Human++

by Dima Zales

  What’s even more impressive is that Mom essentially did it for me. Besides the possibility of new pogroms, Mom’s biggest fear was the looming prospect of me getting drafted into the nightmarish institution that was the army in the former USSR. It was a place where being Jewish would’ve made the already horrific hazing practices borderline deadly. I’m glad I didn’t have to go through that. The NYC public school system isn’t the army, but the bullying I experienced there has led me to believe I have very little tolerance for humiliation and pain.

  My reminiscing is interrupted by a pair of guys who wheel in a bed for Mom to sleep in. David and the rest of the Techno peeps take this as their cue to leave for the day.

  I stay for a bit to chat with Mom about anything she might’ve been embarrassed to bring up in front of strangers. When she demonstratively yawns for the fifth time, I get up, kiss her cheek, and say in Russian, “Bye, Mom. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Yes,” she responds with a yawn. “Morning is wiser than evening.”

  “Indeed it is.” I smile at her and leave.

  When I make my way down to the first floor of the hospital, I consider moving my car from the hospital parking lot to the hotel. I decide against it, since the hotel probably has valet service, meaning I’d have to wait to get my car if I needed it in a hurry. Besides, I’m just three measly blocks away, and the hospital has better security.

  It’s a new development, me worrying about a car. I was never into cars, and I’m still not, but I’ve grown to love mine, even though it started off as a joke. My car’s nickname is Zapo, short for Zaporozhets, in honor of a horrific Soviet-era car my grandpa was constantly lying under and repairing when I was growing up.

  Zapo isn’t an authentic recreation of that ugly car, of course. In terms of energy efficiency, they’re actually polar opposites. I’d say they’re spiritually connected by their fugly exterior designs. Zapo is a Prius, but the inside is modified so drastically that it cost me almost as much as an entry-level Bentley. Additionally, Zapo has a beta prototype of the Einstein navigational system that Poisk, Mitya’s company, is working on, plus other mods and an engine that would make the cars from The Fast and the Furious jealous. I half-jokingly call Zapo my “super-expensive gold-digger repellent.”

  Exiting the large automated doors, I turn onto 30th Street and spot Ada trying to hail a cab without any success.

  Now I’m truly glad I didn’t decide to drive. I rarely get a chance to talk to Ada outside of work.

  When she sees me, she lowers her arm and says, “David emailed me about Nina’s day so far. She looks to be the furthest along. I’m very pleased we’re making such swift progress.”

  “You can take most of the credit for this,” I say. “You and your minions wrote such an intuitive user interface that even my grandpa would’ve mastered it—and he had trouble working the VCR.”

  “Everyone had trouble with those clunky VCRs,” she says, but I can tell she likes the praise. I think she’s even blushing, and I’ve never seen her blush.

  “Do you want to stay at the hotel with me?” I ask. Her eyes widen, and I realize what I just said. “I mean, in the same hotel as me. In a separate room.”

  “Right.” Her shock turns into a grin so wide her eyes almost close. “I’m sure that wasn’t a Freudian slip.”

  My face feels hot enough to cook an egg on. Trying to lessen how foolish I look, I say, “I just pictured you schlepping all the way back to Williamsburg and wanted to offer a better alternative.”

  “I get that, and thank you, but I can’t,” she says. “I have to feed my rats.”

  “Your what?” I ask, wondering if it’s possible to mistake the c in cats for the r in rats.

  “I adopted a bunch of rats once they weren’t needed for experiments anymore,” Ada explains. “A lot of the Techno folks did. My cuties aren’t as needy as a bunch of dogs, but I can’t not show up without notice or setting up a long-term feeder for them. Plus, it’s bath day today, and they love it so much. Rain check?”

  “Sure,” I say. Would it be impolite to ask her how many rats she actually owns and how many it would take for her to qualify as a rat lady? “I’ll put you up in a hotel room of my choice some other day then.”

  We look at each other and laugh.

