Genesis

Chapter 23

May 9th

2:35 P.M.

Climbing from the taxi she’d hailed in a hurry in case she’d been pursued by McGovern, Aria gazed up at the building that housed GenealogyDNA. It didn’t look any more interesting in person than it did in the Google photo, although now she could tell it had been recently renovated. A plaque attached to the wall by the entrance to the upper commercial spaces described it as the Ferrara Canning Building circa 1880. Inside she could tell that most of the building except the ground floor was vacant. GenealogyDNA was the only tenant on the sixth floor.

“Can I help you?” said a youthful, extraordinarily casually dressed lavender-haired woman sitting at a reception desk in the small, nondescript outer office. She also had a collection of piercings in her ears and a nose ring.

“I’m here to see Vijay Srinivasan,” Aria said.

“Are you Dr. Nichols?” the woman asked, eyeing her white resident jacket, which Aria had left on in the hopes that it would give more legitimacy to her leukemia story.

“I am,” Aria said.

“You can go right in,” the woman said. “I’ll let him know you’re here.”

The second she stepped into the office proper, she could tell that her initial stereotypical assumptions about GenealogyDNA’s character were correct. What she found herself surveying was far from the typical office. It was a large loft-like space with exposed, hand-hewn roofing beams and no floor dividers or window treatments of any kind. Without a dropped ceiling, the various piping and ducting was in full view, all of which was painted white. The two biggest pieces of furniture were a Ping-Pong table and an elaborate computer game station. Both were in use. Although there were a few desks, most of the furniture was composed of couches and beanbag chairs, popular in an era before Aria had been born. A few of the workstations were mere slabs of plywood set up on sawhorses. What was most apparent were dozens of computer screens and keyboards being used by casually or even sloppily attired, nerdy-looking youthful males. At least that was Aria’s initial assessment until one of them stood up and came toward her. In contrast to the others, he was tastefully dressed in a clean, pressed white shirt and designer jeans. His hair was thick and dark, and his skin tone was a deep brown that made his teeth seem whiter than white. He exuded a Bollywood attractiveness.

“Dr. Nichols, I presume?” Vijay said with a smile. His accent was distinctly Indian as she remembered from the phone conversation.

Wary of men in general, Aria felt an immediate unease as he approached, his hand outstretched in greeting. Instead of shaking his hand, she reached into the side pocket of her doctor’s jacket and pulled out the two capped test tubes. She handed them to Vijay.

Without the slightest hesitation or acknowledgment of Aria’s apparent rebuff, he took the samples. “Ah, yes! The blood samples,” he said. “Thank you. We’ll send these directly out to our lab in Garden City. I’ve already alerted them, and we’ll get right on it.”

“Thank you,” Aria said. “We’re appreciative of your help.”

“Do you have a few extra minutes?” Vijay asked.

“I guess so,” she said, not sure what was coming. She felt a little like a fish out of water.

“I’ve let the whole team know about your dilemma,” Vijay said, “and we’ve discussed it. We are all going to pitch in. But would you mind if I introduced you?”

“I suppose not,” Aria said. She wasn’t wild about the idea, but if it could help, she was willing.

He gestured ahead toward an open area among the various furniture, most of which looked like it came from yard sales. Aria walked in the direction he indicated. As she moved, she noticed that the dozen or so people in the room had all stopped what they were doing and were watching her, including the Ping-Pong players. She also felt Vijay’s hand touch her arm and then grasp it to pull her to a stop. Just when she was going to yank her arm away, he let go of her. She and Vijay were now standing in the middle of the room. Directly in front of them was a particularly large, old leather couch. The two men sitting on it looked to Aria like the computer techies she’d imagined, who’d never dated in high school and could play League of Legends with the best of them. To Aria they appeared totally bored. Both were dressed in sweats and high-top sneakers with their laces untied.

“Okay, listen up!” he called out to quiet the background chatter. “This is Dr. Nichols. Here’s your chance to ask any questions about this leukemia project. She just handed me the blood samples from the mother and the child, so we’ll be getting the respective kits probably sometime tonight or at the latest tomorrow.”

Vijay pivoted around to look at everyone. A hand popped up. It belonged to a skinny fellow with facial hair that had not yet turned to whiskers. He also had a sprinkling of acne. “How long do we have before the toddler dies?”

Vijay turned to her and raised his eyebrows.

“That’s hard to say,” Aria said. “It could be days or it could be weeks.”

He again looked around. No one had any more questions. He turned back to Aria. “Do you have any questions?”

“So, your whole team here is going to work on our toddler’s problem?” she asked him, just to be sure. It sounded almost too good to be true.

“That’s right,” Vijay said. “We think a project like this could put us on the map where we deserve to be. I told you that our algorithms are the best in the business with the least false positives.”

“Will you be using phasing and triangulation?” Aria asked. She remembered Madison saying that was how the process worked, and Aria’s reading had confirmed it, particularly the triangulation, which was the best way to determine if matches were real, meaning matches by descent from common ancestors. She had to remember that the process was matching pinpoint variations along a chromosome, the so-called SNPs, or single-nucleotide polymorphisms, not the actual full chromosome sequences. She knew that in the future when full sequencing was faster and cheaper, which was undoubtedly coming sooner than most people realized, it would all be infinitely easier and much more accurate, striking a mortal blow to the concept of individual privacy.

“Of course,” Vijay said. “That’s how this genealogy system works. It’s relatively easy to find matches but finding the real IBD, or identical-by-descent, matches is the tricky part and that requires triangulation.”

“Then I guess I don’t have any questions,” Aria said. She couldn’t be more pleased. With just a few white lies, she’d managed to get a whole team of genealogical software experts working on the problem of finding Lover Boy.

“Before you go, let me show you the type of family tree we’ll be constructing for this child. Do you have the time?”

“I’ll make the time,” Aria said.