The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria by Carlos Hernández

“I’ll tell you, Randy. But this has to be a secret between us.”
    “Okay.”
    “The reason we’re on this space station is because none of the brand-new nations on New Hope have the dunkaballs to say that they are letting me stick macrobes into cadavers on their soil. Sure, they want me to save the ecosystem and bring the macrobes back from the brink of extinction, just as long as I shoot myself into orbit to do it!”
    And just when things were getting good, those fragbags Malloy and Grisget called with another skratty problem they were having. So my dad left and I helped my asiMom clear dinner. After we finished, she said “You are a good son.” And then she added, “If you would like me to increase the amount of praise I give you, please say ‘Increase praise’ at any time.”
    5.
    I don’t even know why I have to be here. With you. I’m not crazy. I know my dad thinks I’m crazy, but I think he’s crazy, so we’re even. I’m not a “danger to myself and others.” I got that off of my chart. I don’t know who wrote that, but it’s not true. If you wrote that you’re wrong, and I know you wrote that.
    When I was on the space station I only got in trouble twice in the whole summer. And the first one wasn’t even that big a deal. I just used a nailgun without permission. On my asiBro.
    Why did they have a nailgun in a space station if it’s so dangerous?They shouldn’t have just left it lying around either. How was I supposed to know? It was just there, in Engineering, and okay, I wasn’t supposed to be in there, but it’s not like they locked the door or anything, and the nailgun was just there. And I didn’t take it for that long either. I just wanted to see what it could do.
    But you can’t use a nailgun on anything in a space station. Everything’s so breakable. It’s not like there was any wood or anything I could’ve used.
    So I took it back to my apartment. I didn’t need my asiMom for anything, so I told her to go recharge, and she did. And then I told my asiBro to come over.
    He came over and said: “That is a nailgun.” He was always identifying things, like I was some sort of kikface.
    And I said to him, “Hold out your hand.” And he did, and I shot him between the knuckles with the nailgun. The nail went in maybe a centimeter before it hit metal. The asiBro said “Ow that hurt,” but I could tell it didn’t. He still had the same happy idiot look on his face, and he didn’t even try to pull it out.
    So I shot him a few more times. Okay, a lot more times. It was funny. He just kept saying “Ow that hurt Ow that hurt Ow that hurt Ow that hurt” in the same normal voice over and over. It didn’t matter where I shot him: face, stomach, foot, chest, knee, or right in the dunkaballs.
    That was the day I discovered that when an asiBot is getting damaged, it calls its owner’s phone to let them know what’s happening.
    My dad busted into the apartment out of breath and looking really scared. I know he was really worried about me, but I wasn’t doing it for attention. I didn’t know my fragbag pretend brother was going to call him and narc me out. Well anyway, my dad didn’t stay scared long. He was too busy getting really really angry.
    6.
    My dad said I was lucky he didn’t send me back planetside. I told him he couldn’t, because no ships were coming from New Hope for another five weeks. He told me that I was wrong, mister, and that I was a kid and I didn’t know everything, so I should listen to him, because there was a whole ship-full of post-docs coming from New Hope that very day, and he was sure the captain would be willing to take me back. I said fine, I’ll go spend the rest of the summer with Mom and Lance Jr. At least Lance Jr. wasn’t stupid enough to just stand there while I shot him with a nailgun.
    And then my dad got quiet. It was weird. He just sat there and looked at me. It was so weird that when he finally said, “Go to your room,” I did without