Double Helix Ch. 01

She started by having me help her with lunch, a dish made with rice, tofu, and bok choy. Standard American cuisine had shifted quite a bit since the Rot to include ingredients less commonly found in western dishes. Meat of any kind usually only came through black market sources and cost hundreds of dollars for a single serving.

"Let's eat downstairs with the others," Sasha said as we gathered the dishes to place in the dumbwaiter. It was concealed from this end, I saw, in what looked like the decorative bottom half of an armoire.

Sasha lowered the tray and we went downstairs, where the others were already gathering. "Hello, Miss Gray," Nissi said, nodding. The others gave their own greetings as we settled around the table.

"So how are you all?" Sasha asked as she took her plate. "Does everyone have their laundry ready for me?"

Nock had apparently forgotten and got up to fetch his dirty clothes to add to the laundry bags stacked by the door.

"I was hoping you might pick up some new books for me," Stansy said. "I'm almost done with the last one."

"I'll do it the next time I'm out. Next two on your reading list, I take it? Norm, are you going to need some more clothes? There can't be a lot in that suitcase and bag you brought."

"I don't want to be a bother," I protested.

"Nonsense," Sasha said. "The agency provides me with a stipend for each of you, and if I don't spend it and account for everything, that money is lost. You give me your sizes and a list of what you need by this evening."

"Alright, I'll do that, Miss Gray."

"Hmm, I thought you were going to call me Sasha."

"So did I, Miss Gray," I said.

We all laughed at that. I wondered suddenly how Sasha's situation had affected her career. Everything I had seen of her so far told me that she needed to be managing people, but that just wasn't something you could do from a home office. Sasha went on to engage each person in conversation, and even took a moment to look in on Tilly, though it sounded like a one-sided dialogue.

I passed the afternoon watching television and talking to the others. It turned out that Nissi was from Orange County, and she had a lot of questions for me about how things had changed in LA over the last eight years. She had left the city before I ever got there. I had been an assistant professor for two and a half years, and had been a graduate student at UCLA before that. The biggest change was the depopulation, close to a million people streamed out of the area each year. Rent controls were supposed to give everyone affordable housing, but the cost of living still outpaced the meager pay that most took home after taxes, and most urban dwellers did not have room for gardening on any practical scale.

We had dinner again together, and before we were all finished, Wendy excused herself to take Tilly some food. Nock and Stansy again headed for the television. I was not looking forward to another night like the last and realized that I needed to find something else to do with my time. I supposed that I could read, like Stansy, but I would need to ask Sasha about getting books.

Then I saw Nissi still sitting at the far end of the table with a notebook open in front of her. She tapped her fingers rhythmically on the table a few times, and leaned over and scribbled something down. I just watched her for a moment. Every movement of her hands, every gesture, was pure grace. I moved down to sit across from her and watched as she added a musical note here or there and scribbled notes in between the staves she had made across the pages.

"Bored?" she asked without looking up from her work.

"I never watched much TV," I said. "You're composing music." I tried not to make it a question.

"Oh, is it that obvious?" she said with a grin. "And here I thought I was getting away with something. It's a solo piece, piano with vocals. I'm still working out the lyrics."

"Do you always work this fast?" In the few minutes I had been watching her, she had filled the right-hand page and looked to be putting just the finishing touches on it.

She gave me a wry smile. "It's kind of silly, actually. Ever read Tolkien?"

"Years ago," I admitted.

"Well, anytime there were elves around, Tolkien would have some hanging out in the trees and singing. You see?"

"So you and all the other elves are musical geniuses?" I said it half-jokingly, but saw that Nissi wasn't kidding.

"With perfect pitch and a damn good head for math besides," she added. "But sometimes it feels like a curse. Once I get music in my head, I can't sleep until I get it out. It takes over my brain. There, that should do it." She flipped the page back to show that she had filled the previous two pages as well. "Now for the hard part: lyrics."

"What is it about?"

Nissi hummed a few notes and then began to sing them, not real words, just making the sound of the notes. Her voice, clear and resonant, sent a shiver up my spine.

"That sounds kind of sad," I said when she stopped. "Lost lover, maybe?"

