Human++ Read online

  Human++

  Dima Zales

  ♠ Mozaika Publications ♠

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Excerpt from Oasis

  Excerpt from The Thought Readers

  Excerpt from The Sorcery Code

  About the Author

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 Dima Zales

  www.dimazales.com

  All rights reserved.

  Except for use in a review, no part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.

  Published by Mozaika Publications, an imprint of Mozaika LLC.

  www.mozaikallc.com

  Cover by Najla Qamber Designs

  www.najlaqamberdesigns.com

  e-ISBN: 978-1-63142-199-0

  Print ISBN: 978-1-63142-200-3

  Chapter One

  The gargantuan syringe approaches Mom’s neck. Grandpa squeezes her hand and tries not to look at the rapier-sized needle as it breaks his daughter’s skin.

  “Misha,” Mom tells me in Russian. “This hurts.”

  I take a step forward, my hands balling into fists as I glare at the white-masked surgeon.

  “Why is it going into her neck?” I demand.

  I see no hint of empathy in the doctor’s reflective eyes, and I seriously consider punching him in the face. Since distracting him might worsen Mom’s situation, I settle for a calming breath, though all I really get is a lungful of sterile, Clorox-filled air.

  The operation room has bright surgical lights and torture-chamber surgical equipment sadistically displayed throughout.

  “Why are all these frightening things around us if it’s just a simple injection?” I stammer, taking it all in for the first time.

  The doctor’s knuckles whiten as he presses the giant plunger. A disgusting gray liquid whooshes out of the syringe into Mom’s neck.

  “Why do the nanocytes need to be delivered in such a terrible way?” I ask—mostly to prevent myself from fainting.

  “They shouldn’t be,” Grandpa says in English.

  Mom’s round face is contorted with the kind of horror and desperation I’ve only seen on it once, when a scrawny mouse scurried into our living room in our first Brooklyn apartment. Just like on that day, an ear-piercing scream is wrenched from her throat.

  I take another step forward. Maybe I’ll just pry the doc away from her.

  The bald spot on top of Grandpa’s head is beet red, and I wonder if he’s about to kill the doc with his shoe, employing the same violent swat he used against the culprit mouse.

  The doctor steps away from us.

  Mom’s screaming turns into gurgles and fades away.

  Gray liquid starts pouring out of her mouth.

  I feel paralyzed.

  The same liquid streams out of her eyes, then her nose and her ears.

  “It’s the nanocytes,” I yell in horror, my vocal cords finally working. “But they can’t be replicating!”

  Mom’s head disappears, replaced by a vague liquid shape of the replicating gray goo. In a violent heartbeat, the rest of Mom’s body turns into the same fluid grayness.

  With two gurgling screams, Grandpa and the doctor also melt into puddles of squirming, colorless protoplasm.

  The enormity of these losses doesn’t fully register before the substance creeps over my own foot.

  A savage searing pain spreads through my body, and I know it must be from the nanos breaking my flesh into molecules.

  This can’t be real, is my last thought. This has to be a dream.

  I jackknife into a sitting position on the bed. Either the gruesome deaths or the realization I was dreaming woke me.

  My bedroom is darker than a naked mole rat’s lair. Going by feel, I locate my phone on the nightstand and light up its screen.

  When my eyes adjust and I can decipher the time, I fight the urge to toss the phone at the wall. That would be like killing the messenger—fleetingly therapeutic, but pointless. It’s 3:00 a.m., which is probably my least favorite a.m.

  I take a deep breath the way my yoga-obsessed ex-girlfriend taught me, and surprisingly, I feel a bit calmer. I guess things aren’t so bad. If I calm down enough to fall asleep again soon, I can doze for another five hours and probably still be functional during the day.

  Getting up, I go to the bathroom. The AC chills my naked body as I walk, so the first thing I do is vigorously wipe away all the cold sweat.

  My breath evens out further.

  As I make use of the facilities, I chide myself for freaking out over that unlikely dream scenario. Grandfather’s been dead for two years, and even when he was alive, he didn’t speak flawless—or any—English. Also, the nanocytes we’re using on Mom are the non-replicating kind, which is partly why each dose costs an obscene amount. Future replicating nanotechnology will build itself out of raw materials, so it’ll only cost as much as those materials do, but that’s not the case with this experimental batch. Finally, the injection procedure is noninvasive and won’t require a surgeon, or even a doctor, to be present. This nightmare was just a manifestation of my irrational anxieties.

  What I need now is sleep. As one of my family’s favorite Russian sayings goes, “Morning is wiser than evening.”

  Yawning, I get back into bed and fall asleep half a second before my head touches the pillow.

  Chapter Two

  “A cure for dementia and Alzheimer’s?” Uncle Abe’s gray eyes pulse with excitement, the way Mom’s often do.

