Cyber Thoughts

by Dima Zales

  “Yeah, we can chat,” I tell Ada. “I was getting bored anyway.”

  “Oh?” Ada’s avatar looks extra impish. “You’re not multitasking?”

  “Of course I am. I’m pair programming with Mitya right now.”

  One of the coolest benefits of having extra brainpower is the ability to split my attention in a way that wouldn’t be possible unenhanced. That’s what allows me to virtually observe Mitya’s coding and provide him with feedback on the app he’s writing while sitting here and talking to Ada. Mitya’s app will allow someone with Brainocytes to move the latest model of the Roomba cleaning robot with their mind. Pair programming and my brain boost are how I’ve gotten way better at coding, though I’ve mostly concentrated on helping open-source projects online instead of writing Brainocyte-ware.

  “Let me know if you want me to take over for you.” Ada sends this telepathically, but her lips move as though she’s speaking. “Talking to the doctor might require your full attention.”

  “I might take you up on that,” I reply. “I could use the time to brush up some more on psychology.”

  The other day, when I started suspecting Ada would win our “see a shrink” argument, I read a bunch of psychology textbooks, but it’s a big field and I could be better prepared.

  “Just don’t be a wise-ass.” Ada’s face looks too serious for an imp. “According to Google, she’s the best in NYC.”

  “Fine, but I’m still skeptical,” I mentally reply. “How much can I tell her? From what I know about doctor-patient privilege, anything short of planning a crime is protected, but you know how complicated it is with—”

  “Tell her as much as you need to so she can do her job.” Ada’s avatar flies closer.

  “But that might include mentioning the Brainocytes Club,” I warn.

  Brainocytes Club is what Mitya, Ada, Muhomor, and I call ourselves. Like in Fight Club, the first rule of Brainocytes Club is you don’t talk about Brainocytes Club—a rule that’s easy to follow since we use the Telepathy app instead.

  “If you need to, I think it would be worth telling her about Brainocytes,” Ada replies telepathically. “Then again, if it doesn’t come up, don’t mention it.”

  “Just in case, I have a non-disclosure agreement that Kadvosky drafted.” I pull the paper out of my back pocket and examine the legalese that even the intelligence boost has trouble deciphering.

  The Kadvosky law firm is the most famous and, not coincidentally, most expensive law firm in the world. Mr. Kadvosky is the best of the best, and Mitya put in a good word for me with them, resulting in me being able to use Kadvosky whenever I need legal counsel. When I asked for this non-disclosure agreement, I learned more than I needed to know about my default protections in the eyes of the law, plus the extra protection this document provides.

  “That might be overkill, and she may not want to work with you.” The imp avatar crosses her arms and narrows her eyes. She doesn’t want me to sabotage this appointment. “Promise you’ll do your best to make this part go smoothly.”

  The receptionist pops her gum. “Dr. Golovasi will see you now.”

  “Saved by the bell,” Ada mumbles.

  I get up and approach the office door with a disproportionate amount of anxiety. I feel as though I’m seeing a dentist instead of a shrink. I debate launching BraveChill, the anti-anxiety app Ada and I collaborated on. It works with neural networks that connect the cerebral cortex to the adrenal medulla—the inner part of the adrenal gland located above each kidney, an organ responsible for the body’s rapid response to stressful situations. Then I chide myself. Using BraveChill in this circumstance would be like launching ballistic missiles as fireworks. App-medicating can be as addictive as using meds, and the last thing I need is an addiction.

  Taking the natural route, I draw in a deep breath, release it, and walk into the room where Dr. Golovasi lurks.

  Chapter Three

  When I’m this nervous, I automatically stop multitasking and focus my full attention on my environment because I’ve been known to trip on objects around me. Once, I nearly stepped on man’s true best friend—a rat.

