“I’m ready,” Hail said. “Be gentle.”
“Yeah, like that’s going to happen,” Kara mocked.
Marshall Hail left the mission center and went up to his stateroom to change. He pulled on some grey baggy shorts and a white tee-shirt. He glanced at the mirror and thought to himself, “Man, you have really let yourself go.” He grabbed a few inches of belly fat and tried to puff out his chest to compensate for the bulge, but his effort made his stomach stick out another two inches as well. He sighed and left his cabin.
On the way to the ship’s gym, Hail made a short detour and badged himself into the ship’s security center. Dallas, Tayler and Lex were all on duty.
Tayler was flying Queen, the ships security drone, in a twenty-mile radius above the Hail Nucleus.
Lex was monitoring the ship’s sonar and radar for perceived threats.
Dallas had on headphones and was listening intently to something, so lost in concentration that he didn’t even notice Hail walk into the room.
Hail tapped him on the shoulder.
Dallas looked up, pressed the pause button on his screen and swiveled his chair around so he could talk to his boss.
“What did she say when she was using my phone and talking to her CIA boss?” Hail asked.
Dallas shook his head and made a confused face.
“It’s pure gibberish,” he said. “I don’t know what the hell they were saying.”
Before Hail could ask him what he meant, Dallas said, “Here you go. Give this a listen.”
Dallas pressed an icon to pipe the sound of the recording over the security center’s speakers. He then pressed the play icon.
“Zipadub zubadap sub zub zipzapadub zipadadadub zubub.”
Dallas let the recording drone on with Kara saying the nonsensical words. When she had completed a phrase, the nonsense reply would be issued by a mechanical voice that was talking in the same crazy manner.
After a moment or two, Dallas paused the play back of the recording and said to Hail, “What do you think about that?”
“That is some crazy shit, is what I think about it. What do you think is going on?”
Dallas shook his head.
“It’s a language of some sort. I think we should have Alba listen to it. After all, she is our analyst in charge of language communications. Maybe she would have a clue.”
“But what’s that weird voice responding to Kara? It doesn’t sound human.”
“I don’t think it is,” Dallas agreed. “I think it’s an application of some sort that is instantly translating what Kara is saying.”
“So you think that Kara knows this language, but whoever responds to her replies in English and then it is mechanically translated back into the weird language that Kara understands?”
“That would be my best guess,” Dallas said.
“Very interesting,” Hail said. “Every time I think I’ve seen all the dimensions of Ms. Ramey; she then shows me another.”
“And she has some great dimensions, if you don’t mind me saying,” Dallas proclaimed.
“No arguments there,” Hail confirmed.
Hail thought for a moment and said, “Have Alba listen to it and see what she thinks. I have to go work out with Ms. Ramey right now. It would be nice if I could ask her about it, but then I would have to start the conversation by saying, ‘So, I was listing to the phone call you had with your boss that we secretly recorded…’”
“Yeah, that could be a problem,” Dallas agreed.
“Besides Ms. Ramey and her language skills, how is the Sea of Japan looking today? All quiet?”
“So far so good. All the Asian countries are behaving themselves today.”
“That’s good news,” Hail said. “I will be in the gym if you need me.”
“Don’t have a heart attack,” Dallas quipped with a smile.
“No guarantees,” Hail said as he left the room.
The gym was on the other side of the ship and Hail was winded by the time he got to his workout. He felt that was probably a bad sign.
Kara was already running on a treadmill, watching a TV monitor that was mounted to the front of the contraption. A wire led from the TV to a pair of ear buds that were stuck into each of her ears. She didn’t notice Hail when he walked in, but Hail noticed her. Kara was dressed in black yoga pants that hugged her perfect rump like dark skin. At her thin waist, where her yoga pants ended, a patch of porcelain white skin covered up her hard abs until they disappeared under a silver bra made from spandex. At least to Hail it looked like a bra, but it was probably some sort of exercise top. Whatever the hell it was, Hail approved. The woman looked stunning. Her crazy curves bounced and jiggled seductively as she ran. Her red hair flew out behind her, being blown by two fans that were built into the control panel of the treadmill. Kara was glistening with perspiration and her face was flushed with a healthy pink hue.
Hail walked up and stepped onto the treadmill that was next to her. Kara saw him from the corner of her eye and pulled out her ear plugs with a single yank of the wire.
Hail said hello and Kara pressed the pause button on her treadmill and it came to a slow stop.
“So what did you think?”
“What did I think of what?”
Kara looked bemused. She smiled knowingly at Hail and said, “Come on, Marshall. Keep in mind that I’m a CIA agent. So, if I were in your shoes, the very first thing I would have done before I came down here was stop and see your techno-nerds and have them play back the recording of me talking to my boss.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about?” Hail said, doing his best to act surprised and somewhat insulted.
“Really? That’s the trust you want to nurture between us?” Kara said, shaking her head disapprovingly at him.
Hail thought about it for a moment, gave in and said, “What kind of language is that?”
Kara smiled like she had won a small battle and said, “I call it Zub-a-dub language.”
Hail pressed the slow button on his treadmill. His machine came to life and Hail started walking.
Kara pressed the slow button and then pressed the up arrow until her belt was moving twice as fast as Hail’s. Kara started walking.
“What is Zub-a-dub language?” Hail asked, already knowing the answer would be as confusing as the language.
Kara smiled and increased her treadmill to a slow run. “Now, why would I tell you that? Obviously it’s a language that I can use to talk to my boss when you are secretly recording my conversations.”
“I thought we were trying to build trust,” Hail said, sounding hurt.
Kara smiled. She enjoyed this chess game.
“I’m going to tell you about Zub-a-dub only because it’s nothing that you can research or figure out. It’s not like the Navajo language they used in the Second World War that totally baffled the Germans.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I made it up,” Kara said with pride.
“You made up a language?” Hail asked skeptically.
“Yep. When I was a little girl I made up Zub-a-dub.”
Hail didn’t know how to respond. He was going to ask if that was a common thing for little girls to do, but before he was put on the spot, Kara added, “As you already know, I’ve always had a knack for languages. Even back when I was little, they were fun. I played around with some of the common gibberish languages like Pig Latin and Ubbi dubbi, but they bored me. So one day, I decided to make up my own language. It was like Ubbi dubbi, but instead of substituting sounds into words, I made up a unique word in Zub-a-dub that matched thousands of English words.”
“That would hurt my brain,” Hail said. “Who did you talk your new language with?”