  “It’s not exactly a cure,” I say at the same time as Ada says, “It’s mostly a treatment for the symptoms.”

  “How cute,” Uncle Abe says in Russian. “Your chick is already finishing your sentences.”

  As though she understood the Russian words, Ada’s face lights up with an impish grin.

  “We’re not a couple,” I tell Uncle Abe in Russian.

  “Yet?” He gives me a knowing wink.

  “It’s not polite to speak in Russian in front of Ada,” I say in English.

  “I’m okay,” Ada says. Only the shadow of a smile lurks in the corners of her eyes now, making her look like a punky version of the Mona Lisa.

  “Still, I’m sorry,” Uncle Abe tells her, his accent softening the t and the second r.

  As we stroll through th
e hospital corridor, Ada takes the lead. She’s a typical New Yorker, always twitchy and multitasking. I surreptitiously look her up and down, my eyes lingering on one of my favorite assets of hers—that special spot between the soles of her Doc Martens boots and the tips of her spiky hair.

  Ada glances over her shoulder, her amber eyes meeting mine for a second. Did she feel me gawking at her just now? Before I can feel embarrassed, she stops in front of a green door and says, “This is the room.”

  The three of us walk in.

  Unlike my dream, this isn’t an operating room. It’s spacious, with big windows and cheerfully blooming plants on the windowsills. At a glance, it’s reminiscent of my stylish Brooklyn loft—if a mad scientist’s wet dream was used as inspiration for the interior design.

  Staff members from Techno, my portfolio company that designed the treatment, are already in the back. Mom is sitting on an operating chair in a white hospital gown, with a plethora of cables attaching her to a myriad of cutting-edge monitoring tools. Completing her getup is a headset—something straight out of the old Total Recall movie. It must be the “latest in portable neural scan technology” that JC, Techno’s CEO, mentioned to me. I make a mental note to define portable to him.

  I hear a “hi” from the farthest corner of the room. The person who spoke must be hidden behind the wall of servers and giant monitors. The other Techno employees keep working silently, though it isn’t clear whether they didn’t hear me come in, or if they’re being antisocial.

  Many folks at Techno could stand to improve their social skills. A psychiatrist might even label some of them as borderline Asperger’s. Personally, I find those types of labels ridiculous. Psychiatry can sometimes be as scientific and helpful as astrology—which I don’t believe in, in case that’s not clear. A shrink back in high school tried to attach the Asperger’s label to me because I had “too few friends.” He could’ve just as easily concluded I had Tourette’s based on where I told him to shove his diagnosis. Then again, maybe I’m still sore about psychiatry and neuropsychology because of how little they’ve done for Mom. Pretty much the only good thing I can say about psychiatry is that at least they’re no longer using lobotomy as a treatment.

  I look around the room for JC. He’s nowhere to be found, so he must be in a similar room with another participant of the study.

  Mom turns her head toward us, apparently able to do so despite the headgear.

  My heart clenches in dread, as it always does when Mom and I meet after more than a day apart. Because of the accident that damaged Mom’s brain, it’s feasible that one day she’ll look at me and won’t recognize who I am.

  Today she clearly does, though, because she gives me that dimpled smile we share. “Hi, little fish,” she says in Russian. She then looks at her brother. “Abrashkin, bunny, how are you?”

  “Mom just used untranslatable Russian pet names for us,” I loudly whisper to Ada and wave hello to the still-uninterested staff in the back.

  Mom looks at Ada without recognition, and I inwardly sigh. They’ve met twice before.

  “Who’s this boy?” Mom asks me in English. “Is he an intern at Techno or something?”

  “She’s not a boy, and her name is Ada,” I respond, trying my best not to sound like I’m talking to someone with a disability, something my mom deeply resents. “She’s not an intern, but one of the people who programmed the nanocytes that’ll make you feel better.”

  “Nice to meet you, Nina Davydovna,” Ada says as though they haven’t done this before.

  Mom’s eyebrow rises at either the girlish resonance of Ada’s bell-like voice or her proper use of the Russian patronymic. She quickly recovers, though, just like the last time, and also like the last time, she says, “Call me Nina.”

  “I will. Thank you, Nina,” Ada says.

  I realize Ada addressed my mom so formally on purpose—to lessen Mom’s stress—so I give her a grateful nod. Of course, if Ada wanted to go the extra mile, she could’ve worn different clothing or changed her hairstyle to eliminate Mom’s confusion about Ada’s gender. Then again, Mom’s confusion might be part of her condition, because to me, despite the leather jacket and black hoodie obscuring much of her body, Ada is the epitome of femininity.

  “Is she his girlfriend?” Mom asks Uncle Abe conspiratorially in Russian. “Have I met her before?”

  “I’m not sure, sis,” Uncle Abe says. “From the way he looks at her, I suspect it’s just a matter of time before they hook up.”

