The Affinities Read Free Page A

testing, you said?”
    â€œDrug testing plus an assay for a range of primary and secondary metabolites. I know this must seem scattershot, Mr. Fisk, but it’s all connected. That could be InterAlia’s slogan, if we needed another one: everything’s connected. A lot of modern science is concerned with understanding patterns of interaction. In heredity, that’s the genome. In how DNA is expressed, we talk about the proteinome. In brain science it’s what they call the connectome—how brain cells hook up and interact, singly or in groups. Meir Klein invented the word socionome , for the map of characteristic human interactions. But each affects the others, from DNA to protein, from protein to brain cells, from brain cells to how you react to the people you meet at work or school. To place you in an Affinity we need to look at where you are on all those different maps.”
    I said I understood. She consulted her laptop once more. “Okay, so we’re good to go. I’ll leave the room, and the monitor will show you a series of photographs, like a slide show, five seconds per slide. Twenty minutes of that, a coffee break, then twenty minutes more. You don’t have to do anything but watch. Okay?”
    And that was how it went. The pictures were hard to categorize. Most showed human beings, but a few were landscapes or photographs of inanimate objects, like an apple or a clock tower. The photographs of human beings were drawn from a broad cross section of cultures and ages and were gender-balanced. In most of them, people were doing undramatic things—chatting, fixing meals, working. I tried not to overanalyze either the pictures or my reaction to them.
    And that was it: session one of five.
    â€œWe’ll see you again tomorrow evening,” Miriam said.
    *   *   *
    The next day’s test used the same headset but no photographs. Instead, the monitor prompted me with displays of single words in lowercase letters: when the word appeared, all I had to do was read it aloud. A few seconds later, another word would appear. And so on. It felt awkward at first, sitting alone in a room saying things like, “Animal. Approach. Conciliation. Underwater. Song. Guilt. Vista…”—but before long it just seemed like a job, fairly tedious and not particularly difficult.
    Miriam came back for the midpoint break, carrying a cup of coffee. “I remembered how you liked it. One cream, one sugar, right? Or would you prefer a glass of water?”
    â€œCoffee’s great. Thank you. Can I ask you a question?”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œPersonal question?”
    â€œTry me.”
    â€œDo you belong to an Affinity? I mean, if you’re allowed to say.”
    â€œOh, I’m allowed. Employees can take the test for free. I did. I know my Affinity. But no, I never joined a tranche.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    She held up her left hand, the ring finger circled by a modest gold band. “My husband was tested too, but he didn’t qualify. And I don’t want to commit to a social circle he can’t join. It’s not an insurmountable problem—tranches organize spouse-friendly auxiliary events. But he would have been shut out of official functions. And I didn’t want that. That’s why the existing Affinities are a little bit skewed toward young singles, divorcees, widowers. Over time, as people meet and mate inside their own Affinity groups, we expect the imbalance to even out. It’s trending that way already.”
    â€œYou ever regret not joining?”
    â€œI regret not having what so many of our clients find so useful and empowering. Sure. But I made my decision when I married my husband, and I’m happy with it.”
    â€œWhich Affinity did you qualify for?”
    â€œNow that’s a personal question. But I’m a Tau, for what it’s worth. And I take some comfort from knowing I have a place to go,