The Imaginary Lives of Mechanical Men

by Randy F. Nelson

  “Lucky?”

  “Yes, very. If you haven’t seen the compound yet, get ready to be amazed.”

  “I’m already pretty amazed, doctor. So this broken neck. How would you say it came about?”

  “She fell. From the top of the escarpment. The tape caught most of it.”

  “The tape?”

  “I should have told you,” I said. “We have most of it on camera. Digital, not actual tape. I just thought you’d want to see the compound first, where it actually happened.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  On the way out, Deckard asked me how Janie was doing, as if he’d just happened to think of it on the spur of the moment.

  I gave him a look. “We’re doing okay,” I said. “We have a woman who stays during the day. Nurse drops by a few times a week.”

  “Good. That’s good,” he said.

  I let Stillman go on out into the hall and turned so that I fully faced the bastard. “You don’t have to remind me of anything,” I said. “I’m handling it.”

  “I was just concerned. Tell her I was thinking about her.”

  In the observation room Stillman seemed hypnotized by the birds. On the other side of the glass they were soaring, not flitting or hopping or pacing along branches like pet shop parakeets, but rather soaring inside a biosphere that itself soared higher than an aircraft hangar. He focused on a flock of yellow bee-eaters, swarming like mosquitoes and then diving into the greenery below us. After a while he said, “I thought this place was for monkeys.”

  “It’s a complete ecosystem. What you can see from here is the southeast quadrant. Three streams, two waterfalls. A lake. Fish, birds, anthills. Orchids. Strangler vines. Everything that’s endemic to the animals’ environment. Four point two acres of habitat completely enclosed and rigorously managed. Twice as large as the original Biosphere project in Arizona, except that this one works. Outside the compound itself there’s another 317 acres accommodating 18 different primate species within 31 large social enclosures. We house a total of 2,800 individual primates, not including the staff.”

  “You sound like you’ve given this spiel before.”

  “Many times. That rock formation on your right is eighty-four feet high and tall as a four-story building. It’s an exact replica of a cliff face in Tanzania, where some of our first animals were taken. On the far right, that gray slab jutting out? The large male beside the log is named Morgan. Sort of the patriarch of the clan. That pile of leaves is where he’s been nesting for three or four nights, which they asked me to mention because he’s never removed himself from the others this far before. It’s probably Morgan on camera making a threat gesture just before the incident.”

  “Threat gesture?”

  “Their hackles go up, and they yawn. Chimps’ve got a set of fangs like Count Dracula.”

  “I didn’t see any bite marks on the body.”

  “They’ll clobber the shit out of you too. And throw stuff. Your average chimp is a lot stronger than an adult human. And their temperament doesn’t improve with age.”

  “You saying the husband did it?”

  “I’m saying you’ve handled more of these than I have.”

  “So. How serious are your protesters?

  “Depends. We have several species of those—the no-fur crowd, PETA, Animal Liberation Front, Earth Firsters. Every once in a while a few of them will get past security and trash a lab or spring a few animals.”

  “And it might look bad for the Center if the wrong kind of story got out. Hold up the research and all that.”

  “Yeah. You’re catching on.”

  “Bad enough to close you down?”

  “I doubt it. The stakes are too high. This is the last stop before major medical trials on humans, and we’re talking about pharmaceuticals, implants, tissue cultures, and new operative procedures. There’s money going through here like coke through Colombia.”

  “Great. So this Deckard. He’s really onto something big?”

  “We believe so.”

  “Okay. How about I talk to this other chimp, the one named Morgan?”

  “Talk to him?”

  “Yeah. He can do sign language, right?”

  “You want to interview a chimp?”

  “You said go anywhere I want, ask anything I want. So why not ask the guy who was there?”

  “I’ll see what I can do. But we’ve got less than twenty-two hours, and I’ve got a hell of a lot of writing to do. How about we review the tape first.”

  “How about I talk to the chimp first.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  The caretaker brought him on a leash. Morgan himself closed the door but stiffened when he saw Stillman sitting beneath the mirror on the far side of the room. “It’s okay,” the caretaker said. “Here, let me take this off. Now hop on your box. Hop up here the way we always do.”

  Morgan clambered onto a carpet-covered box and scooped up the grape on his side of the table, holding it between his lip and gum for a moment, taking it out of his mouth for a closer look, and then popping it back in for a satisfying chew. He glared at Stillman and then at the keyboard on his side of the table. He raised one arm and jabbed twice at the oversized pictograms like a man with a mechanical hand. On the computer screen next to Stillman a word and an image appeared. Grape. When the woman caretaker did not respond, he tried more keys. The first screen cleared, to be replaced by Juice. More. Juice.

  Stillman watched from the low chair at the end of the table.

  The woman was bent over her duffel bag, drawing out toys, cups, bottles, and recording paraphernalia.

  Morgan rocked back and forth on his box, stretching his lips into a wide grimace, and then typed again. Sylvia. Juice. Sylvia. Juice. Cup.

  “I think he wants some juice,” said Stillman.

  “I know. And you don’t have to whisper. He’s used to the routine. Just let me finish here. You can give him half a cup.”