  Being this focused gives me an unnaturally complete snapshot of the room around me. I observe details that would normally take ten minutes of careful examination to glean. I guess the age and make of every piece of furniture, and I estimate when the central air filter will need a change. I figure out when the room was last dusted, and since dust is mostly made up of dead skin cells, I calculate how many patients the shrink has seen since the last cleanup. Last but not least, I take in the antique redwood bookshelves surrounding the office and mentally catalog each title to look up later. I also spot the article the doctor was reading in the New York Times on the small table, then get around to taking a good look at the doctor herself—and feel instant relief.

  If my first schoolteacher, Lydia Petrovna, mated with Mary Poppins and Mrs. Doubtfire, that odd hybrid child would look just like Dr. Golovasi after she reached menopause. Instead of anxiety, I suddenly feel like I should eat my vegetables and study geometry—and this in turn makes me smile at her. It’s weird how hard it is to feel nervous when confronted by such a kind sparkle in someone’s eyes.

  Dr. Golovasi notices my smile and gives me one in return. Her teeth are so toilet-white I bet they’d shine bright purple under a black light. She stands up and offers me her hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Cohen.”

  “Nice to meet you, Dr. Golovasi.” Her hand is as warm as her face. “Please, call me Mike.”

  “Okay, Mike. Please call me Jane.” She gestures at the plush, overstuffed couch.

  “Sure, ma’am,” I reply as I sit down and wonder why I have such a hard time picturing myself calling her Jane. In the Russian tradition, calling an older doctor Jane instead of by her full name with the patronymic would be the equivalent of not addressing her by the plural “you.” Both cases are breaches of protocol and feel wrong, especially in light of her resemblance to my first-grade teacher.

  The doctor sits back in her chair, her gaze enveloping me like a warm blanket.

  “I—Before we begin… err… I’d like you to sign a non-disclosure agreement,” I say and get back up, rustling the paper in my hands. I feel like a complete idiot. “I know this might not be orthodox, but I’m an extremely private person, and if you don’t mind…”

  Dr. Golovasi’s eyebrows rise. “This is a safe place. Anything you tell me in here is already privileged.”

  “I get that,” I say, feeling even more of an ass. “But this document should reinforce the seriousness of my need for discretion. This way, I can take civil action should—”

  I don’t finish my thought because I see a miniscule frown creep into the corners of the doctor’s eyes.

  “Good going.” Ada’s telepathic message is chock-full of sarcasm. “You just threatened a nice old lady.”

  Whatever doubts Dr. Golovasi might have, they disappear from her face and she says, “Please, let me have a look at that.”

  I hand her the paper and amble back to the cushy couch.

  Dr. Golovasi puts on the pair of reading glasses hanging from her neck. That reminds me of the second nicest person I knew as a kid—a lady librarian who’d always save the newest science fiction releases for me in middle school.

  Since I have some time while the doctor reads, I code-review Mitya’s app, write a function for the open-source project I’ve been helping out on, balance my checkbook, do some light shopping on Amazon, research a couple of companies for my fund’s portfolio, skim the ebook versions of the more interesting books I spotted on Dr. Golovasi’s shelf, read a couple of articles in the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communication, read an article in Advances in Physics, and write down an idea that occurred to me.

  “Hey, Ada,” I mentally say. “Check out my write-up. I think I figured out how we can make a transistor that can scavenge energy from its environment. If my back-of-the-head calculations are correct, that would lead to
ultra-low power consumption.”

  “She’s done.” Ada’s voice is so loud I get the illusion my ears are ringing. “Focus on your visit for now. The transistors can wait.”

  “Okay, Mike.” Dr. Golovasi pushes her glasses higher on her nose, pulls out a pen, and signs the non-disclosure agreement. “Hopefully, this will make you feel safe here.”

  I retrieve the paper, sit back down, and look at the doctor.

  “Though it might seem redundant, I must go over your usual patient privileges,” she says and goes into an explanation that boils down to her being ethically, professionally, and legally obligated to not disclose anything I tell her, except something like me planning to hurt myself or others. She finishes with, “Do you have any questions about this?”

