The Wipe

by Nik Abnett

  “They’re okay. I wouldn’t mind sitting down for a while, sometime soon, though.”

  “Good,” said Con, “and I’m hoping that’ll be doable.”

  “Hoping? I thought I was on a promise. You said you knew exactly where we were going. I hope I haven’t walked all this way for nothing.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be doable.”

  “How are your feet?”

  “They’re sore. I think my pinky toe’s about to drop off. I can’t wait to get my shoes off.”

  “Good,” said Blythe. “It serves you right.”

  Five minutes later, Con stopped outside a building.

  “I think this is it,” he said.

  “It’s apartments. Why have we come to some strange apartment building, miles from home?”

  “Just scan your id, and see if you can get in.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Trust me.”

  Blythe held her id up to the scanner, and the exterior door opened. Con gave her a gentle push into the wipe. The doors closed, and he couldn’t see her any more, but he was afraid for her, so he took a step closer to the doors, and waited.

  Three or four seconds later, the doors opened again. Con expected to see Blythe in the wipe, but she wasn’t there. He could see her inside the lobby, beyond the acrylic interior doors.

  Con glanced quickly left and right, and then walked into the wipe. The exterior doors closed behind him, and he smelled geraniums. He expected the exterior doors to open and let him back out into the street. Instead, the interior door opened, allowing him access to the lobby. He stepped through.

  “What happened?” asked Blythe.

  “I don’t know,” said Con.

  “How did we get in?”

  “You got in because of your genetic coding,” said Con. “This is where your cousin Dharma lives.”

  Blythe folded at the waist, and then her knees went too, so that she was half-crouching, half-squatting, her head between her knees.

  “Are you okay?” asked Con.

  “Mm,”

  “Talk to me, Blythe, are you okay?”

  Blythe lifted her head a little.

  “I’m okay. It’s just… It’s all a bit of a shock, that’s all.”

  “It was meant to be a surprise,” said Con. “A nice one.”

  “It is,” said Blythe. She straightened her knees, still bent over. “Just give me a minute.”

  “Of course, Dharma’s data was good, but this was the only way to prove that the two of you are related. It’s good news.”

  Blythe said nothing.

  Con stood in the lobby, only a metre away from her, while she recovered. He hadn’t expected the reaction, and he still wasn’t sure whether he’d done a good thing.

  Eventually Blythe stood upright, and her breathing steadied.

  “You’re okay?” asked Con.

  “I’m fine,” said Blythe. “Excited, but okay.”

  “Okay,” said Con. “Good.”

  “There is just one thing, though…”

  “All right,” said Con, wary.

  “If I got through the wipe because of my genetic coding, how did you get through?”

  “I don’t know,” said Con. “I can only guess that it’s faulty. I was standing very close to the door, in case you came straight out and needed me. I was a bit scared when those solid doors closed, and I couldn’t see you, what you were doing…”

  “You think you got some of my code on you, and the wipe read it?” asked Blythe.

  “Technically,” said Con, “that’s possible. We’ve been in each other’s company for a few hours, and we haven’t been through a wipe since the lunch bar.”

  “That’ll be it, then.”

  “Yes, that’ll be it,” Con agreed.

  Forty-nine

  Dharma was in her living room, putting more of the genealogical data in order, when the buzzer sounded.

  She hadn’t heard the buzzer go off in her apartment, ever. That wasn’t true, she’d heard it sound twice before. On both occasions it had been to allow maintenance workers into her home.

  Dharma froze. She decided to ignore it. She sat motionless for ten or fifteen seconds. The buzzer sounded again.

  Whoever it was, they didn’t want to leave her alone.

  Dharma thought about what to do. She felt safe in her apartment, but she didn’t feel safe allowing visitors in when she didn’t know who they were or what they wanted. The lobby would be safer.

  She didn’t know how long she’d been thinking about what to do next, when the buzzer sounded yet again.

  No one could get into the apartment, except for Dharma. The locks were set to her exact genetic code. The only way someone could get in was if she invited them in. Yes, the lobby was safer.

  Dharma pulled on a jacket, as if she was going out. She closed the door behind her and walked down the stairs. She felt a little breathless, and decided that was just anxiety. She’d never had any problems with the stairs before.

  Once she was out of the flat, it was impossible for Dharma to know whether she was being buzzed, again.

  She walked slowly down the last flight of stairs, hoping the lobby would be empty when she got there.

  A man and a woman were standing a couple of metres inside the interior door. She did not recognise them. They must live in the block, though, because there was no way to get into the lobby without a genetic code… It was more basic than the scanner for her front door, more universal, but you had to try a lot of doors before you’d get through one on a technicality.

  Dharma decided to walk past them, as if she was going out for something.

  As she approached them, she realised that the little woman was looking at her… staring even.

  Dharma kept facing forwards, avoiding eye contact.

  “You!” said the woman as Dharma passed her.

  Dharma turned, slowly, and took a step back so that she’d be closer to the wipe, and an escape route, if she needed one.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Look at her,”the stranger said to her companion.

  “You!” the woman said to Dharma. “Look at him!”

