Out of Touch (26 page)

“Are you sure the Chinese know?”

James sensed a “yes” would get them both what they wanted, but he couldn’t lie that way. “Nothing’s sure with the Chinese. But they started their program first. They have more subjects to study and more researchers working on it. They’re likely to find out faster.”

“Would you be willing to run the tests, look at the results, then delete my information?”

“Why?” James bridled at the unreasonableness of humans even as
his scientific self assured him the offer was enough. “I needn’t label anything with your name or even teep or teek.”

“It would be like having a kid around that I couldn’t watch out for.”

“We can’t build people from the code yet.”

“But they will. And they build viruses that insert bits into people.”

“There are a number of reasons that’s unlikely in this case.”

“In thirty years?”

“No one can predict that far ahead.”

Sarah sat silently. Reggie took her hand and said, “Look James, I think she just offered to let you test the DNA if you’ll erase it afterward. It’s a better offer than I would have expected her to make to anyone, even you.”

Was Reggie alluding to that genetic daughter or sister link? Was that the only reason Sarah was cooperating at all? Strange that it should matter when they’d only met yesterday, but James wasn’t going to miss any chance at this data.

“Okay, I’ll take your deal. What about you Reggie, can I keep your genotype on file, unidentified?”

“I’m still not sure why you want it.”

“I’m not either. But if it matches someplace interesting, then I’ll know. I’m a geneticist. You have a strange ability. I ought to at least check if it’s genetic. It would really help if I could keep yours on file though, at least until I can compare to someone else who spots telepaths.”

“I still think it’s just body language or something. And it fits so well with how I imagined elves when I was little. There must have been others who could do this and made the people they identified into legends.”

“That would be interesting, since the current teep genetics don’t
seem to go back that far. But Thailand doesn’t have any social scientists with clearance for this. Maybe if I learn more about the precursor sequence. It may connect to schizophrenia, and that might connect to people historically seen as witches or elves or whatever.  So I’ll just do my best from the genetics angle. I also have some videos to test you on. Don’t ask how I got them. They gave me money to pay you, too. Now can we test?”

Finally, they let him take blood samples. He could only run one at a time. So he ran Sarah’s first, in case she wanted to stay while he analyzed it and then see it deleted.

While it was running, he set Reggie up watching video clips. He asked Sarah to try to guess too. Might as well gather as much information as possible with these imprecise means.

The clips were mostly of conferences and diplomatic events. The first showed three men in suits walking up stone steps at the embassy. “That’s one,” Reggie pointed to the man in the middle. James stood carefully out of view and recorded who Reggie identified and by which frame. They continued.

Reggie’s body language hypothesis seemed plausible, in that he identified teeps who were walking around almost instantly. The less active the person was, the longer it seemed to take. Reggie identified all of the known teeps correctly, including the two known teeks. Sarah identified two teeps on her own, but she noted they were making unusual eye contact, and even James could sort of see that on re-inspection. Whatever Reggie was seeing, seemed to be invisible to Sarah and James.

When the video finished, James said, “Well, you identified twenty-three out of twenty-three with only one false positive. Could be the false positive is an unidentified teep. Did you notice anything about how you did it, anything you can explain?”

“Just something in how they move, some sort of tension? They still remind me of elves.”

James shook his head. “Where’d you develop your image of elves?”

“Stories my father told me. Things I read as a boy. I don’t remember anyone describing their movements. But they left certain pictures in my head.”

“Are you a very visual thinker?”

“Maybe.”

“I can check the genetics on that, too. Let me pull up data on learning styles and synesthaesia while I’m at it. Sarah’s genotype should be done any minute. Then I’ll start yours.”

He went to his server, set up what he needed for Reggie’s analysis, then started on the data for Sarah, which was 98% complete.

“Well, Sarah, your DNA says you’re a teep.”

“But I’m not. Is there anyone else who has the gene but can’t use it?” Reggie still sat across the room, by the desk, looking at nothing. Sarah now stood peering over James’ shoulder at the screen. He tapped some more keys, not bothering to explain the numerical display.

“Not that we’ve found. But our general samples are rather limited. Still, many people are blind despite genetics for perfect vision. There could be physical or psychological factors, or some other loci could inhibit telepathy. That would be interesting to know. Could I just keep this for a few days of study?”

“No. Check what you want to now, but I want it deleted when you’re done.”

Sarah’s genotype was now fully sequenced. James started Reggie’s sample then glanced at Sarah who still hovered just inches behind him. Her hands were crammed into the pockets of her jeans and her weight seemed to shift between her heals and her toes.

“Okay, let’s see what you don’t have in common with any of the other teeps on file. Then we’ll check where you match just the other teeks.” The computer analyses were relatively fast. James helped the Thai government more for the facilities allotted him than for his salary. He set up tests for everything he could think of, including all the sequences he’d used in research and all the well understood sequences that were public knowledge. As the results started to come in, he wondered how much to tell Sarah.

“There’s no one place you match the two teeks without matching some of the teeps on file. That’s a bit surprising. But since both other teeks have teep relatives here, that weeds out some of the noise. I’d guessed from analyzing the two of them that we would need multiple sites on the genome to explain telekinesis. How about if I mark on one of them which sites all three of you share. Surely I can save that much before I delete your data?”

“You can’t just remember it?”

“Have I mentioned that human DNA is three times ten to the ninth base pairs long?”

