by Nik Abnett
“I meant that it’s been nice talking to each other,” said Con, “sharing something.”
“Oh… Yeah… Sorry. I’m becoming a bit obsessed with all this, aren’t I?”
“No, it’s Okay. I get it. I’d be excited if it were me.”
There was a pause as Blythe got over her embarrassment. “Do you think we’ll keep talking to each other after Joy gets back?” she asked.
“She’d hate that. She wouldn’t last six months in here if you and I were talking to each other instead of listening to her… Wait… That’s starting to sound like a plan.”
“You want to force her out?” asked Blythe. “Is that kind?”
“She’s had a good run. And I’m not talking about forcing anything. I’m just saying that if you and I were friendly, she might not hang around.”
“They’d soon put someone new in with us, and as my mother always says, ‘Better the devil you know’.”
“But does she ever say, ‘A change is as good as a rest’?”
“Actually, no,” said Blythe, “but I like that.”
“Shall we just decide to keep this going, after Joy comes back?”
“On one condition,” said Blythe.
“Anything.”
“We don’t talk about Dharma in front of her.”
“Done,” said Con. “We’ll just take the same lunch break, and talk about Dharma and her data when Joy’s not here.”
“There won’t be as much to talk about, unless I make a permanent connection to Dharma, and it still feels too soon for that.”
“We’d better make the most of today and tomorrow, then.”
For the two remaining lunch breaks that week, Blythe and Con got into a routine. He went out for coffee while Blythe uploaded any new data to his screen. Then they sat at their stations, Blythe reading Dharma’s text documents and writing back to her, Con studying the data.
He suggested that Blythe ask Dharma to send across any picture files of the certificates she talked about as text-only files.
“Why should we do that?” Blythe asked.
“It gets me closer to the source material,” said Con. “When did you tell her that you have limited capacity?”
“On day one, Monday. She uploaded so much stuff to me that it was clear she has VR, and I wanted to warn her that I was keying in. I didn’t want her to think I was being deliberately terse, or that I wasn’t interested in her.”
“That’s why she made data files for you. But she keyed in the files herself, or more likely used her voice recognition, rather than converting the source material to text only files.”
“How can you tell?”
“I had a single on the second floor, remember,” said Con, over his shoulder. “I might not work for W.W. but I know data, and I know this is copied, not converted from source. It all looks good, but I’d love to compare documents, just to make sure Dharma has accurately transposed the material.”
“Okay, I’ll ask her.”
“If she has capacity, you can tell her to send the new files straight to me if you like.”
“But you only have two connections.”
“I only use one.”
“But that’s…” Blythe trailed off.
“I don’t have any personal connections,” said Con. “I only ever use the service connection.”
“So why did you need three connections last week?” asked Blythe, dumb-founded.”
“I didn’t,” said Con. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t want you to think I was the loneliest person in SE6d2.”
“You don’t connect with anyone unless you need some special service, to adjust your tariff, or to fill out your state checks?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“That’s horrible, but at least I understand now why you’re so friendly with Joy.”
“She’s friendly with me,” said Con.
“You were friendly with me,” said Blythe.
“And around it goes. This is better, though.”
“I should hope so,” said Blythe, completing the invoice, and clearing her screen. “It could hardly be worse.”
“Just give her my connection details. If she’s ninetieth percentile and she’s looking for a genetic relationship, I’m guessing that she’s got open connections she’s not using.”
“Okay… I suppose that should be all right.”
“Don’t worry,” said Con. “I might be sociable but Dharma’s not looking for me; she’s looking for you. I’m not going to muscle in on your relationship.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
“Of course you did. You’re just too timid to admit it.”
“Or too polite,” said Blythe, glancing over her shoulder and smiling. “But you’re right, of course I did.”
“Another half an hour and we can get onto it,” said Con. “Are you on target.”
“Right on target. Do you imagine that your chatter slows my work down?”
“Not for a moment.”
They finished their morning’s work in silence and, when it was time, Con went out for their coffees.
It was Thursday, and they only had two forty minute windows of opportunity to check all the data and read all the material.
After uploading Con’s connection details to Dharma, Blythe went back to reading Dharma’s stories, and replying with answers to her questions.
“Did you put through my connection details?” Con asked, once he was back at his station.
“No reply yet. It’s Friday tomorrow. Time’s running out.”
“There’s nothing left for me to do,” said Con.
“I’ll upload something to your screen,” said Blythe.
A couple of days ago she’d decided not to send any of Dharma’s text documents to Con’s screen, but things were changing fast. She was beginning to trust Con and would just have to hope that Anley Corp wasn’t monitoring the material. Con had an education, and skills that she sorely lacked. Maybe he’d spot something in Dharma’s long e-mails that would clarify or verify something in the data. She stopped short for a moment. If it was possible for something in the text to verify the data, then it was equally likely that there’d be something in the text that would contradict the data.
Blythe dreaded the thought.
