wanted so badly.

  ··OOO··

  Irene knew she would be expected again at the AQD meeting on Friday night.

  “You’re going out?” Jamie asked as Irene put her shoes back on in the bedroom and slipped her device in her pocket.

  “I just thought I’d take a walk, get some fresh air,” Irene said.

  “I’ll come with you,” Jamie said. She grabbed her own shoes and slipped them on.

  “I need some time alone…”

  “Nonsense,” Jamie scolded. “You’ve been working crazy hours at your new job, and you haven’t told me anything about it yet.”

  “It’s just data entry,” Irene said. “It’s pretty boring.”

  “You haven’t mentioned your new coworkers or anything,” Jamie said. “You’re pulling away from me. I just want to spend some time with you.”

  Irene sighed. “I was going to go to that DNA club meeting. I thought maybe if I went, I could convince them to bump you up on the donor wait list.” Now that she had seen a glimpse of how matches were made, she wasn’t sure Jamie would get matched at all.

  “You’re going to the AQD meeting? For me?” she asked
, her eyes glossy.

  “For us,” Irene corrected. “For our baby.” Jamie grabbed the sides of Irene’s face and kissed her.

  “I’m coming with you,” she declared.

  ··OOO··

  After the meeting itself was done, Irene wanted to make a quick exit, but Aiden caught up with her and Jamie.

  “You brought your lovely wife,” he beamed, kissing Jamie on the hand. “We’ve appreciated having Irene on board.”

  Jamie looked confused. “What are you talking about?”

  “I thought I told you,” Irene cut in. “My new job is with AQD.” Agent Rick’s warning to not tell her wife was circling in her head, but there was no way to avoid it now.

  Jamie’s jaw dropped. “You work there? Did you get this job to help speed up the donor process?”

  “I, uh,” Irene’s mind was racing, trying to come up with something to say that wouldn’t offend her wife or her new boss. “I needed a job, and, uh, I believe in some of their principles.”

  Jamie raised her brows. She didn’t look convinced.

  “We’re not as crazy as you think,” Aiden said with a genial laugh. “And I think we could work something out to get you ladies the family you desire. Why don’t I take you two out for dinner tonight?”

  Jamie’s eyes lit up. Irene was stuck. “That would be great,” Irene said, trying to sound enthusiastic.

  ··OOO··

  The restaurant Aiden picked was busy, and there weren’t any tables available. If Irene was going to spend an entire evening suffering through polite conversation between her new boss and her wife, she needed a drink.

  There was an actual person tending the swanky bar, and Irene wondered how she would afford her single, make that double, bourbon, not to mention the exorbitant meal prices listed on the menu. When she told both Aiden and Jamie that she received a severance, she had been lying. The truth was, she had no idea where her money would come from. Technically, she was just interning at AQD and not pulling in a paycheck, and she had failed to ask what kind of pay she could expect from helping the FBI. She suspected it would be nothing.