“We can stay in touch by phone. You have the satellite phone on the boat.”
Alison sighed again and covered her face with her right hand. Something about this didn’t feel quite right. It was too rushed. In reality, they still knew very little. The only reason to throw things together so haphazardly was because they didn’t know whether Luke was alive and, if so, for how much longer.
“Assuming Alves can provide what’s needed,” DeeAnn said, “there’s really only one thing left.”
They looked at each other and then both slowly turned around. The one thing was an awfully big ‘if.'
18
“You want us to make another vest?!” Lee Kenwood was leaning over his metal workbench. Juan Diaz was on the opposite side, disconnecting wires.
Both Alison and DeeAnn stood at the end of the workbench, watching them. “Is it possible?”
Lee stopped and looked at them. “You mean when we get back from the open water testing?”
Alison glanced nervously at DeeAnn. “No, before we leave.”
Both Lee and Juan stopped what they were doing. “Before we leave?”
Alison eked out a small grin. “Possible?”
The two engineers turned their gazes back to each other, considering. Juan shrugged first. “There’s always V2.”
Lee took a deep breath, still thinking.
“What’s V2? DeeAnn asked.
Reluctantly, Lee replied. “It’s the backup.”
“The backup what?”
“The backup waterproof vest.”
Both women’s eyes opened wide. “We have a second vest?”
“Well, ‘second’ might be a stretch. It’s a second unit primarily for spare parts. We were planning to take it with us on the boat.”
“Does it work?”
Again, Lee and Juan exchanged looks. “It could work. But I’m not sure how quickly. We’d have to do a data dump and then go through testing, which takes longer than anything else. More importantly, the translations would be very slow without a separate server. The processor in the vest is small which is why we offload the bulk of the work to other servers. When are you and Dulce supposed to leave?”
“How about tomorrow?”
Lee rolled his eyes. “I don’t think we can make that. The data dump would take almost that long, leaving us virtually no time to test. Could you leave on Saturday?”
DeeAnn frowned. “I have a friend in trouble.”
“And you need an IMIS system to help?”
“Yes. And Dulce too.”
Lee was still pondering when Juan spoke. “We could probably put it together in time, but with only minimal testing. If it didn’t work, it would be a wasted trip. It also means we have no backup or spare if we have problems during the open water test. And speaking from a technical standpoint, having no backup is a really bad idea.”
“Have you had any problems so far with the first vest?” Alison asked.
“Not yet.”
“Well, that sounds encouraging.”
“We’re still in a controlled environment. Sending the second vest off without thorough testing, especially if you need it so badly, scares the hell out of me.”
“Well,” DeeAnn interjected, with her hand resting over her mouth. “Maybe we can test on the way.” They all turned and looked at DeeAnn, who smiled at Juan. “Ever been to South America, Juan?”
Juan returned the smile. “I can be packed in ten minutes.”
DeeAnn looked at Alison playfully. “I hate that about men.”
“Hold on,” Lee said. With a sigh, he ran his hand over his face. “There’s something else.” Lee circled the other end of the workbench and headed for his computer. “Something I need to show you both.”
He fell into his black chair and rolled forward, placing his hands on an extra wide keyboard. “We have another problem.” He opened a window that filled the entire screen, displaying another frame of video footage. The long list of system log entries appeared alongside of the video. The frequency of red colored errors in the log was increasing. “I’ve been trying to track it down, but I can’t seem to find it.”
“Track what down?”
“This.” He pointed to the list of errors on the screen. “This is the main system log for IMIS’ translation process. This is where identification and translation happens. And these red entries are indicating problems.”
Alison leaned in closer, staring at the text. “What kind of problems?”
“Problems with the translations… as in mistakes.”
Both of the women’s eyes widened. “Mistakes?”
“Yes.” Lee sighed again, turning around to face them. “There’s a lot involved in what IMIS does. It starts with converting the analog wavelengths of our voice into digital data. It then parses that data into chunks that can be matched against spelling and grammatical rules looking for errors. Then it applies dozens of-” he suddenly stopped when he noticed their eyes beginning to glaze over.
“Okay,” he continued. “So that’s basically how it works… but here’s the problem: the communication is increasingly becoming less systematic. In other words, it’s unraveling.” Lee swung back around to his screen. He grabbed the mouse and scrolled up through the log until the entries displayed the time and date from four days ago. “Look at this. Not as many errors as today.” He then scrolled up further. “And even less last week.”
“So they’re increasing?”
“Exactly.”
“So what are the errors saying?” asked DeeAnn.
“What they seem to be indicating is that an increasing number of language translations are no longer matching. The time synchronizations are off. Which means the data is being received and transmitted out of order.”
Alison stood up straight. “So what does that mean? We’re not really talking to Dirk and Sally, or Dulce?”
“No, that’s the weird part. There aren’t any errors for Dirk and Sally’s translations, just Dulce’s. And, yes, we are really talking to her, for now.” He scrolled back down his log entries. “But the errors are clearly increasing, and we’re already close to one error out of every twenty translations. It’s getting worse, fast.”
DeeAnn shot Alison a worried look. “And you have no idea what the problem is?”
Lee shook his head sheepishly. “I don’t. I’ve been trying to figure it out, but haven’t been able to yet. If I had to guess, I would say there’s something wrong with one or more of the logic sequences we developed for Dulce. Those that are primate specific. Or, perhaps a flaw in one of the algorithms itself. Either way, it indicates this to be a deep problem and not something we can fix quickly, or easily.”
DeeAnn took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. “So what you’re saying is even if we build another vest for me to take, it may not work regardless.”
“I’m afraid so. I agree with Juan. We could assemble a vest in time and make it work, even if he went with you and did the testing on the plane. But at some point, your communication with Dulce is going to become less and less accurate until you reach a point that you can’t even understand her.”
“How long do you think I’d have?”
“Hard to say,” Lee shrugged. “Judging from the speed the errors are increasing, I’d guess three or four days.”
Alison folded her arms. “And you think this will take some time to fix.”
“Eventually, yes. We haven’t even identified where the problem is, let alone begun working on a fix.”
Alison turned to her left and stared at DeeAnn. “Well, I guess it’s now or never!”
19
Will Borger peered through the side window of the blue-gray SH-60F “Oceanhawk” helicopter and watched the blur of the blue Caribbean waters passing beneath them. His white knuckles gripped the top of his bag, which was secured tightly between his knees as he kept his eyes closed and tried to fight off a budding sense of nausea.