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True Genius

Valerie Buko

    Wham! Solomon’s head and upper body were roughly, suddenly jarred forward. He slowly, carefully straightened himself up, and looked into his rear-view mirror.
    He had been driving in to work, thinking about what a good driver he was, as he didn’t speed or drive too slowly, and he kept a proper distance from other vehicles. We have driving rules for a reason, he had been thinking to himself, like how everyone should—and then he’d been hit! The car behind Solomon had rear-ended him, instead of stopping at the red light. He saw the car back up a little, and then veer over to the left to go around him. Sol looked out his window, and saw the driver glaring and shaking his fist at him as he drove on by.
    “Get out of my way, jackass!” the glaring man said, “You drive too slow!”
    Always one to resolve problems instead of making them worse, Sol nodded his head at the man and said, “Sorry! Um...drive carefully...” but the car was of course gone by then.
    That was nasty, Sol thought, I have to remember to be on the look-out for bad drivers like him if I want to avoid an accident.
    Soon, Sol arrived at Genetics Toronto, where he worked in the Genotyping department, and pulled into his parking spot. He hadn’t even had time to turn off the ignition, however, when he realized that someone was yelling at him.
    “Excuse me, excuse me! Yes, you—you’re in my spot; please move your car.”
    Solomon glanced toward the voice, and saw a woman that looked a little familiar. Ah, yes, she had been hired recently to replace his good friend Anya, who was a wonderful woman and exceptionally gifted geneticist who had recently retired from the Database Storage department after twenty-five years. He pondered for a moment about what to do; he had had this parking spot for twelve years now, he liked it, he had chosen it, it was his! True to his peaceful nature, however, Sol wouldn’t make this problem any bigger.
    “Sorry—welcome to Genes Toronto...” he said as he pulled out of his favourite spot and drove on to find another. There were plenty of other spots, really, so this simply wasn’t worth causing a problem over.

*

    Needing a break from his work later that day, Sol walked out of his small laboratory and into his adjoining office. His work, separating strands of DNA, required that he sit for longish periods at a time, and he needed to get the kinks out of his neck and back. He went over to the window to do some stretching, sighing as he felt the tension flow out of his upper body, leaving him feeling very much at ease. He loved working here, loved working as a geneticist, and loved his comfortable office with its huge window and lovely view.
    Still feeling a kink in one leg, Sol decided to walk around the building for a bit. Soft-soled shoes supporting him, he walked down one long hall after another. He saw many of his colleagues bent over their desks or tables, concentrating on their work, so he walked by quietly so as to not disturb them. His colleague and friend Fawad noticed Solomon walking by, and greeted him warmly. Sol not only liked but respected Fawad for his strong work ethic and reliable test results. The two men chatted for a few minutes before Sol walked on. When he heard little sobs followed by a low, angry growl coming from inside another laboratory, he couldn’t help but stop again. Looking in, he saw his young colleague Danika at her work station, obviously having trouble over something she was doing.
    Sol wanted to go inside the room and ask Danika if he could help in any way, but what he witnessed froze him to the spot. He was familiar with Danika’s job—he knew that she was to take the strips of genetic data that Sol had separated and prepared, sort them and then put stickers containing client’s identifying information on them... but this isn’t what she was doing. Looking and sounding totally confused and stressed, Danika banged the countertop with both fists, then grabbed blindly at information stickers and stuck them haphazardly onto the clients’ separate bins. Solomon couldn’t believe what he was seeing! This was all wrong—Danika was mixing everything up! His very inner core screamed at him to step in and do something about this, but then, true to his peaceful, non-confrontational nature, he reasoned that Danika was an experienced geneticist who must know what she was doing; she would fix these mistakes... Solomon slowly backed up out of Danika’s lab, and went back to his office.

