by Dima Zales
“Zdorovo.” Mitya’s booming voice sounds like he’s here in person, thanks to Precious’s fancy new speaker technology. “I can’t see you yet.”
“That’s ‘hi,’” I whisper to Ada, and to Mitya, I say, “Hey, I have Ada here with me.”
Mitya stares at his screen intently. He’s sitting in some cushy conference room, wearing his signature blue hoodie. The video must finally turn on on his end, because he exclaims, “Wow. What the hell happened to you?”
“You won’t believe it,” I say and explain the events of the day to him, occasionally letting Ada fill in the gaps on parts I didn’t know, like the total loss of my poor Zapo.
“Bro,” Mitya says at the end of the tale. “What can I do to help?”
“I have an idea,” I say. “It requires leveraging the servers you’ve been donating to the project.”
Mitya is hugely invested in Techno, second only to me. Besides money, he’s also given Techno a lot of technology and other resources, the most expensive of which might be his time. And, naturally, he’s provided the servers that the Brainocytes communicate with. Who else has custom-designed supercomputers lying around?
Mitya must understand where I’m going right away, because he says, “Are you forgetting the privacy stuff? My people worked with hers”—he nods at Ada—“to make all the connections completely anonymous. JC didn’t want people feeling like we could track their whereabouts from the backend—”
“I’m not a noob like JC.” I tilt my head. “I know you can hack whatever crypto Ada’s minions and your peeps put together. You got into—”
“Hey,” Mitya interrupts in Russian and looks meaningfully at Ada. “I got this,” he adds in English. He looks thoughtful for a moment, then starts typing on his very loud mechanical keyboard. Judging by his focused expression, he’s no longer looking at Ada and me. He probably minimized our image to go through the privacy code.
“They did a good job,” he mutters, his eyes scanning the screen. “Someone’s getting a promotion.”
“That’s nice. I’m glad you’re happy with your peeps.” I have a hard time taming my sarcasm. “Now can you please help me locate my mother?”
He doesn’t respond for a few minutes, but his keyboard sounds like machine-gun fire. I half expect to see smoke surrounding him.
“I can probably do it,” he finally says. “In a few days, if I’m lucky. A week in the worst case.”
“I don’t have a few days.” A wave of nausea hits me, causing the room to spin. “It needs to be minutes, or hours at the most.”
“I’m sorry.” He grimaces. “Locating people using Brainocytes wasn’t in the specs. Quite the opposite, actually. All I can say is that something is running on those servers, so at least it’s proof of life.”
“That something could be the backups,” Ada whispers. “Or even my—” She stops talking and looks at us sheepishly, probably feeling bad over shattering my “proof of life” hopes.
I fight the urge to scream in frustration, partly because I don’t think it’ll help, but also because I don’t have the strength for something so strenuous. Inhaling deeply, I let out the breath and say, “Is there something we can do to locate them? You two are the smartest people I know. Can’t you think of something?”
I stare pleadingly at the phone, then lock eyes with Ada.
“Well.” Ada looks away and nervously rubs the buzzed part of her head. “When you first brought this up, I thought you had a more complicated idea in mind. It, too, would require some coding, but not as much as what Mitya quoted. I think I could write this app in a few hours or so. It’s just that it kind of goes against every Techno policy we have.”
“I promise if those idiots fire you for this, you can come work for me.” Mitya’s green eyes blaze with avarice. “What did you have in mind?”
“Dude,” I say. “You promised not to poach her, remember?”
“Wait.” Ada looks from me to the screen. “You guys talked about me?”
Mitya does a poor job suppressing a snicker, and I give him a warning glare. We have talked quite a bit about Ada, but almost never in a professional context. Usually, I just tell Mitya how close I’m getting to maybe, probably, possibly asking her out, and he tells me how much of a wuss I am.
“That’s not important now,” I say. “Tell us your idea.”
“Fine.” Ada moves the phone to her other hand. “We can use the backups.”
“Yeah, you mentioned those before,” Mitya says. “What do you mean?”