  Ada sees a cab in the distance and waves at it. The cabby stops in front of us, and I hold the yellow car door open for her. “I’ll see you tomorrow at nine, right?”

  “Yeah,” she says, getting inside the cab. “I’ll check on Mrs. Sanchez first, and then go to your mom’s room. I’m sure we’ll get to Phase Two with her, and I’m excited.”

  “Yeah, me too,” I say and shut the door.

  On the way to my hotel room, I wonder if it was just my imagination, or if Ada was a little friendlier toward me. For a few months now, Ada’s been acting a bit distant around me. Since the start of this behavior coincided with when my ex dumped me, I figure Ada is just dreading the uncomfortable conversation where I ask her out and she has to turn me down. Since our working relationship is hard to define—as a major investor in Techno, I’m someone her boss, JC, answers to—I’ve been wary about pursuing anything. Not only am I sensitive about the issue of workplace sexual harassment, but Ada is the most irreplaceable person on the Brainocytes project. I knew she was bright when she first joined Techno, but around the time she started growing distant, I noticed how much of a genius she truly is. Maybe it’s my infatuation goggles at work, but the leaps she’s singlehandedly made with the Brainocytes software shaved off at least six months of work from the project.

  I think about Ada on and off for the rest of the evening. As I fall asleep, I decide that once the study is complete, I will ask her out, consequences be damned.

  Chapter Five

  I walk down the hospital corridor, munching on an egg-and-cheese croissant. In my free hand, I’m holding a bag with a breakfast sandwich for Mom, oatmeal for Ada, and a diabetes-safe omelet for Mrs. Sanchez.

  Figuring I’ll leave Mrs. Sanchez’s food with her, I make my way to her room.

  When I enter, I realize I’m the first one here and look at my watch. It’s 8:50 a.m., a little before the usual workday starts, even for a bunch of workaholics like the folks at Techno.

  Then something odd becomes apparent. Though it looked like Mrs. Sanchez was in her bed at first, she actually isn’t.

  I look around the room as though she might be hiding behind all the hardware in the back.

  Obviously, she isn’t here.

  I exit the room and bump straight into Ada.

  “Hey,” I say. “Do you know where Mrs. Sanchez is?”

  “She should be in her room.” Ada looks at Mrs. Sanchez’s door. “She isn’t?”

  “Excuse me,” an unfamiliar nurse says, approaching the door. “I need to get through.”

  “Are you here to see Mrs. Sanchez?” I ask, not moving out of the nurse’s way.

  “Yes,” she says. “I’m here to give her her insulin.”

  “She’s not in her room,” I say. “I was just there.”

  The nurse looks at me doubtfully, so I ask, “Do you have any idea where she could be?”

  “She’s supposed to be in her room,” the nurse says.

  “Could she be in the bathroom?” I ask.

  “The nearest one is in her room,” Ada says and goes into the room.

  “If she left the room to use the bathroom, it’s two doors down,” the nurse says.

  I head down the corridor and find the bathroom empty.

  When I get back, Ada and the nurse are walking toward me.

  “She’s not in the room bathroom,” Ada says.

  “And she isn’t in the one down the hall,” I respond.

  “She couldn’t have wandered off too far,” the nurse says. “They would’ve spotted a patient at the nurses’ stations at each end of the floor.”

  “Maybe she walked into one of the nearby rooms?” I ask.

  The nurse shrugs. />
  “Why don’t you go check,” I suggest. “Ada and I will make sure Mrs. Sanchez didn’t somehow join one of the other participants in our study.”

  The nurse leaves, and Ada and I split up to search the rooms of the two nearest participants.

  I enter Mr. Shafer’s room.

  He isn’t in his bed.

  I check the bathroom and find it empty.

  On a whim, I walk up to the bed and touch it.

  The scratchy, over-starched hospital sheets are still warm. Wherever Mr. Shafer went, he left recently.

  Ada is waiting for me in the corridor, looking worried.