  “Oh yeah?” Mom chuckles. “Do you think she’s Jewish?”

  Blood rushes to my cheeks, and not just because of this “Jewish or not” business. It’s something that became important to Mom only after the accident—unless she’s always cared but only started voicing it after the brain damage lowered her inhibitions. My grandparents certainly often spoke about this sort of thing, going as far as blaming the situation with my father on him being non-Jewish—something I consider to be reverse anti-Semitism.

  It’s unfortunate, but their attitude was forged back in the Soviet Union, where being Jewish was considered an ethnicity and used as an excuse for government-level discrimination. Since one’s ethnicity was written in the infamous fifth paragraph of one’s passport, discrimination was commonplace and inescapable. My mom was turned away from her first choice of universities because they’d hit “their quota of three Jews.” She also had a hard time finding a job in the engineering sciences until my father helped her out, only to later sexually harass her and leave her to raise me on her own. Even I was affected by this negativity before we left. When my seventh-grade classmates learned about my heritage from our school journal, they told me that with my blue eyes and blond hair (which darkened to brown as I got older), I looked nothing like a Jew. Though they used the derogatory Russian term, they’d meant it as a big compliment.

  What makes the topic extra weird is that in America, where Judaism is more of a religion than an ethnicity, we’re suddenly not all that Jewish. I mean, how can we be if I learned about Hanukkah in my mid-teens and when I had a very non-kosher grilled lobster tail wrapped in bacon last night?

  Yeah, I also learned what kosher means in my mid-teens.

  Either way, I couldn’t care less about Ada’s Jewishness—though, for the record, with a last name like Goldblum, she probably is Jewish. I don’t know what that term means to her either, since she’s just as secular as I am. I think my biggest issue with Mom’s question is that I simply loathe labels applied to entire groups of people, especially labels that come with so much baggage.

  “It’s hard to say,” Uncle Abe says after examining Ada’s dainty nose and zooming in on her pierced nostril. “With that hair, she’s definitely not Russian.”

  Here we go, another label. To my grandparents, the term Russian was interchangeable with goy or gentile, but I don’t think my uncle is using it in that context. Though in Russia we were Jewish, here in the US we’re Russian—as in, the same as every Russian speaker from the former Soviet Union. I’m guessing my uncle is saying that Ada doesn’t look like she’s from the former Soviet Union, since a certain way of dressing and grooming typically accompanies that, at least for recent immigrants.

  I decide to stop this thread of conversation, but before I get a chance to put a word in, Mom says, “When I was young, that kind of haircut was called an explosion at the noodle factory.”

  They both laugh, and even I can’t help chuckling. I know the haircut Mom is referring to, and it’s an eighties hairdo that may well be a distant ancestor to what’s happening on Ada’s head. The bleached, pointy tips make her look like an echidna with a Mohawk—an image reinforced by her prickly wit.

  The door to the room opens, and a nurse walks in.

  Seeing her scrubs raises my blood pressure, though I’m not sure if it’s from the standard white coat syndrome or a flashback to my earlier nightmare. Probably the former. There was no anesthesia in Soviet dentistry when I was growing up, so I developed a condit
ioned response to anything resembling dentist clothing. Anyone in a white coat gives me a reaction akin to what someone suffering from coulrophobia—the irrational fear of clowns—would experience during a John Wayne Gacy documentary or the movie It.

  The nurse walks over to Mom and reaches for a big syringe lying stealthily by Mom’s chair.

  The Techno employees in the back collectively hold their breaths.

  The nurse doesn’t seem to understand the auspiciousness of the occasion. She looks like she wants to finish here and move on to something more interesting, like watching a filibuster on C-SPAN. Her nametag reads “Olga.” That, combined with her circa late-eighties haircut and makeup, plus those Slavic cheekbones, activates my Russian radar—or Rudar for short. It’s like gaydar, but for detecting Russian speakers.

  I bet Mom is insulted by the hospital assigning this nurse to her. It implies she needs help understanding English. Having earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering after moving to the States in her mid-thirties, Mom takes deserved pride in her skills with the English language—skills the accident didn’t affect.

  In the silence, I can hear Mom’s shallow breathing; her fear of medical professionals is much worse than mine.

  Olga grips the syringe and raises her hand.

  Chapter Three

  Uncle Abe looks away. I’m tempted to follow his lead but decide against it.

  To my relief, instead of Mom’s neck, Olga connects the syringe to the port below the IV bag. This makes sense, since it’s the easiest way to access Mom’s vein.

  Reality further diverges from my nightmare as I note the clear liquid carrying the nanocytes and the fact that Mom doesn’t even wince throughout the whole ordeal. And she’s operating on senses heightened by fear, so if there was a reason to wince, she would have, and she probably would’ve screamed as well.

  The people scanning the monitors murmur amongst themselves, but no one sounds alarmed. Excitement permeates the air.