  Stillman poured orange juice into one of the tiny paper cups, the kind he’d seen in nursery schools, and set it on the table in front of the creature. Morgan leaned forward and sniffed before lifting the cup with delicate care and setting it in the palm of his left hand. Then, making a funnel with his mouth, he raised the cup further and poured.

  “You have to take it away from him,” she continued, “or he’ll scrape off the wax with his teeth and eat it.”

  When Stillman reached, the animal hunched his shoulders and glared, crumpling the cup against his stomach.

  “I don’t think he’s going to give it up.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, just wait a minute, both of you. Let me turn down the lights and get the recorder going. Here, give me that.” She plucked the cup from the thick fingers and put it into a plastic bag. To Stillman she said, “Just stay where you are and don’t lurch around. He’s a little uncomfortable. A grin like that could be a threat, but more likely it’s just nervousness.”

  “Let’s get this over with.”

  “Okay, let me just ask him a few preliminary questions.” Sylvia the caretaker placed a ball on the table and touched one of the keys on the console. The screen showed a question mark in the pictogram box and the word What? To the right of the box.

  The crooked finger went automatically to a red key while the eyes remained unnervingly on Stillman. Ball said the screen.

  Sylvia took the ball away and gave Morgan another grape, which he took between cheek and gum while he watched for the next object, an empty paper cup. Without waiting for the question, the chimp hit another key. Cup.

  “Good!” She reached across the table and scratched one ear and patted the head.

  Juice. Grape. Cup flashed the screen.

  Without looking at Stillman the woman said, “This is one of the reasons that chimps in general are such great subjects. They’re greedy. They’ll steal food right out of your pocket.”

  “Let’s just ask him what I wrote out for you. I’m getting a little claustrophobic.�
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  “You’ll have to be patient. You can’t just skip ahead to a complicated concept. In fact, one of the big questions is whether they understand syntax at all. You get garbled answers if you push them too hard.”

  “How come he keeps looking at me like that?”

  “Just be still. He’s nervous. I’ve got to take him through some verbs first.”

  After a few more exchanges, the caretaker finally looked down at Stillman’s notes and typed. Question. Who. Hurt. Greta. Question.

  Ball. Greta.

  “What’s wrong? Why didn’t he answer?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know. Maybe we’re asking the wrong question. Or asking the right question the wrong way. It often takes several tries. Question. Greta. Hurt. Question.

  Yes.

  Who?

  Big. Ball.

  Question. What. Hurt. Greta. Question.

  Big. Light.

  Question. Who. Question. Who. Hurt. Greta. Question.

  Greta.

  Who?

  Greta. Juice. Grape.

  Question. Greta. Big. Hurt. Question?

  Yes.

  Question. Who. Question.

  Grape.

  Who?

  More. Banana. Light.

  “I don’t know,” said Stillman. “I don’t think this is working. He doesn’t know what planet he’s on.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the caretaker. “Maybe if you gave him just a few more minutes.”

  “Yeah, well … maybe he’d be more comfortable if it was just the two of you. Thanks anyhow.” Stillman eased past them and into the heavy atmosphere of the compound, then used a pass card to open the door into the corridor. He patted his coat pockets for a cigarette and noticed a quiet figure standing next to the two-way observation mirror. It was Deckard.

  After a moment he turned to the detective and said, “That was ingenious, Mr. Stillman. I would never have thought simply to ask.”

  “It was worth a try.”

  “Did you learn anything?”

  “Yeah, should have gone to the tape first.”

  I sat Stillman down at the computer and called up the media player. Then clicked play. The images on-screen began with a stuttering burst of light, like film skipping in an old-fashioned projector. In all, the sequence lasted sixty-three seconds. Stillman watched the events cycle four or five times, gradually leaning left as if he could pick up action that had occurred off camera. I watched him studying the moment of Greta’s death and wondered how many humans he’d seen die from this same perspective, images from ceiling cameras in pawn shops and convenience stores.

  At 0224.14 on the blinking timeline, a hunched shape backed into the frame, then immediately charged forward out of range, reappearing again at 0224.33. I told him it was Greta. He could see the rest. Her hackles were raised and lips drawn back in a rictus of fear. She shook her head like a wet dog. Then another whiteout obscured a stamping display, and a second figure emerged from the emptiness at the left of the screen. I told him it was Morgan, also clearly agitated. He looked like a furious old man shaking his head no, no, no, no. Then at 0225.16 Greta turned toward the camera, a mask of insane terror frozen on her face; and she threw herself at the edge of the cliff. That was all. She was gone in less than a second.

  “Let’s see it again,” said Stillman.

  I showed him how to work the media player. He clicked with the mouse and once more watched Greta backing into the last moments of her life. “And there’s no sound at all?”

  “Nope. And no artificial lighting inside the compound. When it’s dark outside, it’s dark in the compound.”

  “Then what are those flashes of light?”

  “Beats me. Maybe heat lightning.”

  “And what about that?”

  “Right there? Looks like an edge of the steel framing that holds up the roof, you know, one of the sections of the dome.”

  “No way to enlarge any of this?”

