THE CELEBRATION – 

Part Two

October 2056

Jordan opened his eyes and looked around the room. The moment had passed. He was still invisible.

The person with short hair spoke again. “Now, what we’ve all been waiting for: the ancestry results for Lexie’s child, Manaia. If you please, Alexa.”

Alexa looked at the paper in her hand, then looked around the room. The audience held its breath. Cool night air drifted in silently through the balcony window, poised to be inhaled.

“The results for Manaia’s ancestry are remarkably clear: twenty-four point eight percent Polynesian, twenty-four point eight percent East Asian, and forty-nine point eight percent European. Of course, these results are approximate because they have been rounded.”

The silence with which this information was greeted suggested some confusion over the numbers. What did they mean in real terms? Some people in the audience took out their Konektors and entered the percentages into their calculators.

“It comes to almost one hundred,” the person beside Jordan said. “Is that right?”

Jordan looked away. His mind had already worked out the fractions: Lexie’s sperm donor was half Polynesian and half East Asian … approximately. It was information he would keep to himself.

Lexie was the first to speak. “But that’s impossible,” she insisted angrily. “The donor bank told me the donor was one hundred percent Polynesian. The figures must be wrong.”

“No one in the world is one hundred percent anything, Lexie,” Alexa explained calmly. “These results suggest your donor was half Polynesian and half East Asian.”

“But…”

If the child were present, Jordan thought, a simple visual assay might be conducted. The thought amused him.

Lexie, looking unconvinced and petulant, was grabbed by the large-breasted person who had earlier been intent on delivering high fives, and who was clearly not going to be denied that pleasure now. “Sister,” the person shouted, “you are a hero! The goal is quarter, quarter, quarter—and Manaia is almost there. Call it for Manaia, everyone!”

With obvious relief, at last given an opportunity to release their pent-up desire for celebration, the room fervently chanted the child’s name: “Manaia, Manaia, Manaia!”

Some added tag lines: “Our child for tomorrow!”  “An end to racism!”

The hubbub of conversation reclaimed the room. Lexie was clearly consoled by her newfound status as a pioneer heroine (even if it was accidental).

But Alexa wasn’t finished. “We still have one more set of results,” she called out, “for the third sample. Who are these for, Lexie?”

Lexie hesitated just long enough to convince Jordan that she might be having second thoughts. “That’s my … my…” Her voice faltered before she stumbled on the explanation. “That’s Manaia’s reference point for the generation before me. We need to know where we’ve come from if we’re to be confident of where we’re going,” she paraphrased with growing conviction.

The room was silent again, ready to peer into the past—into a world that The Citizens’ Roll of Lineal Progression was destined to consign to history.

“Well,” Alexa mused as she opened the third envelope, “who are you, ‘JM’? What will your results reveal?”

Once again, she read the paper carefully without speaking, then looked around the room. Yet her smile was different than any expression she’d worn that evening. It was nervous—and her voice, when it came, was rushed. “JM is twenty-five percent African and seventy-five percent European. My quick calculation is that this person cannot be directly related to Manaia’s mother.”

She folded the paper carefully and inserted it back into the envelope to hand it to Lexie—who, at this point, looked as if she had been injected in the throat with a horse tranquilizer. Jordan shifted his feet uneasily, waiting for the shock to wear off. He turned and looked for a path to the door, calculating the degree of difficulty should he decide to make a hasty exit. By the time he returned his gaze to the proceedings, Lexie was already marching through the throng of guests, pushing people aside, her shell earrings swinging dangerously like medieval weapons … and Jordan, standing transfixed, knew that his invisibility was about to be forcibly dissolved.

“What did you do, Jordan?” his daughter hissed ominously. “Did you switch samples to make a fool of me—to punish me for your own guilt? Is this one of your lame, misogynistic practical jokes, trying to make yourself still seem relevant?”

He immediately got the impression that she was toying with the idea of hitting him. If she chose to do so, she would probably have the support of the entire room. Now that he was suddenly visible, it was apparent to all that there was a middle-aged white male in their midst, and no one had warned them.

“And how typically racist of you to substitute a fake sample with African blood in it!” she spat. “How much more cynical can you get? To think that you fathered me!”

Should he speak? Could he speak…?

Instead, he did the unspeakable: he stepped forward and put his arms around her, holding her tight so she couldn’t move. Under his breath, he whispered words in her ear that silenced her immediately. As understanding sank in, she gasped for air, her neck tattoo heaving and swelling as if it might burst.

Jordan bolted from the room, taking the stairs two at a time. If he fell, he fell; escape was the only thing on his mind. Throwing open the door to the lobby, he charged out onto the pavement, intent on making a getaway into the safety of the dark night.

Behind him, he heard footsteps clattering down the stairs… The lobby door opened and closed… The footsteps drew closer…

His Scoot was gone.

“Professor!” a voice called out. “Jordan … wait!”

He whirled around. It was Alexa.

“Don’t you recognize me?” she asked. “I was a master’s student the year the activists shut down the math department. I’d enrolled specifically to work with you; you were my mentor.”

He knew he needed to say something, but he could not trust himself to say anything.

“My Scoot’s been taken,” he replied feebly. “I live on the Ninety-Fourth Circuit, and the nearest intersection with this Circuit is five and a half miles away, which is why I was allowed to take a Scoot from the station. Thankfully, I logged out, so at least whoever’s taken it won’t be mistaken for me. But now I’ve got a long walk ahead of me.”

She stepped closer. He took a step back.

“Don’t you remember me?” she repeated. “The night they burned down the math library, you and I got drunk. I asked you what I was going to do with my life now that mathematics was being erased from the university curriculum, and you told me to switch to statistics. Statistics, you said, can be made into anything that anybody wants, so it will never be done away with.”

She stepped even closer. Her eyes were almond-shaped with dark, curling lashes. Her hips and bust were pleasingly rounded. Her waist was slender, and her legs were long. There was no denying what she was. Was it safe to say what he was about to say? If not, then it was too late for everything and nothing mattered anyway.

“Of course I remember you, Alexa. You were the brightest and most beautiful girl to ever study mathematics. The ANT brigades hated you for it.”

She stepped forward again. This time he didn’t step back.

“Tell me what you said to Lexie at the end there. The thing that made her cry.”

From the direction of the building, he could hear the sounds of people leaving.

“I told her that I am not her birth father. Her mother was pregnant when we met. I thought she knew that. And I told her I’d forgotten about my maternal grandmother, who died before I was born. She was always described as a ‘dusky beauty.’ I guess that was code for having African blood. And now that you’ve confirmed that, I feel … I don’t know … I guess I feel like celebrating.”

Alexa laughed in a way he’d long since forgotten. Taking his arm, she steered him towards the Lineal Progression Office autonomous vehicle parked by the curb. “Come on,” she said, “I’ll give you a lift home. We can celebrate together.”