Factoring Humanity

“Lucy’s last name was Ricardo.” And then Kyle brightened. “And her maiden name was McGillicuddy.” He folded his arms, quite pleased with himself.

“But what about her husband?”

“Who? Ricky?”

“Ricky Ricardo.”

“That’s not — ”

“Oh, yes it is. No way his real first name was Ricky. He was Cuban; his first name had to be Ricardo: Ricardo Ricardo.”

“Oh, come on. Surely, then, ‘Ricky’ was a nickname based on his last name — like calling a guy named John MacTavish ‘Mac.’ ”

“No, it was his first name. Remember, even though they had separate beds, Lucy and Ricky still managed to have a baby They named him after his father — ‘Little Ricky,’ they called him. Well, nobody calls a baby ‘Little Mac.’ The father was Ricardo Ricardo, and the kid had to be Ricardo Ricardo, Jr.”

Kyle shook his head. “You think about the damnedest stuff, Stone.”

Stone frowned. “You gotta think about stuff, Kyle. If you don’t keep your mind busy, the shit takes over.”

Kyle was quiet for several seconds. “Yeah,” he said, then signaled the server to bring him another drink.

More time passed; more alcohol was consumed.

“You think that’s weird,” Kyle said. “You want to hear weird? I lived in a house with three women — my wife, my two daughters. And you know, they ended up synchronized. I tell ya, Stone, that can be brutal. It was like walking on eggshells for a week out of every month.”

Stone laughed. “Must have been rough.”

“It’s strange, though. I mean, how does that happen? It’s like — I dunno — it’s like they communicate somehow, on a higher level, in a way we can’t see.”

“It’s probably pheromones,” said Stone, frowning sagely.

“It’s spooky, whatever it is. Like something right out of Star Trek.”

“Star Trek,” said Stone dismissively. He polished off his fourth beer. “Don’t talk to me about Star Trek!”

“It was better than fucking Quincy,” said Kyle.

“ ’Course it was, but it was never consistent. Now, if all the writers had been women and they’d all lived together, maybe everything would have been in sync.”

“What’re you talking about? I’ve got lots of the background stuff — models, blueprints, tech manuals; I was quite a Trekker right up through my university years. I’ve never seen such attempts at making things consistent.”

“Yeah, but they ignored stuff all the time.”

“Like what?”

“Well, let’s see. What’s your single favorite incarnation of Trek?”

“I dunno. The movie Wrath of Khan, I suppose.”

“Good choice. That’s Ricardo Montalban’s real chest, you know.”

“No way,” said Kyle.

“It is, honest. Great pecs for a man his age. Anyway, let’s set aside the obvious stuff — like Khan recognizing Chekov, even though Chekov wasn’t in the TV series at the time that Khan was introduced. No, let’s poke holes in your vaunted tech manuals. On the upper and lower faces of the movie Enterprise’s saucer section, there are little yellow patches near the rim. The blueprints say those are attitude-control thrusters. Well, near the end of the film, Shatner orders the ship to drop ‘zee minus ten thousand meters’ — God, I hate to hear a good Canadian boy saying ‘zee’ instead of ‘zed.’ Anyway, the ship does just that — but the thrusters never light up.”

“Oh, I’m sure they wouldn’t make a mistake like that,” said Kyle. “They were very careful.”

“Check it yourself. Do you have the chip?”

“Yeah, my daughter Mary gave me a boxed set of the original Trek films a few years ago for Christmas.”

“Go ahead, check. You’ll see.”

The next day — Tuesday, August 1, 2017 — Kyle called Heather and got her permission to come by the house that night.

When he arrived, Heather let him in. He went straight to the living room and started scanning the bookshelves.

“What on earth are you looking for?” asked Heather.

“My copy of Star Trek II.”

“Is that the one with the whales?”

“No, that’s IV — II is the one with Khan.”

“Oh, yeah.” Heather held her fist in front of her face, as if gripping a communicator, and shouted in her best imitation of William Shatner, “Khannnnn!” She pointed. “It’s in the bookcase over there.”

Kyle sprinted across the room and found the DVC he was looking for. “Do you mind?” he said, indicating the TV hanging on the wall. Heather shook her head, and he slipped the chip into the player, then sat down on the couch opposite the screen. He found the remote and jammed his finger against the fast-forward button.

“What are you looking for?” asked Heather.

“This guy I know in Anthropology said there’s a mistake in the film: a shot where some thrusters should be firing but they don’t actually light up.”

Heather smiled indulgently. “Let me get this straight. You bought that bit about the Genesis Wave that can turn a lifeless hunk of rock into a fully formed ecosystem in a matter of hours, but you’re bothered by whether the thrusters light up?”

“Shh,” said Kyle. “We’re almost there.”