Let’s see how much.
He caught her arm, No, the power’s off. We need to keep the contents cold as long as possible. We need it to last until the cleanup crews arrive.
How much food is in there?
It’s enough. Gropius buys the fruit in bulk whenever it’s cheap. Anytime the price spiked, he’d make us feed them defrosted fruit. They hate it. All squishy.
Then he got the printer?
Yep.
So we’re fine? It’ll be ok?
They won’t be happy, but they won’t starve.
She exhaled, the fear subsiding. She looked at him, filled with gratitude for his presence. She said, Can I ask something? If Tess was in town, what would you do?
He answered, Her asthma, in a dust storm? I’d have to be with her.
They paused, imagining this.
She said, Good thing she’s in England.
Hell yes. Help me carry a few of these in. We need to prep their lunch.
Back in the pantry, Frankie and Stotts chopped up three of the pumpkins, as well as some of the printed fruit, while the bonobos sat outside and peeped with hunger. When the food was ready, Stotts opened the pantry door and piled it up in the hall for the bonobos.
Seeing the food, the bonobos reached for each other, starting their normal pre-food ritual. Somehow in a hallway with furniture, their actions looked different, the movements of their hands and hips. Goliath sat in a chair with Stella straddling his lap, the chair squeaking with their motion. For the first time Frankie felt uncomfortable and turned away. Stotts, she found, was already back in the kitchen.
Eating, the bonobos loved the pumpkin seeds, sucking on them one at a time, clucking at each other at the taste and texture—happy hedonists.
For their own lunch, Frankie and Stotts rummaged through the pantry. They found an institutional-sized box of granola bars and sat down in the hallway to eat enough to keep going. Both too tired to say a word.
*
Frankie needed to pee. She glanced into the bathroom but Ralph and Houdina were in there, playing with the faucet, cranking the water on and off, on and off, endlessly amused by this magic.
She had no interest in pulling down her pants in front of the curious bonobos, so she told Stotts, Back in a second. I’m going to . . .
She paused, strangely shy. In the end she just jerked her head toward the office area.
He nodded, his face expressionless, as though he himself had never had to use the facilities.
The whole time she sat on the toilet, it flushed itself again and again, as though horrified at being used in this way.
*
Without the ventilator pumping heat in, the temperature began to drop. 65 degrees, 60. The bonobos, tropical animals, began to shiver, especially Mama, bald and skinny.
So Stotts explored the office area and came back carrying all the clothing he could find. Staff coveralls, a few suit jackets, a raincoat, three down vests, shirts and two sweatshirts. Some of this clothing was probably his own. Over his shoulder he carried her duffle bag, the one she’d packed for her few days in the bonobo building.
He handed the bag to her, Can you check through this to see what you can give them?
He scattered the other clothes across the ground for the bonobos, while Frankie put her bag down and unzipped it. Unfortunately Mama caught a glimpse of the red pants on the top and grabbed them, squealing. Some of Frankie’s T-shirts were tugged out along with the pants and Sweetie and Houdina snatched at these. Frankie tried to grab what remained, but the bonobos moved faster. She ended up holding just three socks and a pair of undies.
From the bonobos’ reaction to the clothing, it was obvious which had grown up in human families and which had grown up in labs or zoos. Half of them pulled on the clothing, peeping to themselves with excitement, like shoppers at a midnight sale. The others watched, puzzled.
It took a while for Mama to tug on Frankie’s stretchy pants, but when she stood up on two feet—wearing them and an oversized sweatshirt from the Foundation (“Great Ape Trust— Studying the Ape in All of Us”)—she looked as though she should be carrying a latte and checking her mail.
Houdina pulled on layer after layer of clothing until she was dressed like a homeless person, patting her sides and burbling happily. Goliath picked out some coveralls, a pink turtleneck and a baseball cap.
Mr. Mister managed to tug on a pair of Frankie’s underwear, bright yellow chicks marching across his butt. Stotts glanced at him, then closed his eyes, looking genuinely in pain.
The lab-raised bonobos attempted to copy the others, but had difficulty. While Adele pulled on a T-shirt and skirt, Marge sat beside her, trying to jam both her legs into a ski hat.
After this there were two different groups of bonobos. In the coveralls and suit jackets, the human-raised bonobos were mostly dressed for work, while the lab-raised apes managed only to wrap a few shirts or pants round their necks, looking essentially like chilly nudists.
Eying this difference, Frankie wondered if she’d chosen her favorites—Goliath and Mama—partly because they’d grown up in human families, the continuous interaction making them smarter, since the brain like any muscle grows with use. Or maybe all of them were just as smart, but she most appreciated those who were socialized to communicate with her, bypassing the immigrants with strong accents to talk with those who were native-born.
*
As the afternoon passed, it became clear that the bonobos would comply more with Frankie’s requests than with Stotts’—because they were used to obeying females and she’d spent more time in the enclosure with them. So Stotts concentrated on childproofing the area while Frankie rushed from room to room like a frazzled preschool teacher, trying to keep them out of trouble.