“In computer science, a backup is the practice or a set of procedures for making extra copies of data or hardware in case the original gets lost or damaged,” Ada deadpans.
“This is serious, Ada,” I say. In case she wasn’t kidding, I add, “We obviously know what a backup is, just not what you mean in this context. Is there a backup of the secured data that’s easier to hack?”
“No, it’s the Brainocytes themselves,” Ada says. “Doesn’t anyone ever read the documentation?”
“I think I understand,” Mitya says. “The hardware is redundant.”
“Exactly,” Ada confirms. “If any one Brainocyte goes out of order, an identical one can replace it.”
“And you’ve kept double the Brainocytes, meaning for every test subject that was injected, you have an extra batch on standby.” Mitya pushes his amber-tinted computer glasses up his nose—his poker tell.
“I know all that,” I say, not caring if I sound defensive. “I don’t see how those extra Brainocytes can help us, though.”
“If we activate any of those backup Brainocytes,” Ada says, “there won’t be any security issues, because these Brainocytes all share the same IDs. So I can write an app that will leverage your mom’s backups to locate her primary Brainocytes, or her, in other words.”
Even with my less technical know-how, I recognize the simplicity and elegance in this solution. I also see the problem. “I thought Brainocytes only activate when inside a subject’s brain.”
“Hence the procedure issues I mentioned earlier,” Ada says. “Not to mention privacy—”
“I volunteer,” Mitya cuts in. “We don’t have to tell anyone about it if you think you’ll get in trouble.”
“Wait.” My head is spinning again, but this time, it’s not just from the concussion. “It can’t be you, Mitya. Even with your private jet, wouldn’t it take you about a day to get here from the West Coast?”
“I can cut that down to—”
“No,” I say firmly. “I need you in your office, helping write the app Ada mentioned and working on hacking the security in case this new Plan A doesn’t work.”
Mitya nods disappointedly. I’ve always known that my friend was helping with this project because he, like Ada, wants mature Brainocyte technology inside his head. I can’t even blame him, since I’ve thought about it myself. It doesn’t take much of a leap to picture how cool it would be. I mean, I have techno-orgasms just using Precious. Brainocytes integrate with your mind, so it would be like my phone on steroids and amphetamines. It’s just that I never allowed myself to dwell on this because it makes me feel like a selfish, lousy son—like I’m investing in Techno for reasons other than helping Mom get better.
Thinking of Mom tightens my chest. I wonder if the kidnappers fed her and whether they’re treating her okay.
I’m pulled out of my thoughts by Ada loudly clearing her throat.
I expect she’s about to volunteer to receive the Brainocytes, but she doesn’t. She just looks at me expectantly while tapping her steel-toed boot.
“It should be my head,” I say with a confidence I wish I felt. “It’s my mom we’re trying to save.”
“You just went through an ordeal,” Mitya objects.
“Which just means I’m already under a doctor’s supervision,” I counter. “I even have an IV in my arm and everything. If we want to do this on the down-low, it doesn’t get any stealthier.”
“I think it’ll work,” Ada
says. “The Brainocytes are pretty harmless. If I thought they could hurt Mike, I’d veto this plan, but I think this is the best resource distribution. Mitya works on a secondary solution, and I go get Nina’s backup batch and start writing the locator app in the cab.”
Her confidence unknots my stomach. “Thank you,” I say, touching her hand.
“Fine. I’ll take a crack at this security for now.” Mitya says. “Keep me posted on your progress, and let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help.”
“We will,” Ada says.
“Spasibo,” I say, thanking him in Russian.
“Don’t mention it,” Mitya replies in Russian. “Good luck, guys,” he adds in English and disconnects.
Ada hands me my phone and says, “Do you want me to get you anything on the way?”
“No. Just get me a batch of nanotechnology, the less tested on humans, the better.”
Ada chuckles. “Try to get some sleep while I’m gone. I’ll pick up your Percocet prescription as well.”
Without waiting for my response, she leans in and gives me a loud smooch on the forehead.