"Ugh, another one of those," she said, frowning. She looked thoughtful for a moment. "But you do have a point. How about not lost, just separated for a long time? She's pining for him because she's beyond her reach. That could work, right?" She turned the page and sang a few of the notes, still no words. Somehow, though the melody was the same, there was now a hint of hope in it. "She thinks she's going to see him again soon."

"Can you sing the first line again?" I asked.

When she sang the notes, I spoke the words that came into my head. "I can't feel your touch," I said, in time with the melody. "Each day without you hurts so much."

"Not bad," she said, and jotted it down. "I think that's our first hook. Have you done this before?"

"I used to write poetry. I haven't done it in years, though."

I found that Nissi had a much better ear for hooks than I did, but she did use a few of my suggestions. She sang our latest line, then shook her head. "I don't know if that works with the music here. Damn, I wish I had a piano." It was not the first time she had said it.

I repeated what she had said, but singing it falsetto to the tune of the song "Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover". Nissi laughed out loud. "Dork. But you might have a good voice if you got some training."

It suddenly occurred to me that the TV was off. Everyone but Nock had already gone to bed. He was seated at the terminal, clicking the mouse every few seconds. Nissi and I had been at it for hours. "It's late," I said at last, leaning back in my chair. "But that was fun."

"Finish up tomorrow?" she asked. "I think we're far enough along that I can sleep now."

"It's a date."

I stood up and started for my room, but Nissi intercepted me. "If we're having a date tomorrow," she said smoothly, "then tonight was our first date. And that means...." she moved close to me. For the first time, I really took notice of our height difference. She stood about three inches taller than my own 5'10". "...a kiss good night?"

I looked up into her face, such a strange feeling. I had never been this close to someone taller than me before. My thoughts were fuzzy, indistinct. I breathed in her scent, a mix of vanilla and the barest hint of something else, something earthy and rich. My hand found the back of her head, her silken hair slipping through my fingers. Our lips touched and it felt like sparks exploded inside my head. It lasted only a moment, and quite chaste compared to kisses I had shared with girlfriends, but it left me breathless and we both swayed as we broke away.

"How long since you've done that?" Nissi said, running a finger down the line of my jaw.

"Two years, I think. You?"

"Too long." She stepped back. "You know, you're kind of cute."

"And you're kind of amazing," I breathed.

She smiled at me. "Dork. Tomorrow, then."

She glanced over her shoulder coyly as she slipped past the curtain into her partition. I suddenly remembered Nock. He gave me a grin and a thumbs up and I tried not to groan. I would have to get used to the lack of privacy.

I settled into bed and closed my eyes, lulled by the sound of Tilly's slow breathing just a few feet away beyond the curtain.

The next afternoon, Thursday, Sasha invited me to help her in the greenhouse. Stepping into the backyard I was immediately impressed by the attention to detail of whoever had designed it. The structure was hermetically sealed, with filtered air pumped from the outside. Sasha had me go in first, explaining what to do. The glass of the shower was frosted and the chamber served as a kind of airlock to the greenhouse proper. The water was so hot it took my breath away for a moment when I first stood under it. I scrubbed every skin surface thoroughly with disinfecting soap and braced myself again to rinse. I left my clothes hanging in a compartment in the shower and moved on to the next chamber so that Sasha could come in. I found a clean t-shirt and shorts from the closet and put them in while she showered.

The shower shut off and I turned to face the wall just as Sasha had instructed. She emerged, dried off, and dressed quickly. "Alright, safe to look now," she said. She had a loose-fitting t-shirt and shorts much like I wore. It was a strange look for her, but I could understand the reason for it. The air in here was tepid and moist.

"You didn't skimp on the fungicide, did you?" she asked. I shook my head. "Good. I've kept this greenhouse clean of Rot for eight years. That's no small feat. All it takes is one slip-up for a spore to get in here and start wreaking havoc."

The Rot, as it was known to most people, was a bioengineered organism that had been unleashed on America's food crops in 2004. It was based on a naturally-occurring form of life called oomycetes, similar to mold, that infected the roots of plants in moisture-rich soil. This strain was far hardier and more destructive than natural oomycetes, and within just two months had infected crops from California to Iowa, and that was just the start of the worldwide food crisis.