Stotts duct-taped cellophane over the vents to make sure the dust didn’t sneak inside the building. Then he removed anything that was sharp or made of glass. He carried his tools tucked inside his shirt, where the bonobos couldn’t get them. As the afternoon passed, the number of tools increased so he began to look almost pregnant and clanked audibly as he walked.
Working, he yanked and pulled and hit, the sound of metal squealing or wood breaking. As the afternoon progressed, he wielded the pry bar at times with more energy than might be required. Gropius was not going to be happy with all the damage they were doing.
The bonobos cocked their heads, watching the humans. Their expressions held some of the same surprise that cats might feel, lying in the sun, watching ants bustle everywhere on their frantic little errands.
In the growing dark, even with headlamps, Frankie and Stotts kept bumping into the chairs and tables the bonobos had knocked over. So they started removing the furniture also.
Late that afternoon, she caught Marge and Bernie swinging from an exposed pipe in the bathroom, the pipe groaning. Frankie rushed toward them but, exhausted, stumbled slightly and bumped her shoulder into the wall.
Marge and Bernie pant-laughed at this so hard they fell off the pipe.
When they recovered enough to eye the pipe again, she took two steps toward them, saying, No no, then performed her first ever pratfall, landing on her knees.
Their reaction this time was even bigger, pounding the ground and covering their eyes. This was the species you’d invite to any party, always having a good time.
From then on, she performed this type of slapstick when she needed to distract them.
*
The bonobos who’d grown up wearing clothing must have been used to diapers, because each time they needed to pee or poop, they just did it, right inside their clothing.
After the first few accidents like this, Frankie tugged the clothes off the bottom half of all of them—the pants, the underwear and skirts.
They became a type of centaur. On the top, they were dressed and ready for work. On the bottom, th
ey were naked and furry with obvious sex organs.
*
Slowly the static from the storm built up so that touching flesh or metal delivered a painful shock: an audible tzit, the blue spark visible in the dark. When shocked like this, a bonobo would scream and writhe in a ball, then hold out the affected hand for others to inspect. Stoic, they were not.
Whenever Stotts was shocked, he’d inhale and shake his hand, then stick it in his armpit.
When Frankie got shocked, she’d go very still, listening to the electricity shimmer up her arm.
*
Every once in awhile, Stotts tried turning on his BodyWare. Each time it came on, he’d flinch and grimace at the assault of sound and visuals, then press his Bindi to turn it off again.
That evening he tried again and this time he stood there motionless, his head cocked, looking off to the side.
What, she asked.
Nothing, he said.
What?
Nothing, he said, There’s nothing there.
She turned her system on too and for a few minutes they talked to their BodyWare, saying Ok Bindi, Ok Lenses, Ok EarDrums. No response except a distant static. They spoke the commands louder and louder, as though with someone who was hard of hearing.
Her eyes fell on Tooch cuddled up inside Mama’s sweatshirt, his fluffy head sticking out. Frankie felt the first flicker of real fear.
Both she and Stotts turned off their BodyWare after a few minutes. They were careful not to look at each other, busying themselves with the bonobos.
*
Without any way to tell time, they waited for the bonobos to start whining again before they began prepping a second meal of pumpkin and printed fruit. After they were done, there were only four pumpkins left and no printed fruit at all.
The bonobos had already eaten this meal once today. They picked through it. Afterward, they turned to the humans and tapped their fingertips together, signing, More, more.
*
That night it got very dark outside, the kind of perfect darkness Frankie hadn’t seen often. Not a single light visible through the dust.
The bright cone of light from her headlamp made everything on either side pitch black. Frankie tried turning her lamp off, but the darkness looked solid. Unnerved, she turned her light back on.
Id was the one to figure out the humans didn’t have good night vision. She jumped onto Frankie’s shoulder from behind, grabbing for balance. Frankie felt something heavy hit her in the dark, something hairy clutch at her face. She half-screamed.
After that, Id occasionally dropped onto her from above. When the other bonobos saw Frankie’s reaction, they began to sneak up next to her to squeal in her ear or run a wet tongue across the back of her neck.
They did the same to Stotts. Each time he made a sort of strangled inhalation that was, if anything, more amusing to them.
*
To make sure none of the bonobos snuck out into the storm during the night, Frankie slept in front of the door to the enclosure, while Stotts made his bed up in front of the door to the offices.
Frankie lugged her bedding in from the office area, the covers and pillow clamped between the mattress and her arm, the end dragged along behind her. The bonobos watched her walk past, then followed, chirping, a parade of hominids in the dark. She kept her headlamp pointed at the ground to check she wasn’t dragging her mattress through poop.
As soon as she put the mattress down, Goliath jumped on it, bouncing up and down. Adele scooped up Frankie’s pillow and pressed it to her face, chirping. Frankie shooed them away, but when she turned back, Mama was sitting on the mattress, Tooch in her arms, the covers pulled up to their chins.
Go on, get out, Frankie said. When she touched Mama’s shoulder, she could feel her trembling, hunched and grey in her clothes. The temperature was probably 55° by now.
As Frankie paused, Stella and Marge knuckled onto the bed, Lucy and Sweetie following. She tried to shoo them away, but they just moved around her. In the end, she had to struggle for a spot under the covers. All of them piling in and on top of each other on the twin-sized mattress. It became difficult to move. From the weight of the bodies, Frankie thought it possible that Stotts was sleeping alone. Such a straightforwardly sexist species.