Then, she sent the first of Dharma’s e-mails that Con hadn’t already seen to his screen. Either way, it was better to know.
Fifteen
Pax Mott opened the connecting door between the garage and the main house, and stood back.
“Hi, Pa,” said Verity, and blew him a kiss.
“Hello, darling. I’m so glad you’re home, and I’d kiss you if it wasn’t for this damned thing.” Pax gestured his gloved hand at his face mask.
“We’re clear, Pa, Certified, and everything.”
“I know you are, darling, but we aren’t. We’ve been tested but we haven’t had the results yet, and the last thing we want to do is infect you. Your mother’s with me in our room, and your sister’s in the box room, until the results come through.”
“That’s crazy. You can’t live like that. “We’re all in this together.”
“We’ll all be in it together once the results are through,” said Pax. “It shouldn’t take long. Everything’s been sterilised and, until we get the all-clear, I’ve written up a rota for the kitchen and bathrooms and posted one on each door.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” asked Verity.
“I’m sorry, son, I should have said hello to you, by now. It’s rude of me.”
“Not at all, Mr Mott,” said Sage, waving.
“Call me Pax. Who knows how long we’re going to be housemates for… Too long for all this formality. We’re happy to have you here, Sage.”
“And I’m happy to be here. Thank you very much for having me.”
“You’re welcome. And I don’t want to hear you thanking me again until all this is over.”
“Yes, sir,” said Sage.
“Pax
.”
“Oh leave him alone, Pa,” said Verity. “He’s nervous enough as it is.”
“You two are in the other double,” said Pax.
“I bet Charity’s thrilled about that,” said Verity. “She couldn’t wait to take over my room when I left.”
“She was a bit resistant, at first,” said Pax. “I’m not gonna lie, but, once she realised how serious this whole thing was, she wanted you to come home as much as your mum and I did. She moved into the box room as soon as she knew I’d sent you tickets for the train.”
“Well good for her. I thought she might be a brat about it.”
“She’s seventeen, Verity. She’s allowed to be a bit of a brat. I seem to remember you being a colossal pain in the neck at her age… Maybe we won’t talk about that in front of Sage, though, eh?”
“By the end of this you’ll have shown him every baby picture and told him every sordid story about me,” said Verity.
“Can’t wait,” said Sage, smiling. Verity punched his arm, and Pax’s eyes crinkled up as he smiled behind his mask.
“It’s bloody good to have you home,” he said. “Both of you. You bring some life back into the house. You can help out with Charity’s studies, too. Give you all something to do, and maybe your mother can do something about that hair.” He gestured again with his gloved hand, but Verity could see that he was still smiling.
“Whatever you say, Pa.”
“Well, I’d better get back to your mother,” said Pax. “Make yourselves at home, and enjoy the luxury, such as it is. I’ve put in a form for you two to be included in the food rations, but that won’t kick in for a few days. I’ve stuck rations instructions to the fridge door and the pantry. Once we’re all cleared, this is going to be a very busy little house.”
Verity blew her father another kiss, and watched him go upstairs. When the bedroom door was opened, she heard her mother’s voice.
“Hello, Verity, darling, and Sage. Can’t wait to see you.”
“Hey, Mum. Love you.”
“Hello, Mrs Mott,” said Sage.
“It’s Faith,” said Verity’s mum. “Welcome home.”
And with that the door closed.
There was a knock on the inside of the box-room door.
“Hey, Chaz,” Verity shouted.
“You stole my room,” Charity shouted in response.
“I’ll pay you back.”
“You’d better.”
They had to shout to be heard through the door, which Charity clearly had no plans to open, but the exchange was light, loving even.
“Seems like my little sister might have turned a corner,” said Verity. “She really was a brat when I left home.”
“These things change people,” said Sage.
“Not us,” said Verity. “It’ll never change us.”
The house was quiet, and Verity and Sage embraced in the hallway.
“What do you want to do first?” asked Verity.
“Sit down,” said Sage. “I didn’t want to complain, but my feet have been killing me for about the last two miles.”
Pax Mott’s rotas worked so well that they didn’t see any of the family for two days. Everyone ate, and everyone used the bathrooms, and there were latex gloves and packets of surface wipes, which everyone used diligently in the rooms they had to share. Sage and Verity had been assigned the half-bath on the ground floor, which was a tiny wet room; so tiny, in fact, that it was impossible to use the shower and the toilet at the same time, and there was a mixer tap on the wall for hand washing, which had no sink underneath, just a drain in the floor. Sage got used to turning the tap on just enough, and standing at the proper distance, so that he could wash his hands without soaking his clothes or getting his feet wet.
It all worked very well.
On the second day after they’d arrived, Sage was back in his own clothes, and both his and Verity’s sneakers were propped against a radiator, drying off from their run in the washing machine.
On the third day, Pa threw open his bedroom door. Faith flew past him, and even Charity managed to make it down the stairs before Pax.