I’m so stunned I only recover from the kiss once she’s gone. Her lips are officially the softest things to ever touch my forehead—not that I make a habit of checking textures that way. I wonder what the kiss actually meant. Was that more than a friendly kiss, or does Ada always act that way when a male colleague is in pain in the hospital?
The nap idea is a good one, so I let myself close my eyes, just for a second. My breathing evens out, and I’m about to drift off when I hear someone approach my bed.
I open my eyes, and blood drains out of the big bruise I call my face.
“Hi, Mike,” my uncle says. “I’m sorry if we startled you.”
“You didn’t,” I say, staring at the person accompanying my uncle—the guy I used to think of as a friend, until he scared the shit out of me with his antisocial behavior.
“Hi, cousin,” I say in Russian, meeting Joe’s lizard-like gaze.
Chapter Eleven
“Where’s my aunt?” my cousin demands with an intensity that implies I’m the one responsible for my mom’s disappearance. “Speak. Now.”
“The cops were here,” I reply tersely. “They thought you might know where she is.”
Joe steps toward the bed. His blue eyes glint with ice that reminds me of Hannibal Lecter’s signature stare. I glance at my uncle for help, but he’s clearly petrified.
“They also hinted that this could be the work of an enemy of yours.” I wait one frantic heartbeat, then ask, “Is it?”
My cousin stops his onslaught, considers the idea for a moment, then confidently shakes his head. “No. They got it wrong. No one who knows me would dare fuck with my family.”
The words aren’t spoken with any bravado, but his sheer calmness is what bothers me. He’s just stating a fact. Of course, there’s a subtext to his words, a threat to whoever the kidnappers are. In this moment, it’s all too easy to picture Joe going complete Keyser Söze on their asses and killing their kids, their spouses, their parents, their cats/dogs/parrots/goldfishes or whatever.
“How bad is it?” Uncle Abe asks, studying my face. His voice is so kind it’s hard to believe he and Joe share half of their DNA. “Does that hurt?”
“Not much,” I reply. I probably would’ve sounded more sincere if my voice hadn’t cracked and if I hadn’t cringed.
“Are you ready to tell me who did that to your face?” Joe asks. It might be my imagination, but did his intensity dial down from eleven out of ten to a mere ten?
“It was this big Russian guy,” I begin and tell my uncle and cousin the whole story, only without going into the nitty-gritty details of the Brainocytes—specifically that they’ll go into my head. Instead, I say there’s a technical solution.
My uncle looks petrified as I go on, while Joe’s features simply darken, an impressive feat given his semi-permanent somber expression. I fleetingly wonder if this whole situation is bringing back memories for them of how they lost Aunt Veronica. She had a heart attack before I came to America, so I don’t know many of the details surrounding her death, but I suspect both men were forever changed by it.
“This technical mumbo jumbo,” my uncle says. “Do you think it’ll help us find her?”
“It sounds promising,” I reply. “Plus, there’s this other solution Mitya is working on.”
“I don’t have much faith in these solutions,” Joe says, his expression unreadable. “And I don’t have any faith in any solution that involves the pigs.” He looks me over; then, perhaps deciding it’s too harsh to compare me to the cops, he adds, “Especially the pigs.”
“So what do you suggest?” I do my best not to sound challenging, since I need to keep my head to put the Brainocytes in.
“I’ll look into this myself,” my cousin says. “Whoever these fuckers are, they’re making me—” His jaw muscles spasm, and he stops talking. Taking a calming breath, he pulls out his phone.
His face is back to its expressionless state, but I think I briefly glimpsed some emotion there. Was he about to say, “They’re making me mad” or “They’re making me look bad”? I don’t mind if it’s actually the latter. Maybe if he thinks these criminals don’t respect him and are about to ruin his reputation by taking his aunt, he might be more motivated to help her. Or maybe I’m being unfair, and he genuinely cares about his aunt.
“You mentioned there was a Russian nurse at NYU Langone,” Joe says. “Her name was Olga, right?”
