Anna Utkin

Copyright 2017, Steven M. Moore

            Anna Utkin shut the library’s main door, locked it, and headed for her car. Her little Honda Civic awaited to take her to her one-bedroom apartment in the complex three miles from the Oakwood Public Library where she had worked the last ten years of her life. She smoothed her blouse after getting into the car and thought about dinner. Tonight maybe I’ll have a glass of red wine because today’s dinner will be a Salisbury steak meal. She always bought her TV dinners on sale, so the glass of wine would be the most expensive item, a full-bodied cabernet sauvignon from California.

As usual, when she pulled into her parking space, she remembered nothing about the trip. She’d made that trip twice a day for years—the drive was always the same. The only day she remembered was when she was hit about halfway home by the stranger who ran the only red light along the route. The burly man had blamed her, but there were witnesses, one of them a cop who was parked and enjoying his coffee and donut. That accident was the most excitement she’d ever had in Oakwood.

People still frequented the library—some readers looking for big city newspapers, some looking for NY Times bestsellers they couldn’t afford to buy, and some who wanted to read older books they’d missed and couldn’t find anywhere else. There were few kids. Students wrote their “research projects” using the internet these days—some of them even got away with cutting and pasting, and many homework assignments for common texts had answers posted on the internet too. The millennials were more into their smart phones and laptops than books, preferring a summary of To Kill a Mockingbird found on the internet to actually reading the book.

She worried about the future of public libraries.  She didn’t know if the modern world really needed librarians or libraries anymore, but she loved her library and its books. She was also a voracious reader and donated the books she purchased and read to the library so others could read them. They were print versions, so she didn’t have room to store them in her apartment anyway.

She ate her TV dinner while watching the ten o’clock news.  She then placed her own laptop on the tray after wiping up a few spatters. I wonder if my profile is ready.  She’d always been curious about her ancestry and ordered a DNA report in order to find out something about it. As an orphan, she had no family tree available, so that DNA report would be a good starting place for finding one.

***

            Anna had been waiting seven weeks for the DNA results. She logged onto her personal page and smiled. She had her report online. She opened the file. The smile turned to a frown.
“There are no records in our database that correlate with your DNA sample. If you’re interested in the raw results of your entire genome over 700,000 locations and all chromosomes, click here.”  She clicked and saw pages of information scroll across her screen. “If you’d like to download to your computer, click here.” She clicked there and printed out the pages corresponding to the raw information.

What does it mean that no other DNA results correlate with mine? She knew just the person to ask. Bernard Hill was a frequent visitor to her library. He was also a biology professor at the little four-year private college in Oakwood. Its library had very little fiction, and Bernie loved it, so he visited her library.  They often discussed books in her little office.

She went to bed but fell asleep only after changing her Saturday morning plans. She would postpone her trip to the supermarket and visit Bernie at his office/lab on campus. She knew he was usually there because his weekends were dedicated to catch up on his research.  Unlike big research institutions, the college’s teaching load was four courses. He’d said that he’d reduced that to three by taking a large lecture course every semester, but he was a dedicated teacher so even that took a lot of time.

Was it the TV dinner or the wine? She had one of her frequent dreams where she flew above a world filled with only a few cities containing shining white buildings. The land was mostly a mixture of towering snow-covered mountain chains, large forests with strange trees, and grassy plains with even stranger animals. She’d never played computer games or seen many movies, so she couldn’t imagine how her mind created such dreams. She would always awake and remember everything as if it had really happened.

***

            “Can you interpret this?”

Bernie pulled down his reading glasses from his brow and stared at the detailed printout of Anna’s DNA profile.  “I did one of these myself,” he said. “The raw results aren’t very useful. The services provide a summary, usually something like 14% such-and-such, 23% so much, and so forth. Tell me about the summary.”

“There wasn’t any. It said that there were no records in their database that correlated with my DNA.”

Bernie’s eyebrows seemed to crawl up his wrinkled forehead. “That’s crazy. This test does your whole genome, not just Y-chromosome or mitochondrial, so it covers everything from present day to 50,000 years ago. There has to be some correlation.” He started tapping his fingers. “Let me study this over the weekend. I have to return some books to your library Monday night. We’ll talk about it then.”

Monday night Bernie knocked on the door to her little office. As head librarian, Anna had her own desk and small office. She was the only one with a degree in library science, so she figured that was appropriate, although, truth be told, running the library didn’t require a degree at all, only experience, but she also had the most of that too.

Bernie closed the door and took a seat in front of the desk. “You were an orphan, right?” She nodded. “No idea who your parents were?” Head shake the other way. “Something’s not right here, but I can’t figure it out. But I will.” He pulled out a plastic bag with a zip lock. A cotton swab was in it. “If you let me borrow some saliva, that is.”

