The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria by Carlos Hernández Page B
Authors: Carlos Hernández
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terrible panda sex and never reproduce again?
“You’ll do fine,” says Cooper. “You’re going to be the sow. Our all-male audience will be imitating me, not you. All you do is lie there and take what I give you.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Isn’t that the line you used on me when we first met?”
“Works on pandas too.”
Oh, that smile. Mama warned me about robot panda jockeys like you, Ken Cooper.
To help ensure I don’t ruin the reproductive chances of an entire species, Cooper takes me to the office of Dr. Mei Xiadon, 59, project lead for the American Panda Mission. Dr. Xiadon’s going to teach me how to use the panda suit to operate the field robots.
We enter her office. From ceiling to floor, electronics spill from every surface, a cascade of circuitry and servos and screws. A wall of gray-grim lockers stand against the far wall, making the room even more claustrophobic. The desk is buried in half-finished robotics and paperwork fingerprinted with grease-stains. It looks like it came from a film-school sci-fi movie set.
Seated behind the desk is the woman herself. One of the foremost giant panda experts in the world, Xiadon spent a decade directing the celebrated Wolong Panda Center in China. That was something of a coup, seeing as she is not Chinese, but Chinese-American. APM was able to lure her back to the States with the promise of putting her at the helm of the most cutting-edge panda conservancy in the world.
“Mei?” says Cooper.
Dr. Xiadon, startled, looks up from her work. She’s about five-foot-nothing. Veins of silver run through her black hair, which is coiffed into a Chinese schoolgirl’s bowlcut. Her button-down APM-branded denim shirt is baggy enough for shoplifting. She has small features, except for her mouth. Her big, round, harmless teeth seem only good for smiling. But, as her expression changes from surprise to pleasure, I can see they’re very good at that.
“Oh! You’re Gabby!” she says, suddenly coming alive. She throwsherself halfway over her desk to shake my hand. “Ken’s told me all about you.”
“It’s an honor and a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Xiadon. I’m so happy to have a chance to oh my God are those panda thumbs on your wrists?!”
“Yes they are!” says Xiadon, showing off her prosthetics. She makes them wiggle, which makes my stomach flip. “Aren’t they great?”
One thing that makes pandas unique is their “thumb,” a sixth digit that is actually a wristbone free-floating in the tendons of their forelimbs. They use those thumbs primarily to cut open bamboo—a neat little adaptation that, coupled with their unique throats and the special mix of enzymes in their guts, make the pandas’ weird choice in cuisine viable.
“Why did you get those?” I ask her. “So you could understand pandas better?”
Ask a stupid question. But she lets me down easy. “Naw,” she says, and grabs a mailer tube lying like a fallen log on her desk. She jabs a panda-thumb into one end, sinking it all the way through the thick cardboard, and slices the tube all the way to the other, in one clean stroke. The papers inside the mailer flower open and waft onto her desk. “I just use them to cut packages open.”
“You must get a lot of packages,” I say dryly.
“Tons,” she says dryly.
It’s Xiadon’s job to teach me everything there is to know about operating a robot panda. Well, everything I can learn from her in an hour.
But first, Xiadon heads over to the lockers to try to find me a “superdermal,” the form-fitting special suit one wears to operate a robot panda. They look like dive skins, except that they are studded head to toe with chrome-colored rivets.
After some searching, she turns around and holds up a rubbery, doll-sized unitard. Peeking around it, she smiles and says, “Why are you still dressed, babycakes? Strip and put this on.”
In no time I’m down to bra and thong. I stop and look at her. “This naked?”
“Ken, get the
“You’ll do fine,” says Cooper. “You’re going to be the sow. Our all-male audience will be imitating me, not you. All you do is lie there and take what I give you.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Isn’t that the line you used on me when we first met?”
“Works on pandas too.”
Oh, that smile. Mama warned me about robot panda jockeys like you, Ken Cooper.
To help ensure I don’t ruin the reproductive chances of an entire species, Cooper takes me to the office of Dr. Mei Xiadon, 59, project lead for the American Panda Mission. Dr. Xiadon’s going to teach me how to use the panda suit to operate the field robots.
We enter her office. From ceiling to floor, electronics spill from every surface, a cascade of circuitry and servos and screws. A wall of gray-grim lockers stand against the far wall, making the room even more claustrophobic. The desk is buried in half-finished robotics and paperwork fingerprinted with grease-stains. It looks like it came from a film-school sci-fi movie set.
Seated behind the desk is the woman herself. One of the foremost giant panda experts in the world, Xiadon spent a decade directing the celebrated Wolong Panda Center in China. That was something of a coup, seeing as she is not Chinese, but Chinese-American. APM was able to lure her back to the States with the promise of putting her at the helm of the most cutting-edge panda conservancy in the world.
“Mei?” says Cooper.
Dr. Xiadon, startled, looks up from her work. She’s about five-foot-nothing. Veins of silver run through her black hair, which is coiffed into a Chinese schoolgirl’s bowlcut. Her button-down APM-branded denim shirt is baggy enough for shoplifting. She has small features, except for her mouth. Her big, round, harmless teeth seem only good for smiling. But, as her expression changes from surprise to pleasure, I can see they’re very good at that.
“Oh! You’re Gabby!” she says, suddenly coming alive. She throwsherself halfway over her desk to shake my hand. “Ken’s told me all about you.”
“It’s an honor and a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Xiadon. I’m so happy to have a chance to oh my God are those panda thumbs on your wrists?!”
“Yes they are!” says Xiadon, showing off her prosthetics. She makes them wiggle, which makes my stomach flip. “Aren’t they great?”
One thing that makes pandas unique is their “thumb,” a sixth digit that is actually a wristbone free-floating in the tendons of their forelimbs. They use those thumbs primarily to cut open bamboo—a neat little adaptation that, coupled with their unique throats and the special mix of enzymes in their guts, make the pandas’ weird choice in cuisine viable.
“Why did you get those?” I ask her. “So you could understand pandas better?”
Ask a stupid question. But she lets me down easy. “Naw,” she says, and grabs a mailer tube lying like a fallen log on her desk. She jabs a panda-thumb into one end, sinking it all the way through the thick cardboard, and slices the tube all the way to the other, in one clean stroke. The papers inside the mailer flower open and waft onto her desk. “I just use them to cut packages open.”
“You must get a lot of packages,” I say dryly.
“Tons,” she says dryly.
It’s Xiadon’s job to teach me everything there is to know about operating a robot panda. Well, everything I can learn from her in an hour.
But first, Xiadon heads over to the lockers to try to find me a “superdermal,” the form-fitting special suit one wears to operate a robot panda. They look like dive skins, except that they are studded head to toe with chrome-colored rivets.
After some searching, she turns around and holds up a rubbery, doll-sized unitard. Peeking around it, she smiles and says, “Why are you still dressed, babycakes? Strip and put this on.”
In no time I’m down to bra and thong. I stop and look at her. “This naked?”
“Ken, get the
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