“Yes,” I say cautiously. “Why? Do you think she had anything to do with this?”
“Put in your number,” Joe says instead of answering and hands me his iPhone.
I take the phone and note he created a new contact in his phonebook, calling me “bro2.” I doubt it’s because he’s particularly fond of me. It’s far more likely he used that term because there’s no word for cousin in Russian. Instead of cousin, you use the word brother, but add a degree of separation to it. For example, Joe and I are secondary brothers, because our parents are brother and sister—kind of like how the term first cousins gives the same information. I wonder if this nomenclature results in cousins feeling more like family in the Russian-speaking part of the world. I certainly felt like Joe was my brother when we arrived in the US, but that quickly changed. Having said all that, Joe speaks English much better than Russian, having arrived here when he was just a kid. So maybe he meant “bro” as a kind of English slang, since he has another “bro” in his phone already. Still, even that suggests a closeness we don’t really share, at least as far as I know.
Seeing the irritation on my cousin’s face, I focus on the task at hand and put in my phone number.
“Check if you got my text,” he says and types something into his phone.
“You have a text from Joseph Cohen,” a German-accented voice says from my phone.
My uncle raises an eyebrow. “Should I read it?”
“No,” I respond and tilt the phone toward me. Joe’s message is just an ellipsis. “Einstein, please save this as a new contact and rename it Joe.”
“I’ll be in touch,” Joe says and turns on his heels. When he’s almost by the door, he says over his shoulder, “I expect updates on the technical solutions when you have them.”
Before I get a chance to come up with some witty but safe reply, Joe is gone.
My uncle is left standing with an uncomfortable expression on his face. I know this isn’t the first time his son has put him in an awkward position. Probably more like the millionth time. I can’t even fathom what it must feel like to be the father of a guy like Joe, especially when you’re as chill of an individual as Uncle Abe is. In that family, the apple fell so far from the tree it didn’t even land in the same garden.
“I think he’ll help,” my uncle finally says. He looks like he’s trying to think of the right words, but he ends up only adding, “Just be careful.”
I nod, ignoring the throbbin
g in my temples.
“Did you eat?” my uncle asks, and I recognize an attempt to change the subject.
“No,” I say. “Think you can bring me something light?”
Looking relieved, Uncle Abe asks me what I want, and I request fruit and Jell-O. In truth, I don’t think I can stomach something even that low-cal, but I’m too exhausted for any more conversation and could use a moment to close my eyes.
As soon as he leaves, I fumble with the bed controls to make the mattress flat and doze off.
I wake up to voices and a sharp pain enveloping my whole body. Breathing hurts, shifting on the bed hurts, and even thinking hurts. All remnants of the pain medication must’ve gotten flushed out of my system while I was sleeping. As a cherry on top, I also feel my bladder starting to complain.
“He’s been sleeping since I left to get food,” my uncle says. “Dr. Katz suggested I let him sleep, so I stepped out to buy him some clothes to replace the ones he bled on.”
Ada nods. “Good thinking. He might want to be awake for this, but maybe we should let him sleep a little longer.”
“I’m awake,” I croak and open my eyes. “How did it go?” I give Ada’s messenger bag a meaningful look.
“I’m almost done with the app,” Ada says. “I submitted the code to my own personal Git repository and asked Mitya to review it. Do you want to take a look? I can walk you through it.”
“Yes, please. Anything I can do to help.”
Ada gets her laptop out, and I put my bed into a sitting position. She places the computer in front of me, and I examine her code.
Now, I’m no programing novice. My MIT Bachelor’s degree was in Computer Science, and they don’t give you that without forcing you to get your hands dirty. More importantly, my very first job was as a C++ developer at a startup. I did that for a few years before I made enough money to start my venture capital fund. Though I was a good programmer, I admit the money had less to do with my coding skills than luck—or rather my uncanny skill at picking good companies, as I prefer to think of it. That startup gave me a load of stock options, which went through the roof when they had an IPO.