She frowned. “That’s a bit personal.”

“Oh, please. You used this service. Ten million hackers worldwide probably have access to these DNA results. I’m your friend, and I’ll keep it confidential.”

She studied the old man. “OK. But won’t you find the same thing they did?”

“I’m not using their damn database. I’ll be confirming that their raw data results are correct. Those are what are confusing.”

She didn’t think to ask him why until he’d left.

***

            Anna made several calls to Bernie during the next two weeks. Each time he replied that he was still working on the problem. What problem? Isn’t this his specialty? He seems to be acting mysterious. She suspected that he had already decided something about the original DNA test after comparing it with the one obtained from the recent swab.

The old professor was her favorite among the library patrons. His fiction tastes ran from mysteries and thrillers to science fiction, but he enjoyed chatting with her over books in general, often in her office over a cup of tea. He usually came late on weekday evenings to “clear his mind” as he put it. She knew he was tenured but not yet emeritus. She thought he was the most well-known among the small college’s faculty because he was always off to give a talk at some conference.

As an orphan, Anna often wondered what her biological father had been like. She would have liked to have him be like Bernie. She’d never wanted to return to the orphanage where she could maybe ask for information about her birth parents. She’d never been adopted, so when she’d left, she never wanted to return.

Finally, Bernie called her. “My dear lady, I’m making lasagna tomorrow evening, and I always make too much. I’d like to invite you to dinner. We can talk about my research into your genetic past.”

“Is there something wrong?”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow evening.”

“Should I bring wine or dessert?”

“A nice bottle of wine would be fine. The menu is tortellini and basil soup, Caesar salad, lasagna, and chocolate-filled cannoli. I’m making everything except the cannoli, so I hope you’ll like it.”

“Sounds like quite a meal. I’d be honored to accept your invitation.”

She hung up the phone and smiled. Even if it was just the professor, she thought it would be quite an adventure. She’d never been invited to dinner by a man before. Speed dating, online dating, lunch dating, all limited in a small town—she’d covered the whole list except barhopping. The first had taken her around three counties. She’d never wanted to try the last.

The last time she was on a date it was to play tennis. She turned the fellow down when he wanted to do brunch afterward. His tattoos were very colorful, but his personality left something to be desired—for one thing, the last book he read was in high school. She’d never lived in a big city and long ago decided that living in Chicago, Kansas City, or St. Louis to find dates wasn’t worth a move. She liked her quiet life in Oakwood.

***

            “Can I take your coat?” Bernie said.

Anna had spent almost two hours deciding what to wear. Besides her work clothes, which were stylish but comfortable, she didn’t have many fancy dresses, but she knew Bernie was more into comfort than finery too. His ubiquitous old sport coat now had leather patches on the elbows and his shoes were always those low-top walking shoes, in brown or black. She decided on some comfortable pumps that didn’t clash with her dress. He’s not romancing me after all, at least I don’t think so.

“I have cheese and crackers in the den. Alice always said that a proper dinner must have some good appetizers.”

“Alice was your wife?”

“Had thirty years of blissful marriage with the old ball-and-chain, and I haven’t changed much in the house since she passed away fifteen years ago.  Come, follow me.”

The den was comfortable. She was surprised at the widescreen TV on the wall. He saw her glance toward it.

“Chicago Bears, Bulls, and Cubs, in alphabetical order, whether they win or lose.  I have a satellite antenna. Someday I’ll go see a live game, but TV’s always been good enough. I eat my TV dinners watching the ten o’clock news.  Shall we start with white and do your red at dinner?”

“Of course.”

“Brie and remoulade, which I do with crackers and not in the main meal. Only one type of cracker, I’m afraid.”

He poured their wine while she took one of the plates and christened two crackers, one with brie and another with remoulade.

“Now, to business. Let’s get it over with so we can enjoy dinner.” He raised his glass to her as a toast. “To our health, my dear. And to you for bringing me a puzzle I cannot decipher.”

“What do you mean?” she said, eying him over the top of the glass. A fine pinot grigio, she thought.

“Why, my dear lady, you aren’t human.”

She almost choked on a bite of cracker with remoulade, which was quite good—something with olives. She took a hurried sip of wine. “What do you mean, not human?”

“Hmm, I guess that’s a shocking statement. Of course, you’re human in every way except for your DNA. That’s so clean and orderly, it has to be bioengineered. But that’s not all.” He popped an entire cracker into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. She could tell he was nervous. Well. I am too! “How can I explain? Remember about two years ago when we had that discussion in your office about the Y-chromosomal Adam and the mitochondrial Eve?”

“Yes. Every man alive today is descended from a single man, a genetic Adam. And every man or woman is descended from a single woman, a genetic Eve. The Y-chromosome is passed from father to son. The mitochondrial DNA is only passed on from the mother. Did I get it right?”

