The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria by Carlos Hernández Page A
Authors: Carlos Hernández
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area, and the supercomputer that does most of the computational heavy lifting for APM. On theright is a makeshift workshop—benches, spare parts, soldering irons, and a 3D printer big enough to spit out a zamboni. Maybe that’s where they print all their science-types.
And in the center of it all, a gigantic pair of headless panda suits hang from wires in the middle of the room.
I move in for a closer look. The suits are suspended like marionettes from wires that connect to a rig in the ceiling. They’re pretty realistic, both to eye and touch, except that each is about the size of a well-fed triceratops.
“Gabby,” Cooper says, “I’d like you to meet the greatest advancement in panda procreation since sperm meets egg: Avalon and Funicello.”
“Cute names.”
But I can barely speak. Their panda-musk fills the entire warehouse; I can smell them from here. It’s greasy and rancid; it smells like I’m eating it. And here’s the recipe: buy the grossest musk-scented antiperspirant you can find and melt it in a pan. Then use it as the binder for a bearmeat tartare.
But why douse the suits in funky pheromones at all? It’s not like any real pandas are here to smell them. Right, Ken?
“In a few minutes,” he replies, “you will become a genuine panda. If every bit of our work weren’t 100% real, it would be useless.”
By “real,” Cooper means that he and I will be donning these panda suits to remotely operate the most realistic robot animals the world has ever known. Those two robots are miles away from the warehouse,where they live among and regularly interact with APM’s real giant pandas. Whatever we do in the suits, the field robots will mimic exactly.
And usually what APM does is sex. Sometimes they use Funicello to collect semen from one of the “boars,” or male pandas. Other times they’ll use Avalon to inseminate a sow, using semen collected earlier.
And sometimes it’s just robots fucking. Avalon and Funicello simulate coition in front of a live panda audience so that the reproductively-challenged bears can learn where babies come from. That’s our mission today, in fact: to demonstrate for APM’s male pandas the proper way to impregnate a female. And playing the female lead in today’s performance is yours truly.
Cooper and I remained close even after he left for California. He knew I’d come to Cali for the job at
The Squint
, and he knew getting the scoop on APM’s secret operations could have made my career as a science correspondent. But he rejected my every request, just like APM rejected every other journalist. The nonprofit has been secretive from the moment it was founded. If you engage in virtual bestiality, no matter how noble your scientific goals, you’re going to make some enemies—and in APM’s case that includes paramilitary terrorists. They’ve learned to keep a lid on things.
So why am I here, now? Because—speaking of paramilitary terrorists—APM’s still reeling from the fallout of their worst-casescenario: five months ago, Constance Ritter, a 22:19 saboteur, was killed on-premises. The means of execution was robot panda.
After the PR fiasco that ensued, APM now sees the need for more transparency in their operations. Step one of damage-control is, apparently, me. I can hear Cooper pitching me now: “Let’s suit her up so she can tell the world just how effective our methods are. Sure, she’s a Media Studies major who I had to tutor night and day to get her to pass Biology for Non-Majors, but all she’ll be doing is operating a multi-million dollar robot in order to seduce and sexually satisfy a giant panda boar. How hard can it be?”
And somehow, impossibly, APM said yes.
I’ve never had a more terrifying assignment, and I’ve been in war-zones. I have no idea how to have panda sex. What if I’m terrible? Wait, what do I mean “if”?
Of course
I will be terrible at panda sex. The real question, Ken Cooper, is what if the pandas imitate my
And in the center of it all, a gigantic pair of headless panda suits hang from wires in the middle of the room.
I move in for a closer look. The suits are suspended like marionettes from wires that connect to a rig in the ceiling. They’re pretty realistic, both to eye and touch, except that each is about the size of a well-fed triceratops.
“Gabby,” Cooper says, “I’d like you to meet the greatest advancement in panda procreation since sperm meets egg: Avalon and Funicello.”
“Cute names.”
But I can barely speak. Their panda-musk fills the entire warehouse; I can smell them from here. It’s greasy and rancid; it smells like I’m eating it. And here’s the recipe: buy the grossest musk-scented antiperspirant you can find and melt it in a pan. Then use it as the binder for a bearmeat tartare.
But why douse the suits in funky pheromones at all? It’s not like any real pandas are here to smell them. Right, Ken?
“In a few minutes,” he replies, “you will become a genuine panda. If every bit of our work weren’t 100% real, it would be useless.”
By “real,” Cooper means that he and I will be donning these panda suits to remotely operate the most realistic robot animals the world has ever known. Those two robots are miles away from the warehouse,where they live among and regularly interact with APM’s real giant pandas. Whatever we do in the suits, the field robots will mimic exactly.
And usually what APM does is sex. Sometimes they use Funicello to collect semen from one of the “boars,” or male pandas. Other times they’ll use Avalon to inseminate a sow, using semen collected earlier.
And sometimes it’s just robots fucking. Avalon and Funicello simulate coition in front of a live panda audience so that the reproductively-challenged bears can learn where babies come from. That’s our mission today, in fact: to demonstrate for APM’s male pandas the proper way to impregnate a female. And playing the female lead in today’s performance is yours truly.
Cooper and I remained close even after he left for California. He knew I’d come to Cali for the job at
The Squint
, and he knew getting the scoop on APM’s secret operations could have made my career as a science correspondent. But he rejected my every request, just like APM rejected every other journalist. The nonprofit has been secretive from the moment it was founded. If you engage in virtual bestiality, no matter how noble your scientific goals, you’re going to make some enemies—and in APM’s case that includes paramilitary terrorists. They’ve learned to keep a lid on things.
So why am I here, now? Because—speaking of paramilitary terrorists—APM’s still reeling from the fallout of their worst-casescenario: five months ago, Constance Ritter, a 22:19 saboteur, was killed on-premises. The means of execution was robot panda.
After the PR fiasco that ensued, APM now sees the need for more transparency in their operations. Step one of damage-control is, apparently, me. I can hear Cooper pitching me now: “Let’s suit her up so she can tell the world just how effective our methods are. Sure, she’s a Media Studies major who I had to tutor night and day to get her to pass Biology for Non-Majors, but all she’ll be doing is operating a multi-million dollar robot in order to seduce and sexually satisfy a giant panda boar. How hard can it be?”
And somehow, impossibly, APM said yes.
I’ve never had a more terrifying assignment, and I’ve been in war-zones. I have no idea how to have panda sex. What if I’m terrible? Wait, what do I mean “if”?
Of course
I will be terrible at panda sex. The real question, Ken Cooper, is what if the pandas imitate my
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