“But if you mark all the places the three of us are the same, won’t that be the same as saving most of my genome?”

James sighed; his honesty made him say, “Yes.”

He modified his previous analysis. “Okay. How about this? Here we have segments you three teeks have in common that no more than ten percent of the general population shares.”

“How much is it?”

“Two-hundred and twenty sections of 500 to 5000 bases each.”

“How would you mark them on someone else’s data.”

“Mark them as matching data set 102599?”

“You remember my birthdate?”

“I’m good with numbers.”

“Wish I’d inherited that. Could you use something less obvious?”

“Make up a six digit number.”

“850381”

James typed it in, his insides jumpy with tentative success, and he tried not to smile or fidget. “Okay, let’s see what else we’ve got. You want to know your medical risks?”

“Okay.”

“First, you have two segments I discovered, only one could be from my side.” James tugged one index finger and then the other as the impact of his statement hit him. Was it chance that Sarah had both of the segments he’d been researching? Could the person sending him notes have known? But how could anyone know? Did “work” in the note only refer to his father’s business? How could the sender know Sarah had these sequences if she’d avoided all DNA tests? She could have been tested covertly, or the sender might know the genetics required for her ability.

“What?” Sarah asked.

James released a finger in mid-tug. “Well, this one’s correlated with mood disorders, especially bipolar, and I carry it also. This one I just discovered, but it seems to show up in paranoid schizophrenics.”

“Great.”

“Oh, sorry. You’re still not very likely to have or develop either condition. Both disorders have complex determinants. This bipolar correlate shows up in 12% of the general population. The two other teeks I have on file each have one of these sequences.” He mentioned aloud as he flipped through correlates. “And they also show up in combination with the telepathy predecessor sequence I found.”

James meant to be careful what he shared after that, but Sarah showed so much interest that he ended up telling her all about her cancer risks and anything else that showed up in his scans. They easily passed the hour it took for Reggie’s DNA to sequence.

James ran a quick analysis of Reggie’s genotype to see if he might have the telepathy sequence or it’s precursor, but there was nothing so obvious. He left it for later, since Reggie had agreed to let him keep that genotype on file.

He went back to studying Sarah’s until he’d checked everything he
could rationally think to test. Despite her lack of formal training, she seemed to follow what he was saying reasonably well, and stayed interested for most of the time his analyses took. In the end, she did insist he delete the data, and Reggie, who clearly knew a bit about computers, had him clear away all sorts of possible back-up records.

“Well, it’s dinnertime,” Sarah said. “Want to join us?”

“No, I think I’ll stay and do some analyses on Reggie’s DNA.”

“Could I come back in a few days to hear the highlights?” Reggie asked.

“If you want,” James shrugged, already pulling up new correlates, feeling the pull of new data.

“Sure, thanks.”

Minutes after they left there was another knock at his door.

“Yes?” James grunted without looking up from the analysis.

As the door opened and shut, someone answered telepathically.
“Hi. I’m Lisa. We met at the Johnson’s party? My brother Robert’s going to be doing some work with you?”

James remembered Robert’s earnest sociability at the party, and reminded himself to see a potential research assistant as a gift and not an invasion. He turned around trying to connect the girl before him to his vague memories of Robert’s family. She was wearing a red silk top with a very wide neck, and James remembered the delicate collarbones and neck stretching up from a similar neckline at the Easter party. He also remembered what Sarah had said about a teek in that family.
“I remember. Did you need something?”

“I was walking by and thought maybe you’d like to get a bite to eat? I’m sort of on my own for dinner.”

“Sorry. I’ve got some work to do. You know, it’s just been pointed out to me that talking this way casually might look suspicious to non-telepaths. We usually speak aloud about everyday things around here.”

“Oh. Until recently the only teeps I knew were my family. We always spoke this way together. Who spotted you?”

“No, it wasn’t like that. You arrived with Reggie and Sarah, right? It turns out Reggie can spot telepaths with amazing accuracy. He thinks he’s just watching body language. But neither Sarah nor I can do it. We did notice some unusual looking eye contact between people speaking telepathically in a public place.”

“This is hardly a public place.”

“True.”

There was a pause and James scanned a few more screens of data. Then Lisa said,
“So you were having Reggie spot telepaths?”

“Just on video.”

“I thought you were a biologist?”

“Geneticist, really. I ran their genotypes in addition to the video test.”

“You think spotting us is genetic?”

“It’s possible, but I can’t learn much from just one sample.”

“And Sarah’s?”

“Found the sequence for telepathy. Still haven’t figured out telekinesis. That’s classified, by the way.”

“Just from non-telepaths, I assume?”

“Or anyone not working for Thailand.”

“Sure, but the whole teep community here seems to work for the government.”

“Just about.”

“So, you think Sarah’s lying about not being a telepath?”

James truly looked at Lisa for the first time and shook his head; that possibility hadn’t even occurred to him. He stood and moved toward his cabinet of collection kits.
“Probably something else is wrong, some brain injury or trauma.”

“That’s what you’re working on?”

“No, I checked Sarah’s with her here, then erased it.”

“And Reggie’s?”

“I can keep and follow the science through. Speaking of which, if I send home these sample kits with you, could you ask Robert to bring samples from your whole family when he comes in Wednesday.”

“I could.”
She answered with a shrug that crimped her fine neck but lowered the neckline of her blouse in a tantalizing way. James quickly looked away.
“I should get back to work.”