  “Mrs. Stevens is gone too.” Ada runs her fingers through her bleached Mohawk.

  “So is Mr. Shafer. Maybe it’s something JC organized? Maybe he’s giving a lecture or something to the whole group? Or maybe Dr. Carter—”

  “No,” Ada says. “I would’ve been notified if someone from Techno had planned anything. I don’t see how Dr. Carter could be behind this; he clears everything with JC. Besides, he knows Mrs. Sanchez needs her insulin.”

  I consider her words carefully and find no flaw in her logic. There’s no reason these three participants should be missing from their rooms. If only one person was missing, especially Mr. Shafer, we could maybe brush it off as him going for a walk despite us explicitly telling him not to. That the relatively sedentary Mrs. Stevens is also missing is a lot stranger, since she wouldn’t go for a walk to literally extend her life. And the fact that Mrs. Sanchez, with her foot problem, is also gone pushes this incident firmly into the realm of the impossibly anomalous.

  My mind leaps to another thought. Are the others missing as well? Though it’s not completely rational, my gut turns into tundra-like permafrost, and I quickly say, “Check on the others. I’m going to Mom’s room.”

  Hoping I’ll feel like a paranoid fool in a minute, I sprint down the corridor and stab the elevator button with my finger.

  The elevator doesn’t instantly open, so I dump the food I’m still holding into a nearby garbage bin and punch the button again.

  Then I notice the elevator has a light indicating where the car is, and that happens to be on the fifteenth floor. The number changes to fourteen far too slowly, so I decide to run down the two floors instead of waiting.

  The staircase is musty. It probably doesn’t get used much. I whoosh down, trying not to inhale too much stale air as I take the stairs two at a time.

  When I exit the staircase, I get strange looks from the nurses at their station. Ignoring them, I zoom down the corridor.

  My breath is ragged by the time I reach Mom’s room. As I twist the handle, I will Mom to be there, going so far as picturing her reaction to seeing me disheveled and out of breath.

  Cracking the door open, I’m confronted with a bizarre view.

  Mom is sitting in a wheelchair, eyes closed as though she’s asleep.

  She’s being wheeled by a guy I’ve never seen before—though now that I have, I won’t soon forget him. The hands holding the wheelchair handles are covered in tattoos, as is all the skin peeking out from under his scrubs. With his nearly seven-foot bulky build, protruding forehead, and quarter-pounder jaw, he’s living proof that humans are closely related to apes, and maybe even bison.

  “Where are you taking her?” I ask loudly, hoping they’ll hear me at the nurses’ station. “Who are—”

  I register a whirlwind of movement, and a tattooed fist crashes into my cheekbone. The shock of pain sends me reeling, and the playing cards tattooed on the ape-bison’s knuckles dance in my vision as the world starts to fade.

  Chapter Six

  Fighting unconsciousness, I attempt to curl my hands into fists.

  All I accomplish is gaining enough self-awareness to feel an oversized arm grab me and throw me.

  My back slams into a small table, and air wisely decides to vacate my lungs. Gasping, I slide down. Junk clatters on the floor around me, releasing the powerful stench of medicine.

  With a monumental effort of will, I struggle to not pass out.

  The ape-bison guy slams the door shut behind him.

  I keep gasping for air and fighting for lucidity.

  Pushing up with shaking hands, I wonder if this is how boxers feel when they try standing after getting knocked down. If so, why didn’t they pick another profession? For me, this decides it here and now: I’d prefer a career as anything else, even a politician, to that of a boxer.

  Slowly, I gather my legs under me. I figure the boxing referee would’ve counted to nine by now.

  Fighting nausea, I tentatively put weight on my jelly-like legs. Instantly, vertigo seizes me, and I fall on all fours, losing my breakfast on the floor. In a detached manner, I wonder why I’ve never heard of a boxer throwing up during a match. On a positive note, despite the acidic taste in my mouth, I feel a minuscule dose of relief.