  “No, Dr. Golovasi, I understand.” What I don’t add is that my non-disclosure would probably cover me in the unlikely event that I told her I was planning on hurting someone.

  “Please, call me Jane,” she says and takes off her glasses.

  “Okay, ma’am,” I reply and mentally send to Ada, “No offense, but this is where I bid you farewell.”

  “Good luck,” Ada says without any hurt in her tone.

  I turn off my Share app and Mr. Spock’s equivalent (since Ada can and does access him), and say out loud, “Is this the part where I lie down and get in touch with my feelings?”

  “If that makes you more comfortable.” Dr. Golovasi gives me a wry smile. “To start, why don’t you tell me what brought you here?”

  “I’m not actually sure I even need to be here.” I decide I prefer sitting after all.

  She reaches for a notepad and pen. “The mere fact you came here proves you need to be here,” she says gently.

  To me, it’s the fact that I don’t call her out on that zany Hallmark-card wisdom that proves I indeed need to be here, but I don’t say that. Instead, I choose to go with a more careful, “My biggest concern is trouble sleeping.”

  She asks for clarification, and I admit I’ve had really bad nightmares every night for months.

  “We’ll come back to that shortly.” She scribbles something down, probably, Yep, a nut job, before looking up again. “Is anything else bothering you?”

  “I’ve been getting anxious much too easily lately,” I admit. “Sometimes, it happens for no reason, but I think it’s just the effect of poor sleep. I also feel jumpy and easily irritated, and my girlfriend thinks I exaggerate the negative aspects of my life. But all these things can also be caused by insomnia.”

  I stop talking, but Dr. Golovasi looks at me expectantly, her patience reminiscent of a Buddhist monk’s. Her posture says, Okay, that’s a good start, but now tell me the really juicy details.

  I stay silent for a few more beats, then decide to just come out with it. “I also relive certain horrible events that happened to me recently. I feel a lot of guilt, though I think it’s a justifiable response.”

  Dr. Golovasi’s left eyebrow rises slightly, as though saying, Okay, I’ll definitely need to hear about these horrible events, but it seems like you’re still holding out on me.

  I take a breath and continue. “I guess the biggest issue is that I often feel like I’m being followed,” I say.

  This breaks through her calm facade. “Why do you say that?” she asks avidly, leaning forward—something I take as a bad sign.

  Seeming to realize she’s betrayed too much emotion, the doctor steeples her fingers in front of her face in a gesture that might’ve fooled someone whose brain wasn’t as overclocked as mine. “Why do you say this feeling of being followed is your biggest issue?” she clarifies.

  “Well, to start, no one believes I’m being followed,” I say, wishing we could converse in Zik so I could add a big dose of hesitation to my words, as well as speed this whole thing up.

  “You’ve told people close to you about these feelings?” There appears to be approval in her tone. “But you’re not happy with their reaction?”

  “I just told my bodyguard and my girlfriend,” I say. “And yes, it sucks that they don’t believe me.”

  She must have other patients with bodyguards, because she just looks at me expectantly again, her countenance saying, Get on with it already.

  “Okay, I didn’t even tell this to my mom.” I inhale some extra air and breathe it out. “The thing is, I recently learned that my half-sister suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.”

  As soon as the words leave my mouth, I realize I never admitted this truth to myself. I never dared to connect the feeling of being followed with my research on my half-siblings—the kids my deceased father had with his wife of forty years. After the events in Russia, I learned I have a half-brother named Konstantin, or Kostya, and a half-sister named Masha. Kostya turned out to be one of the so-called New Russians. He made a lot of money in the oil industry, then invested in an internet startup that later exploded in growth. He’s unmarried, likely because he spends considerable time and money on psychiatric care for Masha.