Everyone hugged everyone, including Sage, although he felt a little awkward when Charity put her arms firmly around him.
“So, we’re all clear then?” Asked Verity, once they’d all disentangled themselves from each other.
“Well, as it happens, the results are very interesting,” said Pax.
“Pa, just enjoy the moment. We’re all clear!”
“We’re all clear,” said Pax. “Like you two, your mother and I have managed to avoid exposure to the pathogen… And this is where it gets really interesting…”
“Don’t keep us in suspense,” said Verity.
“It was me,” said Charity.
“What was her?” Sage asked. “Sorry… What about Charity?”
“At some point, Charity did in fact have the virus, but her antibodies took care of it, and she is now immune. And, before you ask, no, she isn’t contagious.”
“Wow!” said Verity, raising a hand in a high-five gesture at her sister. “Go you!”
Charity slapped Verity’s raised palm.
“You see,” said Pax, “there are advantages to having teenage children who want nothing to do with you, who spend every waking hour that they’re not at school shut away in their bedrooms doing heaven only knows what.”
“Texting, mostly,” said Charity.
“You think she got it at school?” Faith asked.
“Probably.”
“But the school was closed months ago.”
“She must have been in the first wave of those infected,” said Pax. “That school trip to London to see that thing… I expect that’s when it happened. Some people are a-symptomatic, apparently.”
“That’s fine,” said Charity. “You can all talk about me as if I’m not even here.”
“You’re the lucky one,” said Pax, putting an arm around his younger daughter. “You don’t have to worry about any of this any more. You’ve had it, and you’ve survived it.”
“And you must carry the weight of the entire family into the future when we all die of it,” said Verity, dramatically. “You’re our genetic link to whatever comes next.”
“Thanks for that,”
“She’s kidding,” said Faith. “No one’s going to die.”
“Your mother’s right,” said Pax. “We’re all just going to stay home and follow the protocols until the World is done with the Deluge.”
“The Deluge?” asked Sage. “That’s what they’re calling it?”
“Some clever bugger came up with it,” said Pax.
“Where have you been all morning?” asked Charity. “It’s all over the web.”
“We haven’t been web-surfing while we refresh our test results page every two minutes,” said Verity.
“Fair point.”
“TRRNT/41/pan is a bit longwinded,” said Pax. “If you stick some vowels in there, you get Torrent. From there, some linguist in the French department at Oxford came up with ‘the Deluge’.
“Like he doesn’t have something better to do,” said Verity.
“School’s out,” said Sage, “and this sort of thing makes people’s names, their careers! Do you think it’ll catch on, uh, Pax?”
“It already has,” said Pax.
“It’s all over the place,” said Charity.
“What was his name?” asked Sage.
“Whose name?”
“The guy at Oxford who coined it… What’s his name… her name?”
“I haven’t a clue,” said Pax.
Verity laughed. “Apparently that isn’t the sort of thing that makes a person famous,” she said.
Sixteen
Dharma had decided that her next step would be to check the census for 2021, and use all the criteria she had to hand to fill in the fields.
At two o’clock, she switched to her internet connection and called up the 2021 census form to check the firs
t few fields.
“Census search 2021,” she said. “Required fields.”
The screen blinked and a form appeared. Dharma filled in what she could.
“Surname: Mott. Address: 131 Engleheart Road, Catford, SE6. Number of residents over sixteen: 2”
The screen quickly changed to another form, a spreadsheet that gave details of household members. Dharma quickly found Mott, and the address was correct. The first name on the form was Pax Mott, and below that, Faith Mott.
Dharma had hoped to be able to read the entire census form for her family, but there was no insert anywhere that would lead her to any kind of certificate she could download. Nevertheless, the form gave her some new details to cross-reference with the birth certificates she had already found.
In 2021, Pax Mott was living at 131 Engleheart Road, he was the head of the household, whatever that meant, he was married, and he was 33, so he must have been born in 1988, or 1987. His occupation was pharmacist, and his place of birth was somewhere called Leeds, that Dharma had never heard of. Everything else added up, so Dharma read the next row of data.
Faith Melody Mott was listed as wife, and the next box had an ‘M’ in it for married, which seemed redundant. She was 29, so she must have been born in 1991 or 1992. Her occupation was midwife, and her place of birth was Lewisham.
Dharma clapped her hands in delight.
+Communication+
“Negative.” Dharma paced the cubicle for a minute or two. She was convinced that this was the right family. She guessed that the couple had met through their professions, and she was excited that at least one of them was from the area where they lived. She hoped that it didn’t matter where Pax Mott had come from, and she knew that people had moved around from place to place before the Deluge. It could even be that Leeds was close to Lewisham. If she needed to, she could check that at a later date. More than anything else, she was pleased that Verity’s mother would have helped her with the birth of her own mother, Constance. They were clearly a very lucky family… Or perhaps they’d just done everything right during the Deluge; that would tie-in with Pax Mott being a pharmacist.
“Scroll down,” said Dharma.