The blankets kept getting tugged in different directions, but at least the warm pile of bodies made up for it. One of them—she didn’t know which—patted her hair rhythmically, soothing her. The bonobos fell asleep as fast as children, Marge snoring, wheezy and regular in her ear.
Staring into the darkness, having a hard time falling asleep, Frankie realized she’d officially lost her scientific distance. She lay there, snuggled up with her research subjects, worrying about feeding them tomorrow.
*
In the middle of the night she woke with a start, from the deepest sleep. She woke at the thought that her hormone implant, the one inserted after her hysterectomy, might be a device.
By this point, her legs had been pushed off the mattress, her head resting on the belly of one of the bonobos. She lay there, blinking at the dark.
The implant was buried under the skin of her shoulder. She wiggled her hand under the sleeping bodies, to pinch the implant and roll it slightly from side to side. It felt smooth as a stone, no discernable bumps of wires or circuits. Thinking of all the documents she’d signed before the procedure, she couldn’t remember any concerning permission for remote access. However, she’d read only the title of most of the documents before scanning down past all the tiny print to find where to sign.
If there were electronics inside, had they gone haywire, no longer dissolving estrogen into her blood? Or was the capsule even now crumbling like a cookie, dumping the whole year’s allotment in a single day? She imagined herself lactating or beginning to grow a beard.
In order to get back to sleep, she had to visualize the pill as a simple bolus of hormones encased in a time-release coating, no electronics at all.
As she began to drift off, she realized the silence was perfect. The toilet’s sensor had run out of power.
STORM: DAY 2
Thirty Two
When she woke in the morning, it was from Marge and Adele having their early morning sex, Marge’s butt thumping into her head.
Every muscle in her body sore from all the work yesterday, she didn’t bother to walk as far as the bathroom in the office area, but used the bathroom in the interaction area. Several bonobos followed along, curious. They surrounded her, watching with great interest, as she pulled down her pants and sat. Mama tugged on the waist of her pants, playing with the elastic, while Goliath tried to pull up her shirt to see more. Frankie slapped at his hand and finished peeing as fast as she could.
She stepped away from the toilet, before remembering the sensor wasn’t working anymore. The bonobos were already clustered around the bowl, looking in and sniffing. She had to fill up a bucket with water from the sink and shoo them away in order to flush the toilet by pouring water into the bowl.
She ran the hot water in the sink but the water never got hot. Goliath, Mama and Petey sat there, watching as she scrubbed a very cold soapy washcloth in her armpits, then rinsed and applied some deodorant. In the mirror she could see her hair was all lumpy from sleep so she patted it down half-heartedly.
A few minutes later Stotts returned from the bathroom in the office area. He appeared clean, even his hair wet and neatly brushed. From the color of his lips, she guessed he’d taken a shower in the cold water.
For the bonobo breakfast, they cut up the last of the pumpkins and placed the pieces in the hall.
The bonobos looked at the pile of pumpkin and then at the humans, the way a cat will when offered the same type of food once too often—equal measures of surprise and incomprehension, as though a brick had been placed on the plate.
After 20 minutes none of them
had taken even a bite of the pumpkin, so Stotts shoved the fridge out of the way to get food from the walk-in freezer. Stepping around him, Frankie realized something was wrong as soon as she touched the handle. It was hot. Cracking open the door, the inside exhaled the moist heat of a mouth, the scent of juice and rot. She froze, then opened the door wider and stepped inside. The thermometer hanging from a shelf registered 116°, the boxes dripping what looked like jam all over the floor.
They both stood still, absorbing this information.
Stotts’ voice when he spoke was quiet, The heat pump ran backwards.
Marge stuck her head in between their legs, snorted at the stink and wheeled away. Frankie and Stotts called a few other bonobos over, but once they got a whiff of the freezer they backed up, coughing and jerking their heads away. Frankie and Stotts opened some of the boxes but the contents were partly putrefied and sticky and got all over their shoes.
So they closed the door and shoved the fridge back to block access to the freezer, then peeled the duct tape off the fridge to see what might still be edible. The fridge wasn’t hot, but it exhaled room-temperature air—the device transformed into a shiny styrofoam box. Inside were two gallons of milk, some orange juice, hamburger meat, cheese, some sliced luncheon meats, condiments and salad dressing. In the drawers, some fruits and vegetables were visible—a few apples and a head of lettuce on top. Standing here, she could smell the meat and milk beginning to turn. This was not going to feed 14 bonobos for the next few days.
She looked to Stotts to learn how to react. Her first impression was he appeared bored. Only after a moment did she realize his expression was locked down, all emotion removed. A soldier’s face.
He swiveled and marched into the pantry. She followed. He picked up one of the 3-D printer food cartridges and slammed it on the edge of the metal shelf, breaking the cartridge’s casing. Inside was what looked like grey silly putty. He attempted to pinch off a wad of the putty, but it stretched out rubbery, so he had to bite a section off with his teeth.
Theory of Bastards Page 23