*

    The next few days passed by uneventfully, with Sol continuing to work happily and steadily in his usual, painstakingly meticulous manner. Then Kiara, the senior boss in Sol’s unit, surprised everyone by calling an impromptu meeting. The employees shuffled uncertainly to the main lobby for the stand-up meeting.
    “Hi everyone; I’ve never had to do this, but I need to let you know that we’ve been receiving some pretty hard questions and serious complaints from clients. Seems that there have been some bad mix-ups, and I’d like some answers.”
    “What kind of mix-ups, Boss?” someone asked.
    “People are being sent DNA results that simply don’t belong to them,” said Kiara.
    “People are often surprised by results and don’t believe them,” someone remarked.
    “Well, no, it’s worse than that—some of the results present impossible, non-compatible blood types, for example... these are mistakes that have definitely been made somewhere in our labs.” Kiara paused, placed her hands on her hips, and looked around at her scientists.
    “Here at Genetics Toronto,” she continued, “we don’t like mistakes; mistakes make us look very bad, disreputable... if anyone knows anything about these mix-ups, please let me know.”
    It was very quiet, tense and still for a moment. Sol held his breath, glancing around at everyone. Should he say something? He was shocked then, when Danika boldly stepped forward and addressed her boss.
    “Kiara, I have to say that I’ve been noticing quite a mess of clients’ address labels left in the Sorting Area in the past few weeks.”
    “Oh, alright, thank you, Danika,” Kiara said. “Do you have any idea who isn’t sorting properly?”
    “Well, I don’t know for sure, as there are a few members on that team... but the correlating log sheets have the initials ‘FM’...”
    Everyone looked around for Fawad, whose mouth had dropped open but was so stunned he was unable to utter a sound in his own defense.
    “Well, then,” Kiara said quietly but authoritatively, “please come with me, Mr. Marsovich, so we can chat about this.”
    An exceptionally bewildered and miserable-looking Fawad walked away with Kiara, leaving the rest of the employees standing there, looking awkwardly at each other.

*

    Pacing around his lab, and then pacing around his office while contemplating what the hell to do didn’t help Sol one bit. The issues swirled around in his head, each one with its own explanation and justification. He had seen Danika making errors when she was trying to sort out the genetic data for storage, and to make matters worse, he knew that she must have put Fawad’s initials on the work sheets to cover up her erroneous tracks. Sol reasoned with himself that he had known Danika for a few years now; she had always seemed efficient, competent... perhaps she was going through hard times right now, and had been having a very bad day when he had seen her in her lab. He knew that if he told Kiera what he had witnessed, Danika would be seen as a total fraud as well as an incompetent worker, even though she was guilty of blaming an innocent colleague for incompetent work! On the other side of these issues, however, was Sol’s ever-present strong belief in not making problems worse than they already were. He really wasn’t sure what to do, and the issues continued to swirl around in his head.
    I feel like such a fucking wimp! Sol cried to himself. Why can’t I just confront people? I should shout, scream, rant and rave like most people do—why can’t I lay blame on others?! Sol calmed himself, took quite a few deep breaths, and relaxed. He had never known problems to be solved through rash confrontation... he would find a better way.
    Needing to clear his mind, Sol left his office and headed outside for some fresh air. As fate would have it though, he walked straight into Danika, who had been scurrying along with her head down. Speaking to her was unavoidable, so he made the best of it.
    “Hello Dankia,” Sol said gently. “How are you doing?”
    “Oh, hi Sol,” she answered in a quiet, shaky voice. ”I, I guess I’ve been better; I’m not feeling very well today...”
    “That’s too bad... you do look a little pale, and upset too... is something bothering you?” he fished.
    Danika stared intently into Sol’s eyes as if she was searching for solace and release from guilt, but only replied, “I miss Anya so much! I miss Anya!” and she scurried away back to her office.Well, why in the world would that matter right now? Sol wondered, standing there in the hall, I understand that she was good friends with Anya before she retired, but Danika’s not doing her job properly, that’s what she should be thinking about right now...

*

    Some time outdoors had been refreshing, but it wasn’t enough to help Sol think of what he could do to help resolve the sticky situation. He worried and deliberated for the rest of that day, and into the night as well.
    Then, at some point near dawn, he finally saw things more clearly and realized how to solve the problem for everyone involved.

*

    Sol arrived very early to work the next morning. The few geneticists who were there at this early hour thought nothing of this, as Sol was known for working long hours and doing whatever it was that needed to be done. They greeted Sol warmly, then, when he seemed to be heading down the hall to his office, and they didn’t even notice when he went into Danika’s laboratory instead.
    Leaving his briefcase just inside the lab door for a speedy exit, Sol went over to the Sorting Area. He looked down at the heap of totally unorganized papers and sticky labels that looked as if they had been abandoned there in frustration the day before.
    My, my, Sol said to himself, look at this mess... I’m no Anya, but I can have this sorted out in no time at all.

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