McCain had wrested the presidency from Bill Bradley that year, promising swift and effective action in response to what many considered to be a terrorist plot to undermine the US. The Ban had been passed three months into McCain's first term, making it illegal to create genetically modified organisms of any kind, while also redacting the citizenship of all living genemods.

Sasha opened the inner door of the chamber and we stepped into a place out of time. The greenhouse was eighty feet long, twenty feet wide, with a sloping glass roof that must have been fifteen feet tall at its highest point. Aside from three paths that ran the length of the building, plants filled the entire space. Potatoes, carrots, onions and other roots and bulbs were among the vegetables planted at floor level. Above, them, soil boxes hung suspended by chains every few feet, with tomatoes, beans, peas, and squashes and others growing in them. "How much is all this worth?" I asked.

Sasha shrugged. "The food in here is worth thousands, for sure. But much more is the value of the plants themselves. I would quarantine each new plant for a month before I brought it in, to make sure the Rot wasn't on it. I don't do that anymore. I gather seeds and cuttings from what's here to replace any plants that die. With what is in here, I can add a few hundred calories a day and a lot of nutrients to the diets of every person in the house. Come on, I think some of the peppers and onions over here were about ripe."

She gave me a large basket and began to give me tips on how to know if a vegetable was ready to pick. We managed to fill that basket and part of another with the peppers and onions, plus a few more. It looked like more food than all of us could eat in a day. "Whatever I can't use, the agency takes off my hands," she said, "but with nine people to feed now, I won't get a lot of surplus."

At dinner, we got a surprise when Sasha's mother came down to visit. Her name was Nonna and I liked her immediately. She was what my own mother would have called a "little old lady", warm and polite, but with a spark of wit that turned up when you least expected it. And she made us cookies. They were loaded with chocolate chips and walnuts and still warm from the oven. It was an extravagance to use flour on a desert dish. Rice flour was normally your only option, which you could make with a little work out of white rice, but wheat-based flour ran several dollars an ounce on the black market. Sugar was often even harder to come by. It had been years since I had eaten a cookie, and my mouth watered in anticipation when I saw her carrying the plate.

Nonna had come over from Russia after Sasha had divorced her husband, about a year after the Ban. I knew that Russia in many ways had fared worse than the US when the Rot had begun to spread overseas to Europe and the Far East, before strict immigration and trade controls had slowed it. Deaths in the States in those first two years had totaled nearly a million people. In those same years, Russia had lost over 20 million--more than a tenth of its population--to starvation, before things began to stabilize.

Dinner was salad, with grilled tofu where chicken would have been, if meat were not rare, expensive, and closely rationed. Still, Sasha had managed to liven it up with fresh strawberries and tomatoes and a sweet and tangy vinaigrette that she made herself. Sasha and Nonna didn't stay, heading back upstairs to eat their own food in the dining room. The plate of cookies sat near the middle of the table. I'm sure it was on everyone's mind to wait and savor them later.

I saw when Wendy was finished that she took a clean plate and started dishing salad into it.

I quickly ate the last few forkfuls from my bowl and stood up. "Can I take that to Tilly?" I asked.

Wendy looked up and blinked. "Oh, uh, are you sure?"

"Please," I said. "I want to help out." When I still saw hesitation, I said. "Don't worry, I won't upset her again."

It looked like I had hit upon the very thing that she was thinking. "Alright," she said. "Just don't get angry if she won't talk to you, okay? It's fine if you want to leave the food and I'll go back and pick up the dishes when she is done."

I agreed, and she handed me the bowl. I picked up one of the cookies as well, and did a double-take before reaching for another. There weren't enough for everyone. No one else had taken one yet, but we were one short. Sasha's mother must have forgotten about me. Well, no reason to deprive someone else, I reasoned, and didn't reach for another.

I went back to the partition next to mine and stood outside. "Can I come in?" I asked. When I got no response, I said. "I'm coming in," and pushed the curtain aside.