  She did.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I don’t know you… either of you.”

  “Give me your id.”

  “I can’t do that!” said Dharma.

  “No, I’m sorry, of course you can’t.” She turned back to the man. “Read your donor number out loud to her.”

  “What?”

  “Just do it. Look at your donor number while he reads his out,” she told Dharma.

  “I don’t need to look at it. I know it.”

  The man read his id out, as instructed. “5JV2012Ng.”

  Dharma felt faint. She leaned against the acrylic doors of the wipe and allowed herself to slide down until she was sitting on the floor.

  “Breathe. It’s better if you breathe.”

  Dharma closed her eyes, and tried to suck air in through her nose. It took an enormous effort. Her head felt light, and her chest felt as if something heavy had landed on it suddenly.

  “Just keep breathing. I probably should have told you to sit down before he read the code. I’m sorry. You’ve had a shock.”

  “Yes,” said Dharma. “I’ve had a shock.” She gasped for breath, open-mouthed. “It’s… I don’t know what to say.”

  “Don’t say anything,” said the woman. “Just sit there and breathe. It’s okay… You’ll be okay.”

  She turned to her friend. “You’d better sit down, too.”

  He looked back and forth between the two of them. “I don’t get it. What’s going on?”

  “Obviously,” said the woman, “when I saw her walking across the lobby I thought you’d lied to me. I thought we were here for her. But then you didn’t seem to recognise her. It’s all just the most amazing coincidence. You really should sit down.”

  He walked to the lobby wall, a little further away, to give the woman some spa
ce, and sat down with his back against it, his legs stretched out in front of him.

  “How are you doing?” the woman asked, turning back to Dharma.

  “Better. A little confused, but better.”

  “Good. Do you think you can read your donor number out, so he can hear it?” she asked.

  “I think so,” said Dharma. She closed her eyes while she said it, slowly, “2JV2012Ng” she said.

  There was silence for several seconds, then the young man said. “That’s one digit difference.”

  “The first digit is for the number of live births,” said Dharma. “The rest is the unique identifier for the donor.”

  “Yes. What made you –?”

  “It explains how you got into the building,” the woman said. “And, you look exactly alike! Same colouring, same hair, same gait even. I bet if I got up close to her, she’d have the same colour eyes as you, too.”

  “They’re hazel,” said Dharma, “but dark.”

  “Told you.”

  “What are the odds?” she said to the man, evidently excited by the mad coincidence. “You’re good with numbers.”

  “Outliers,” said Dharma. “Nobody moves, since the Deluge… Outliers, but inside the parameters.”

  “We didn’t come for me,” said the man. “Blythe! This was supposed to be about you!” Dharma gasped, registering the name. “I found your cousin Dharma… You were going to meet your cousin Dharma.”

  Dharma struggled for another breath.

  “It’s okay,” said Blythe. “Just stay there and keep breathing. You’ll be okay. I promise. I’m sorry you’ve had a shock, but it’s a good one… Isn’t it?”

  Everyone was silent for a minute or two, partly because no one knew what to say, and partly because Dharma was still having some problems getting her head around all this.

  Finally, the colour began to come back to the older woman’s cheeks, the golden brown tone, returning.

  “Outliers,” she said again. “Beyond the statistical norm, but outliers… There’s maths…”

  There were a few more moments of silence.

  “Sit down, Blythe,” the woman then said, sounding stronger. “And take your own advice and breathe.”

  Blythe hesitated but then sat down as instructed. She was still excited for Con and this stranger. She had never known anyone who had a half-sibling, or who had met a half-sibling. She thought about Dharma and their relationship, and how important it had become to her. If she could feel this way about a cousin, how must Con and this woman feel about each other?

  “If you’re Blythe,” said the woman. “Can I assume that this is Concord?” She gestured at her half-brother.

  “How do you know my name?” asked Con.

  She kept her eyes on Blythe.

  “I know Concord’s name because I’m Dharma Tuke, and you’re my cousin, Blythe Dole.”

  Fifty

  “How do you use all this space?” asked Con, as he sat down in Dharma’s living room, and looked around.

  “You don’t have a more pressing question?” asked Blythe.

  “There’s plenty of time to talk,” said Dharma. “To answer your question, Con. I’ve got used to the space. I’ve lived here for a while. I took an upper floor apartment to be close to my mother when she went into senior housing. It was the best way to ensure that we stayed in the same district, so I could visit her at weekends.”

  “You were close to your mother?” asked Con.

  “Very, I think,” said Dharma. “She’s really the reason I wanted to connect to Blythe.”

  “You wanted family?” asked Blythe.

  “I’ve been alone a long time, and I’ve never known how to make friends, so I thought that blood mattered. It mattered to my mother. She spoke often of my grandmother.”

  “Your grandmother was Blythe’s grandmother’s sister,” said Con.

  “That’s right. I didn’t know my mother had an aunt. She never mentioned her, so perhaps she didn’t know, either.”

  “The Deluge broke families up,” said Con.

  Blythe was still standing, beside the table where Dharma ate, and worked on her family trees.