“Perfectly. So here’s the problem: you’re not one of Eve’s descendants.”

“What about Adam?”

He laughed. “Yes, he could be a polygamist, but you’re definitely female—two X chromosomes—so we can’t say anything about Adam as an ancestor, except that he and Eve probably weren’t a couple, although they might have lived close to each other. The lineage info is just too independent.”

“OK, so maybe Eve had a contemporary.”

“Unlikely, but possible. That doesn’t change the clean and orderly observation. Almost all human DNA has junk in it—vestiges of ancient viral infections, for example. Yours doesn’t. You’re sana Anna, or clean Jean, since that’s your middle name.”

“How’d you know that?”

“I called the orphanage. They have no idea who your parents were, by the way. Some motorist found you on the side of the road, turned you over to child services, and they put you in the orphanage.” He saw her expression and frowned. “You didn’t know all that, did you?” She shook her head, tears in her eyes. He knocked the side of his head with his fist. “Stupid me, putting scientific fact over human emotions. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I should have been gentler.”

She nodded. “Of course I forgive you. You meant no harm. So my clean DNA was your problem?”

“That, and not being descended from Eve. It’s no wonder that lucrative service couldn’t find any DNA correlations. There would be none, unless they made an error.  They didn’t.  The brie is excellent, isn’t it? I nuke it just a little to get it a bit warmer than room temp. Not very gourmet of me, but I like it that way.”

She was glad that further conversation was about books, mostly centered on Alan Furst v. John Le Carré and whether spy novels still had many readers.

***

            To his credit, Bernie also avoided talking about her DNA during his next late night visits to the library. He must sense that I’m uncomfortable with his findings. She tried to convince herself that the DNA service and Bernie could both be wrong. Should I try another service? Such services were expensive, and she had to watch her budget. She made more than the other librarians, but Oakwood Public Library’s funding was often the first item considered when the city council was studying budget cuts.

But the results bothered her.

One night she had just put her TV dinner on the tray in front of her sofa and was about to grab the remote to put on the news when she heard a car door slam. She peaked through the curtains and saw two men and a woman jump out of a black SUV that had parked in a visitor’s space. They’re coming to my door!

She’d often thought about buying a gun, but she wouldn’t do it without taking shooting lessons, and the combination would just be too expensive. She grabbed a steak knife, put it up her sleeve, and waited for the knock.  When it came, she went and looked through the peephole in her front door. The word nondescript came to mind as she studied the three. In a big city, they would just look like ordinary people. Here, in Oakwood, the three looked out of place. The woman was in a blue power suit like a female VP might wear, and the men were in charcoal black suits. Too fancy for Oakwood even if they were headed for a night on the town.

“Who is it?”

“ICE, Ms. Utkin. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. We’d like to talk to you.” He flashed a badge.

“I’m keeping the chain on the door. Pass your credentials in so I can study them.”

When she opened the door, they complied—badges and DHS IDs. She studied them. They looked authentic, but these days one had to be suspicious. Of what? She smiled. Nothing ever happens in Oakwood! She opened the door and let them in.

“You’re interrupting my dinner.” She gestured to the tray with the TV dinner sitting on it. “I might be Anna Utkin, but I can’t imagine why you need to talk to me.”  One man nodded to the woman, who took some type of device out of her purse. “What’s that?”

“It’s a portable Geiger counter,” said the woman. “It’s painless, I assure you.”

“I don’t care. You’re not pointing that thing at me.”

The two men grabbed her arms and held her. The woman passed the wand-like device over Anna’s body. “It’s her,” she said.

The men let her go.

“This is outrageous!” said Anna, rubbing her arms. “I know my rights. I’m a law-abiding citizen.”

“Anna, you might want to take a seat on your couch and let us explain.”

“What about you three?” She might be angry and apprehensive, but she was always a good host.

“We can stand. You’ll be the one who will be shocked. First, let me start by saying we watch those DNA service sites.”

They proceeded to tell Anna who she really was. After hours of conversation, she packed up a small carryon that she had purchased for the only airline trip she had ever made and left with the three.

No one on Earth saw her again.

***

Muddlin’ Through. Mary Jo Melendez is an ex-USN Master-at-Arms who is ready to start her new civilian life as a security guard. She is framed for her sister and brother-in-law’s murders. This mystery/suspense/thriller novel describes how she works to clear her name and pay back the group that framed her. In the process, she discovers the MECHs, Mechanically Enhanced Cybernetic Humans, and an intense romance as she runs around the U.S., South America, and Europe. Available in all ebook formats through Amazon and Smashwords and its retailers.

In libris libertas!

 

 

 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 11th, 2017 at 4:00 am and is filed under Steve's Shorts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.