  “You could, but the resolution would be worse. What are you looking for?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He started the sequence again. And again it was night. There was the lightninglike burst of whiteness and then a sweeping shot of the rock ledge. In the upper third of the frame, through the clear dome of their world, wheeled the slow stars of the Milky Way. And in the foreground were the rocks that we call the escarpment. Creeping into the lower left were the uppermost branches of massasa and mahogany. At 0224.14 Stillman’s muppet backed into the scene as before and mustered enough desperation to charge on all fours. Then stayed out of view for nineteen seconds. Then the second lightning flash revealed Morgan, shaking his head and flailing a branch that he had broken at some lower elevation and dragged with him to the peak. And then there was something else that caught Stillman’s attention as the terrified chimp slapped, open handed, at her own eyes. Just before she turned and launched herself into the void.

  “Right there,” he said. “What’s that?”

  “I don’t see anything.”

  “Looks like a shoe.”

  “Might be a shadow.”

  “It might be a shoe.”

  “I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m just …”

  “I think it’s time to get that magnification now.”

  “Maybe it’s time to talk. Let’s step out in the hall for a second.” Which is when I told him the truth. He would have figured it out in another hour. Besides, the truth wasn’t relevant. It hardly ever is.

  “You know why I picked you?”

  “I just assumed it was a combination of the swimsuit and talent competitions.”

  “I picked you because I thought you might understand if it ever got this far.”

  “Meaning what exactly?”

  “Meaning that we can do things, right now, that we couldn’t do even a year ago. Meaning that these people, Stillman, are on the verge of curing half a dozen diseases, perfecting noninvasive surgery, regenerating nerves, you name it.”

  “And you thought what, that you could put my name on the list if they ever whipped up a cure for deafness?”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “ALS is a funny disease. You can never predict which neurons in the brain and spinal cord it’ll attack. Sometimes it paralyzes the arms and legs. Sometimes it affects speech or breathing first. They say Lou Gehrig himself eventually choked to death. There’s no cure, no therapy, and nothing on the immediate horizon except for the slight possibility that the man you met this morning really is a genius. And that I can get Janie into the first human trials. Right now she’s having trouble swallowing, and I figure in a few months it won’t make any difference whether the human trials are approved or not. That’s what I was hoping you could understand.”

  For a long time Stillman said nothing. He wiped at his face with both hands as if trying to wash away the fatigue, then sat on one of the low benches that lined the hall.

  So I pressed him some more. “The procedure works. We already know that. The problem was that Greta showed some anomalies, not enough to wreck the experiment, but enough to throw off the data. So we had to start reverification. Fast. All we’re asking you to do is sign a piece of paper, so we can start over with a clean slate.”

  “How did you do it?” he said.

  “Strobe light. You know, from the break-in at the photo lab. We figured if worse came to worst, we could blame it on some protesters.”

  “‘We’ meaning you and Dr. Deckard.”

  “It was his idea actually. After the procedure she’d had, it would overload her brain. She’d do anything to get away from it.”

  “So you made a deal. Deckard gets something he wants. You get something you want. The only person hurt is a monkey. Let me ask you something, chief. Do you trust the guy that much?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  Maybe I should have told him that it was all an insurance scam. It would have been easier. That’s what he believed at first, and maybe he would have
gone for the money. You can never tell. Even if you’re spinning the absolute truth, you can never tell what kind of lies people will believe. Especially old cops. Now he would have to decide. And I’m not sure I could have chosen correctly myself. At five o’clock it was still raining the way it had been earlier, and I drove him back to his office after telling him I would e-mail a copy of his report tomorrow morning. And that Peggy could print it on their letterhead and fax it back to me in the afternoon, after he’d signed it. If that’s what he felt he could do.

  On the way downtown he asked me when I thought they could start human trials.

  I said a few weeks, maybe a couple of months, if we stayed on the fast track.

  He looked at me like he thought I’d believe anything.

  The rest of the drive was silent. I let him out in the scabby parking lot of his office, and he went inside after a slight wave of the hand. I watched him flick on the overhead lights and head down the hall toward one of the cubicles.

  Then I pulled back into the deserted street and followed the yellow line.

  Back at the Center I headed toward my own office to begin work on the incident report. I needed to finish it and also a press release about a new cholesterol drug being developed jointly by us and a major pharmaceutical company. It would take a couple of hours, but both items needed to go out the next day. First, though, I called home and got Janie on the speakerphone. Told her that I’d be late and that I’d get Mrs. Carrillo to come over and stay the night. She wasn’t happy, but she understood the job, and its benefits, better than I did. So I hung up and went by the cafeteria for coffee and a sandwich, the way I used to do when I was a reporter. Banging away on a story that would be old news by morning.

  Then I took the elevator up, balancing coffee in one hand and briefcase and sandwich in the other. Sipping gingerly. Hoping Stillman would come around after he dismounted from his high horse. Taking the glassed-in hallway, the syringe, that connected the two wings of the medical section. Halfway across, almost precisely where I had stopped Stillman earlier in the day, I met a lab assistant pushing a gurney like the ones in hospitals. I had to step aside and to control the momentary horror of stepping into an abyss.