Wake

Chapter 13

The southern California sun was sliding down toward the horizon, palms silhouetted in front of it. Shoshana Glick, a twenty-seven-year-old grad student, crossed the little wooden bridge onto the small, dome-shaped island. She was wearing Nike trainers, cut-off shorts, and a sky-blue Marcuse Institute T-shirt that was tied off above her midriff. A pair of mirrored sunglasses was tucked into the shirt’s neck.

On one side of the island was an eight-foot-tall statue of a clothed, male orangutan standing upright — although, with his bangs and lack of cheek pouches, he didn’t look like a real orang. The stone ape wore a serene expression and had a collection of stone scrolls in front of him. Someone had thought it funny to donate a reproduction of the Lawgiver statue from Planet of the Apes to the Marcuse Institute, and apparently in that movie the statue had resided on a little island, so this had seemed the appropriate place to put it.

And in the shadow of the statue, sitting contentedly on his haunches, was a very real, very alive adult male chimpanzee. Shoshana clapped her hands together to get his attention, and once his brown eyes were looking her way, she said in American Sign Language, Come inside.

No, Hobo signed back. Outside nice. No bugs. Play.

Shoshana glanced at her digital watch. The chimp knew it was still well before his bedtime, but for what was about to happen, time zones had to be taken into account — not that there was any way to explain those to him!

Come now, Shoshana signed. Special treat. Must come in.

Hobo seemed to consider this. Treat bring here, he signed, and his gray-black face conveyed how pleased he was with his own cleverness.

Shoshana shook her head. Treat too big.

Hobo frowned. Maybe he was thinking that if the treat were too big for her to carry, he could bring it outside himself. But to get it, he’d have to go inside — and that would be playing right into her hands. His already furrowed brow creased even more, perhaps as he tried to sort out this quandary. What treat? he signed at last.

Something new, Shoshana signed back. Something good.

Something tasty? Hobo replied.

Shoshana knew when she was beat. No, she signed. But I’ll give you a Hershey’s Kiss.

Two Kisses! Hobo signed back. No, three Kisses!

Shoshana knew the bargaining would end there; although he could count higher when he had objects to point to in front of him, three was as high as he could think in abstract terms. She smiled. Okay. Come now, hurry!

When she’d started working here, Shoshana had believed the story on the Institute’s website about Hobo’s name: that a Canadian ex-pat zookeeper had dubbed him that in honor of the ever-helpful German shepherd on the kid’s TV series The Littlest Hobo. She’d been shocked to discover the truth.

Hobo hesitated just long enough to make clear that he was choosing to cooperate, not blindly following orders. He walked across the grass on all fours until he got to where Shoshana was standing. Then he took one of her hands, intertwining his fingers with hers, the way he liked to, and the two of them headed across the little bridge over the moat. They crossed the wide expanse of lawn and reached the whitewashed clapboard bungalow that was headquarters to the Marcuse Institute.

Waiting inside was the old man himself, Dr. Harl Marcuse. Shoshana and the other grad students secretly called him “the Silverback,” although none of them had actually seen him without his shirt, which, as she’d once quipped after a drink or two too many, was probably a good thing.

Marcuse was also sometimes called the eight-hundred-pound gorilla. That overstated his weight by a factor of 2.5, but as for the species designation, what’s a 1.85 percent difference in DNA among friends? He certainly had the clout that went with the nickname; his ability to squeeze grant dollars out of the NSF was legendary.

Also present were Dillon Fontana, twenty-four, blond, with a wispy beard; red-headed Maria Lopez, ten years older; and Werner Richter, a dapper little German primatologist in his sixties. Dillon was holding a video camera, and Maria had a still-image camera; both were aiming them at Hobo.

The ape looked around the cluttered room, his jaw slack.

Sit here, Werner signed, indicating a high-back swivel chair positioned in front of a particleboard desk.

Hobo let go of Shoshana’s hand, clambered onto the chair, and sat cross-legged. Spin? he asked. He loved it when people spun the chair with him on it.

Later, said Shoshana. Computer time now.

Hobo’s face showed his pleasure; he was accustomed to having his computer use strictly rationed. Good treat! he signed at her, then turned to face the twenty-one-inch Apple LCD monitor. Movie? he signed.

Shoshana tried to suppress her smile. She put on a headset then used the mouse to double-click a desktop icon. Clipped to the top of the monitor was a silver webcam. On the screen, a small window opened showing the webcam’s view — a real-time image of Hobo. Like most chimps, he had no trouble recognizing himself in a mirror or on TV; many gorillas, on the other hand, couldn’t do that. He looked at himself for a moment, then reached up to his head to brush out some blades of grass that were visible in the image.

Shoshana clicked more icons and a bigger window appeared on the screen, showing a webcam view of another room, with yellow-beige walls, an empty wooden chair in the foreground, and a row of mismatched filing cabinets in the background. “Okay, Miami,” she said into the mike. “We’re all set.”

“Roger, San Diego,” said a male voice in her ear. “Once again, sorry for all the delays. And — here we go.”

Suddenly there was a flurry of orange movement on the screen, as—

Hobo let out a startled hoot.

—as a small male orangutan made his way onto the chair visible on the screen, sitting with his long legs bunched up in front of him, and his long arms hugging those legs. The orang was making a face; he kept looking off camera, chittering. Shoshana could hear it over her headset but Hobo couldn’t — they’d deliberately muted the PC’s speakers.

What that? asked Hobo, looking now at Shoshana.

Ask him, Shoshana signed and pointed at the screen. Say hello.

Hobo’s eyes went wide. He talk?

On the monitor, Shoshana could see the orang — whose name, she knew, was Virgil — signing similar questions to his off-screen companion. Each ape simultaneously caught sight of the other signing. Hobo let out a startled yelp, and Virgil briefly clapped his long-fingered hands down on the top of his head in surprise.

Hello! signed Hobo, eyes now locked on the screen.

Hello, Virgil replied. Hello, hello!

Hobo turned briefly to Shoshana. What name?

Ask him, Shoshana signed back.

Hobo did so. What name?

The orang looked astonished, then: Virgil. Virgil.

“He said, ‘Virgil,’” Shoshana said, interpreting the unfamiliar gesture for Hobo.

Hobo paused, perhaps digesting this.

Shoshana tapped his shoulder, then: Tell him your name.

Hobo, he signed at once.

Virgil was a fast study; he mimicked the sign back at him.

You orange, Hobo signed.

Orange pretty, replied Virgil.

Hobo seemed to consider this, then: Yes. Orange pretty. But then he turned to look at Shoshana and flared his nostrils, as if trying to pick up Virgil’s scent. Where he?

Far away, Shoshana signed. Hobo couldn’t understand the notion of thousands of miles, so she left it at that. Tell him what you did today.

The chimp turned back to face the screen. Play today! he signed enthusiastically. Play ball!

Virgil looked surprised. Hobo play today? Virgil play today!

Dillon couldn’t help himself. “Small world,” he said, earning a shush! from Werner. But he was right: it was a small world, and it was getting smaller every day. Dr. Marcuse was nodding in quiet satisfaction at the spectacle of a chimpanzee talking to an orangutan over the Web. For her own part, Shoshana couldn’t stop grinning. The first-ever interspecies webcam call was off to a great start.