  “Have a seat, Blythe,” said Dharma. “I could make some tea.”

  “I was just looking at the geraniums,” said Blythe.

  “Oh,” said Dharma. “You know what they are?”

  “My mother’s senior housing has a garden. It’s lovely. My mother insists on walking around it almost every day. When she’s not complaining that I don’t spend enough time with her, she’s talking about the garden.”

  “Something else we have in common. My mother kept a window box at her senior housing. I never took much interest.”

  “Neither did I, but when I go to see her she walks me around the garden, telling me the names of all the plants, flowers especially.”

  “I picked those in the garden yesterday.”

  “Which garden?” asked Con.

  “The garden at my mother’s senior housing,” said Dharma. “Why?”

  “I thought your mother had died,” said Con.

  “Two years ago.”

  “Then how do you access the grounds?”

  “My id still works. I guess I just haven’t been taken out of the system yet.”

  “After two years!” said Con.

  “I thought it was odd, and Patience asked me about it, too.”

  “I think I will sit down,” said Blythe, taking a seat at the other end of the sofa from where Con was sitting.

  “I’ll go and make that tea,” said Dharma. “You look like you need it.”

  “How do I tell her?” Blythe asked Con, when Dharma was out of earshot.

  “I don’t know. She’s had the biggest shock of her life, today, so maybe this one won’t seem so dramatic… Did it seem dramatic to you?”

  “No, not really. It’s all a bit odd, though, isn’t it?”

  “It was that name, Patience, that made you put two and two together, wasn’t it?”

  “It’s the name of the gardener at Mum’s housing,” said Blythe. “I guess you got it from the genetic id code?”

  “And because I know that your mum lives in senior housing in this district.”

  “There are several senior housing units in any given district.”

  “There are, but I’m beginning to think that these things aren’t coincidental. I’m wondering if the State makes more choices than we realise… Manipulates us more.”

  “We’ll tell her, though, right?” asked Blythe.

  “I think we should,” said Con. “She went looking for family, and now we can give her another little piece of it.”

  Dharma returned with a tray that had three large cups of tea on it.

  “Lucky I have three mugs,” she said. “I don’t need three, just for me, but my kitchen seemed so empty that I bought more of everything when I moved in.”

  “Me too,” said Blythe. “I live on the sixth floor.”

  “And, now that I’ve seen this place, I’m definitely going to apply for relocation,” said Con. “I’m hoping to have visitors from time to time, now that we all have each other.”

  “Which brings me to something else,” said Blythe. “Now that you’re sitting down, Dharma.”

  “Not more revelations?” said Dharma.

  “It’s a bit of a surprise,” said Con.

  “I’ve had the surprise of my life, today,” said Dharma. “I think I can handle it.”

  “My mother’s still alive,” said Blythe.

  “I assumed as much,” said Dharma. “There’s no death record for her.”

  “Okay,” said Blythe. “You mentioned someone called Patience, at your mother’s housing.”

  “She’s the gardener, there,” said Dharma. “I liked her.”

  “Me, too,” said Blythe.

  Dharma frowned for a moment. “Liberty Dole,” she finally said.

  “She calls herself Libby,” said Blythe.

  “That’s what Patie
nce calls her, too,” said Dharma.

  “That’s why your id still works, there,” said Con.

  “My mother was in the same housing as her cousin, and she never knew it?”

  “It seems so. Maybe you two could visit Blythe’s mother, together.”

  “I’d love that,” said Dharma, smiling, suddenly.

  “That might change,” said Blythe. “You haven’t met my mother.”

  “Don’t be so hard on her,” said Dharma.

  “You’ve said that before. Do you know something that I don’t know?”

  Dharma talked about Liberty for a little while. She was cautious. She was a high-ranking, trusted member of the team at W.W. and she’d signed non-disclosure documents. This was different, though; this was her family. This was blood.

  Blythe cried a little, and Dharma and Con tried to comfort her.

  “Why didn’t she tell me about it?” asked Blythe. “Things could have been different.”

  “Mothers have their own things,” said Con, “their secrets and lies… Like most people. We can only ever know what they want to tell us.”

  “Would you visit my mother with me, some time?” asked Blythe.

  “Of course,” said Dharma.

  Blythe dried her tears, and wiped her face with her hands.

  “The bathroom’s over there,” said Dharma, “to the left. Why don’t you go and splash some water on your face?”

  “Thanks,” said Blythe, getting up. “I think I will.”

  “You’re a data analyst,” said Con. “What do you make of all these coincidences?”

  “That they’re not coincidences. I’d never thought about it before, but hypotheses have been developing pretty quickly in my mind during the past couple of hours.”

  “It’s engineered,” said Con. “By the State.”

  “It has to be,” said Dharma.

  “But why?” asked Con.

  “Those are the most complicated questions. Motivation is a difficult thing to work out from data, even if you know what you’re looking at.”

  “But you have theories. It has to do with the Deluge, doesn’t it?”

  “And with the lack of mobility of the population,” said Dharma. “Nobody moves, and nobody has moved since the Deluge.”

  “But for so many of us to be related, and without knowing it?”