Tilly was lying on her bed, her gaze fixed somewhere far beyond the ceiling. I set the salad on the table and she jerked upright, her eyes roving wildly for a moment before settling on me. "Hello, Tilly," I said, realizing as I said the words that I was speaking in the same voice I would use on a frightened child. "I'm Norm. I brought you salad."

Something about her expression shifted, and I felt the same wave of fear and anguish that I had last night. I wanted to be away from there, away from her. The forcefulness of my mind and body's response, so primal and unreasoning, was what made my rational mind reject it. There was something off here, something I didn't understand, but nothing I couldn't deal with by reasoning my way through it. I looked away from her gaze, focusing on the salad bowl and my task.

"I was just thinking of my grandmother," I said, as I stirred the salad to coat the dressing throughout. "We went to see her almost every weekend when I was a kid. She lived alone in a little house in Ventura near the ocean." I speared a few pieces of lettuce and a cherry tomato with the fork. "I loved playing on the beach when we went to visit, but I also loved my grandma."

I could feel Tilly's gaze on me as I lazily lifted the salad toward her. Our eyes met again and the wariness was back. She opened her mouth and let me feed her, chewing in the same distant, mechanical way she had last night. "She taught me a lot of things, things I didn't even know I was learning, about compassion and responsibility. I think I became a teacher because of her. She taught elementary school most of her life." I didn't tell her the rest of the story, about the cancer that had ravaged her body, stripping her of her health and her dignity in the last year of her life. I had known somehow by her look, even at the age of eight, that all she wanted in those last days was to die, to escape the endless pain and humiliation of it. "She was a wonderful person," I said, and fed Tilly another bite. "She loved her life and made others feel the same way."

"I can feed myself," Tilly said in a small voice.

I handed over the salad and she ate it in the same focused, deliberate way that she had on my first night there, as though she had to think about each bite to decide whether or not she needed to eat it. "Wendy's a bit like that," I said, "like my grandma. I think that's why I liked her almost the minute I met her. I knew a few genemods in high school, and I met a few more when I went to university. I don't think I've ever met anyone like you, though."

She didn't respond to the unspoken question, but I let it pass, giving her a minute to finish eating. "Nonna made cookies," I said, showing her the treat, wrapped in a napkin. There was still a little warmth yet left in it.

"I don't need one," she said, and handed me the nearly empty salad bowl. She regarded the cookie with what almost looked like distrust.

"Really?" I said innocently. I slowly unwrapped the cookie. "Well, I suppose you're right. I mean, it's mostly just sugar and chocolate. Still, it seems like a shame to see it go to waste after Miss Gray's mother put so much work into it, don't you think? Here, I'll eat half if you will."

I broke the cookie in two pieces and put one side in her hand. She looked at it, her eyes again narrowing. I took a nibble from my piece, sighing contentedly at the taste of nuts and chocolate mixed with salty sweetness. Tilly watched me savor my bite, her mouth moving slightly as though she, too, were chewing and tasting it. She brought her own piece to her mouth and bit off a bit without ever looking at it. Her eyes closed and she inhaled sharply as she chewed. She sighed as I had, but longer, throatier, almost a moan. Her shoulders rolled slightly as a shiver seemed to go through her whole body. After a long moment, her eyes opened and she looked down at the rest of the cookie in her hand with obvious longing. That look faded almost instantly though, and she held the cookie out at arm's length toward me. "Take it," she said, almost a growl. "I don't want it."

Confused, as much by her extreme reaction as by her sudden rejection, I took the rest of the cookie back from her. "I'm sorry," I said, though I wasn't sure what I should be apologizing for.

Tilly turned on her side, putting her back to me. I picked up the dish quietly and left. Wendy was waiting for me just outside. I winced inwardly, expecting recrimination, but she gave me a half-smile and patted my arm. "Not bad, newbie," she said. "You got her to talk to you."

"Yeah, I guess I did," I said, feeling a little better. Looking back on it, I wasn't sure why I had felt so guilty about offering her a cookie.

The dishes had already been cleared when we came out and I again joined Nissi at the table so that we could work on her song. She gave me another kiss, leaning across the table as I prepared to sit down, once again catching me by surprise. "Been waiting for you," she said, handing me a sheet with a few lines of lyrics printed neatly on it. "What do you think of these?"