  Struggling to my feet again, I stumble toward the door. By the time I grasp the doorknob, I feel like I’ve regained some rudimentary hand-eye coordination.

  When I exit the room and look around, I see my attacker at the end of the corridor to my right. He’s blurry, as though I’m seeing him through a fog—like the hedgehog from the Soviet cartoon of my childhood.

  “Stop him,” I yell, or try to. The sound comes out raspy and weak. Worse, the attempted yell messes with my already unsteady breathing.

  Holding on to the wall as I stumble forward, I will my breath to stabilize.

  When I feel like I can survive expending the air, I yell, “Stop that guy!”

  This time, my voice carries better, but I hear the elevator doors ding at the end of the hall.

  My adrenal glands go into overdrive, and I jerkily increase my pace.

  A nurse looks up at me from her desk. “Are you okay? Why are you screaming?”

  Unable to yell again, I close the distance between us and choke out, “That large man with a wheelchair?”

  “He got into the elevator before you started yelling,” the nurse confirms. “What’s going on?”

  “Call the police,” I gasp. “Someone kidnapped my mother, Nina Cohen.”

  The look on the nurse’s face reminds me of a squirrel facing a bicyclist in Central Park.

  I don’t stop to calm her down and stagger toward the elevator.

  One car is on the twentieth floor, while the other is already on the ninth.

  I quickly assess my options. I can summon the elevator, or I can walk down. It’s nearly nine in the morning, and I don’t know if that means the rush hour for the elevators has begun, especially when it comes to going down. On the other hand, am I in any condition to attempt the stairs?

  I punch both buttons and turn toward the stairwell, figuring I’ll go down to the next floor before making a decision. If I can’t get down on foot, at least I summoned the elevators closer to the floor below.

  “You’re bleeding,” the nurse yells when I’m halfway through the door. “You should let me—”

  Whatever she said I’ll never know, because the door closes behind me as I begin my descent.

  I’m feeling slightly better, though I suspect it’s from the adrenaline. I can’t take the stairs two at a time like I did a few minutes ago, but at least I don’t stumble and I can let go of the handrail once in a while.

  When I get to the eleventh floor, I’m still not sure whether I’ll be better off taking the elevator. I hurry to the door and stick my head out. One elevator is on the fifth floor, and the other made it all the way to the twelfth. I decide it’s definitely worth the wait and jab my finger against the elevator button, wishing it were the ape-bison’s eye socket.

  Milliseconds stretch into ages, and I decide to multitask so I won’t go crazy. I command Einstein in my nifty phone to dial Ada before I even take it out of my pocket.

  “Mike,” Ada shouts as soon as the call connects. “I didn’t find a single participant. I’m talking to JC right now, and he has no clue—”

  “Someone’s kidna
pped them,” I blurt out. “I saw a man taking my mom. Call the police. I’ll try to get you more information.”

  “Wait, who—”

  The elevator doors open, and I rush inside, ignoring the call for the moment.

  I have a new choice to make. What floor do I press? Given the wheelchair the guy had my mom in, and since Ada said everyone else is missing too, I can only assume the kidnapper is putting all the participants in a large vehicle, maybe even a bus. Given Manhattan rush-hour traffic and hospital zoning rules, it’s safe to assume he wouldn’t park near the front doors. No, doing something as nefarious as loading unconscious people into a vehicle is best done in the relative privacy of the parking lot. Thus decided, I press the basement-floor button. There could be flaws in my logic or other variables I’m missing, like they, whoever “they” are, might have an ambulance or diplomatic plates, but I have to act on my best guess.

  The doors close, and my call disconnects.

  I keep my thumb on the close-door button as the elevator starts moving. Supposedly, holding this button will make the elevator travel without stopping, an express feature designed for emergency personnel. When I first heard this, I didn’t really believe it and was never selfish enough, or in a big enough rush, to test it. I do know that pressing the close-door button doesn’t shut the doors any faster and might just act as a placebo, like those walk buttons at pedestrian crossings in NYC.