  My half-sister believes poltergeists are after her. I learned that when Muhomor hacked the computers at the clinic where Kostya keeps her. In Masha’s defense, there was a time in the eighties when many Russians believed in poltergeists, perhaps in part because Russian folklore contains a mystical creature called Domovoi, an often mischievous but friendly house spirit. The spirits my half-sister believes stalk her are more frightening than the relatively benign Domovoi, though. Last year, Masha tried to take her own life, but she said it was the spirits. This was her sixth suicide attempt. When Kostya shared the fate of our father with her, Masha scratched Kostya’s face to the point of leaving permanent scars.

  So yeah, my biggest fear is that the stressful events that led to my father’s death triggered something in me, something like what poor Masha is going through.

  After all, we share a quarter of our DNA.

  “I can see there’s a story behind all this,” Dr. Golovasi says, taking me out of my reverie. “Do you feel comfortable sharing any of it?”

  “It’s a really long story…”

  “The purpose of the first session is for me to learn more about you,” Dr. Golovasi says. “I’m here for you to tell me long stories.”

  I sigh and do my best to tell her what happened five months ago. I explain how I enrolled Mom into the Brainocytes study and describe the kidnapping of Mom and the other patients, our trip to Russia, the rescue, and all the violence and death I witnessed along the way. I sugarcoat some of it—especially the murders my cousin Joe and his minions committed—and I don’t mention my Brainocytes.

  “I read about your mother’s kidnapping in The Times.” Dr. Golovasi shifts in her seat. “Your story sounds like it would cause anyone to have trouble sleeping.”

  I’m tempted to say that Joe sleeps like a psychotic little baby, but instead, I lamely mumble, “Yeah, it was pretty rough.”

  “At least you made new friends in the process. This Gogi and Muhomor sound like interesting individuals.”

  I nod. “True, though Gogi treats me like a client half the time, while Muhomor is just Muhomor.”

  “Oh?” She leans toward me again. “What do you mean?”

  “Muhomor was brilliant even before—” I was about to say, “before Brainocytes,” but I change it to, “Before he took a bunch of computer courses here in the States. Now his ego doesn’t fit through most doors.”

  “But you guys can bond on a work level?” She tilts her head quizzically.

  “Not really. Cryptography, Muhomor’s passion, isn’t my favorite branch of computer science. So we’re not exactly bonding over that. If anything, he and Mitya might be getting close, and I wish I was above feeling jealous, but I’m not.”

  She looks so uncharacteristically interested in my words that I wonder if this bromance jealousy is something she wrote her PhD on.

  “What do you think they do together that you don’t do with Muhomor?” she asks, confirming my suspicions that she’s latched on to this topic.
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  “Muhomor developed an ingenious cryptosystem that only Mitya can truly appreciate,” I say with a shrug. “My girlfriend doesn’t care about the subject, and neither do I, really.”

  What I don’t mention is that, unlike Ada, I tried to understand Muhomor’s work, and it was too dense for me—one of the few things to challenge me intellectually in a long time. It literally made my brain hurt.

  Instead of her eyes glazing over at the word “cryptosystem,” Dr. Golovasi looks like she just shot espresso into her eyeballs. I recall that we’ve decided to keep Tema—short for the Russian word “kryptosystema”—on the hush-hush, so I say, “Anyway, I think I got sidetracked a little.”

  “You’re right.” She fiddles with her pen as though unsure if she should write a note in her pad. “Tell me, what have you done to cope with all this stress?”

  “Right. Stress management.” I prepared for this question to the point where I can demonstratively fold over a finger for each activity. “I’ve been keeping busy helping Mom recover, I picked up a couple of new hobbies, I make sure to get pet therapy from my rat, and I’ve started a new exercise routine.”

  “Those are great, especially the exercise,” Dr. Golovasi says, but I get the feeling she’s holding back some questions, such as, Did you just say rat?

  “Yes and no,” I reply. “My hobbies involve coding, which can be frustrating at times. I also started learning how to shoot. Though it’s therapeutic, it isn’t your typical calm hobby.”

  “I see.” She steeples her fingers again. “Then I urge you to consider things like yoga, meditation, and massages. Keep spending time with your pet.” She stops, then adds, “Intimacy is also a crucial stress reliever.”