Робин Кук - Genesis

When she had first arrived in the city from St. Louis, she’d been intimidated by the subway. It seemed like such a scary netherworld, often filled with unpleasant smells, occasional random ear-splitting screeches of metal against metal, and strange-looking people that ran the gamut from the well-dressed to the apparent homeless. But over the months she’d become immune, and now she hardly batted an eye at the varying cavalcade of people she encountered. And like so many travelers, she could read one of her professional journals on her phone if she felt motivated to better herself, or the Daily News if she didn’t. That morning she’d brought a spiral notebook she’d filled with her genealogy notes over the previous two years. Madison’s method of studying was to write things down. Once she did, it was generally committed to memory. If she wanted to review, like in her present circumstance, the notes served as a superb way of doing so.

When she reached the subway entrance, an architecturally interesting head house in Verdi Square, she girded herself for the general subway smell. It wasn’t particularly unpleasant, just unique. As usual, she had plenty of company as millions of New Yorkers relied on the subway to commute to their places of work. It gave Madison a sense of belonging to a grand, common enterprise.

With her monthly pass, going through the turnstile was a breeze, and she was soon on the relatively narrow southbound platform with a sizable crowd of other people all waiting for the arrival of the next train. The tracks for the local were on the left, the express on the right. When she’d first started using the subway, she’d stayed far away from the edge of the platform, which to her was like the edge of a dangerous precipice. She didn’t like looking down at the dark tracks, frequently covered with litter and other filth, and what was called the third rail, which was electrified to run the train. It was even scarier being close to the edge when the subway burst out of the tunnel and came thundering in with a crescendo of deep-bass rumbling, like a mini-earthquake. The trains’ arrivals were even accompanied by a sudden blast of wind and an uptick of the trademark subway smell. Now inured to the whole experience, she flipped open her notebook to review the first few chapters of Bettinger’s book. She was concentrating enough that she didn’t look up as the first train came barreling into the station. It wasn’t until she heard the doors open that she raised her eyes. She could take either the 2 or the 3 express. This was the 2, so she boarded.

As was invariably the case, the train was crowded and there were no seats available. But it wasn’t unexpected. Instead of sitting she stood, like she usually did, finding a convenient pole to grasp. Soon the doors slid closed and with several repetitive lurches the train pulled out of the station and picked up speed. Like so many mornings, she was on her way.

As she headed south at what seemed like a breakneck speed, she again tried to read her notebook, but the shaking and lurching made it so difficult she quickly gave up. Instead she closed her eyes and once again thought about how terrible a day yesterday had been until it had been partially salvaged by the nightcap in Nobu with the unusual Aria Nichols.

Ever since Madison had awakened an hour earlier, she’d marveled at the personality of the medical examiner. Although Madison had been initially put off by her bluntness, self-centeredness, and apparent lack of social graces, she’d learned to think of her as a unique and interesting individual. She’d also come to realize how remarkably committed Aria was to finding the man with whom Kera had been having an affair, a quest that Madison had come to share. The more Madison had thought about it, the greater the redemptive power such a discovery would have for her. It had become progressively clear to Madison that she had taken Kera’s unavailability much too personally and, as a result, hadn’t been the friend she should have been. If she had, maybe Kera would be alive today.

The moment the train stopped at the 42nd Street station, which was the busiest in the entire NYC subway system, Madison and a good portion of the train’s occupants rushed to get off. She was then part of a surge of people who power walked, almost raced, to catch their various connections. For Madison her goal was the platform for the 7 train heading east out to Main Street, Queens. It was two levels below, taking her deeper into the earth. When she arrived, she was slightly out of breath. It was a type of herd mentality that made everybody rush.

Madison moved down the platform by weaving among the people waiting. From having done the commute so many times, she knew which car of the 7 train would deposit her in the most convenient position for getting to the next platform for the final leg on the 6 train. At one point as she headed east, she managed to get close enough to the platform’s edge to look back into the subway tunnel to see if she could see the distant light of an approaching train. But the tunnel was dark, so she continued on. When she got to the proper spot, she stopped and went back to reading her notebook. Most other people were fussing with their phones. Those who weren’t just stared off with blank faces. Only a few people talked. Riding the NYC subway was not a social exercise.

For the east-bound 7 train, the 42nd Street station was the first stop, so the train was often not full, and on this particular morning, Madison got a seat. So, on this second segment, which was only two stops, she was able to do a bit more reading. It was becoming clearer to her exactly how she and Aria were going to go about finding Kera’s lover. First, she would get kits for both the fetus and Kera from a number of the commercial DNA companies, maybe even all four of the main ones. To do that she needed samples from Aria. Her plan was to contact the companies to find out what kind of samples would be best. Getting those kits from mother and child was step one in whatever path ultimately was to be taken to find ancestral matches. While waiting for the kits, Madison planned on contacting the many websites set up to help adoptees find their natural parents, and even more apropos, she would reach out to those websites set up to help people who were conceived with donor sperm. In a very real sense, finding the identity of a sperm donor was the same situation she and Aria faced with Kera’s lover. After all, most sperm donors expected anonymity, just as Kera’s lover apparently did.

Madison got off at Grand Central 42nd Street station and once more joined the crowded race to make the next connection. Part of the reason for rushing was to try to avoid the situation where the connecting train would be just leaving the station. It had happened to Madison all too often, sometimes as much as once a week. For Madison the worst part of the journey was waiting for the train to arrive here at the Lexington Avenue subway line, as it could become unpleasantly crowded.

As she quickly ascended the final flight of stairs to reach the proper platform, she was relieved to see that there was no train with its doors about to close in her face. In response she slowed her ascent to a more normal pace. Other people around her did the same. Gaining the platform, she moved to the left. Over the months she’d found that the rear of the train always seemed slightly less crowded. Like on the first train, on this leg of her journey she rarely got to sit down.

Reaching what she considered to be an appropriate spot to wait, she opened her notebook yet again. She wanted to reread what she had written about GEDmatch’s latest tools for maximizing matches yet still keeping false positives to a minimum. From sore experience Madison knew that false positives were a bane to genealogists. They used up time and effort and had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. She’d been down that road far too many times.