Outside, a row of palm trees waved in the soft morning breeze as a veil of thin white clouds passed overhead. Inside, the morning sun left the room inundated with bright light and drew attention to Alison Shaw as she sat on the edge of the soft bed, smiling warmly at Chris Ramirez.
He was raised almost into a sitting position and returned the smile to both Alison and John Clay, who was standing behind her. Chris noticed Clay’s cane and gave him a tired wink.
“It looks like you’re healing up well, Mr. Clay.”
“We both are.”
Alison placed one of her hands on top of Chris’s. “How are you feeling?”
“Not bad. A little loopy from the medication, but all in all, pretty good.”
She nodded and studied the gauze on his head. “Well, the bandages seem to be getting a little smaller. That’s encouraging.”
“I can’t tell,” Chris grinned. “They won’t give me a mirror.”
“I don’t blame them. It looks worse than it is.”
“Well, I’m clearly getting better. They’re letting me drink coffee again.”
Alison followed his nod to the side table and an empty mug, causing her to shake her head sarcastically. “You and your coffee.”
“It’s better than jelly donuts.”
At that, her eyes narrowed playfully.
“What was that?” Clay asked.
“You don’t know?” Chris’s grin widened. “Ali here has a jelly donut addiction.”
“No,” Clay replied, amused. “Somehow that’s never come up.”
Alison glared at Chris before twisting around. “Addiction is a bit of a stretch.”
“Oh, really? I seem to remember you eating the whole box.”
Alison stopped before shrugging at Clay. “It was during our research project in Costa Rica. The family I was staying with made them for my birthday.” Her eyes widened when Clay laughed. “What?! You couldn’t find them anywhere down there!”
The men laughed together and watched Alison’s face redden. She opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted when the large door to the room burst open, slamming against the inside wall. Alison and Chris both jumped, and all three turned to find Lee Kenwood standing in the room.
“Geez, Lee! You scared us!”
“I’m sorry,” Lee replied, still panting. “I didn’t mean to.” He nodded at the bed. “Hey, Chris.”
“I thought you were coming this afternoon?”
“I was. But something came up.” Without waiting, he rounded the far side of the mattress and stopped at Chris’s bedside table. “I have to show you guys something!”
In one motion, he slid off his backpack and pulled his laptop computer out. He set it carefully on the surface of the table and turned it sideways.
“What’s going on?”
Lee opened the lid, and the screen came back to life. He took a deep breath and tried to slow his breathing. “Something big. Something really big.”
“Did something happen?”
Lee nodded excitedly. “You could say that.” He typed quickly on the keyboard and logged in. When his screen brightened, it had a large window open. Lee turned back to the others with hands that were almost trembling. He suddenly stopped, catching himself, and looked at Chris. “Wait, how are you feeling?!”
“I’m fine, Lee. Now spill it!”
“Right. Good. Glad to hear it.” He turned back and addressed all three. “I’ve been doing some research. On IMIS. You know, checking errors and stuff. I wanted to go through the translations we imported from the vests. I think there may be some issues with one of the algorithms that measure context, especially given—”
“Lee!” Alison blurted.
“Right, right. Sorry.” He stopped and put his hands together. “Okay. Here it is. I was looking through the translations… and found something. Something more than what I was looking for.”
“Like what?”
“Like more translations!”
Alison and Chris looked at each other. “And that was surprising?”
“Yes, very surprising!”
“Because…”
“Because they weren’t supposed to be there. None of them. And they weren’t supposed to be there because we weren’t there!”
Chris squinted at Lee. “I’m not following.”
“What do you mean, because we weren’t there?”
Lee shook his head with a grin. “Sorry, let me back up. I say more translations because IMIS only translates when we’re present. Obviously. But in this case, translations were occurring without any of us being present!”
Alison frowned. “Okay… now I’m not sure I’m following.”
“Don’t worry about it, you will in a minute. The point is, none of us were there. But IMIS was still translating.”
“What would IMIS be translating if we weren’t there?”
“Exactly! But since the whole purpose of IMIS is to translate languages from and to English, the question isn’t what was it translating, it’s to whom? And that,” Lee exclaimed, “is what I’m about to show you.” With that he turned and hit a button on his keyboard, starting the video. He quickly hit another button, enlarging it.
The picture was a darkened image of their lab. The hundreds of blinking lights from the IMIS servers could be seen in the background, and part of the giant saltwater tank filled the left side of the frame. Centered in the frame were their work desks, one of which was facing the tank’s glass wall. On the desk was a monitor and keyboard, along with a long-necked microphone standing vertically next to it.
Standing to the side, Lee watched the video with them. “Here’s the lab,” he said, pointing to the top of the screen. “Notice the time.”
“1:34 A.M.”
“Exactly.”
“What happens at—”
“Shhh!” Lee said. A moment later, something moved on the screen, triggering the rest of the lights in the room to go on. The form briefly disappeared from the screen before suddenly appearing again. It was small and dark, and when it stepped fully into view, Alison gasped.
“Dulce!”
Lee nodded.
“What is she doing out? How did she—”
“Wait!” Lee said, raising a finger. “Just watch!”
The small gorilla stood quietly, examining the room. Her large hazel eyes passed over the camera and continued to the tank, where she appeared to spot the dolphins on the other side. She remained still, studying them for several long seconds before a second figure eventually neared the edge of the tank. It was Sally.
The dolphin continued gliding in slowly until her rostrum, or snout, reached the glass.
“That’s incredible,” Chris whispered.
Lee beamed back at him. “It gets better.”
On the screen, Dulce tilted her head and slowly unfurled her long dark, lanky arm, touching her finger to the glass. Sally studied the glass curiously before twisting sideways and touching her right fin to the same area.
Then something amazing happened.
The monitor on the desk suddenly blinked to life. On the screen, a familiar image appeared: the translation application for IMIS. Visible on the left-hand side was a thin line, and on the right, a window which listed both IMIS’s vocabulary and words translated.
Alison looked incredulously at Lee. “How did it do that?”
“I have no idea.”
It was then that they heard Dulce speak in a low grunt.
In the hospital room, all three leaned forward to get a closer look at the screen.
The monitor in the video showed the thin line dancing briefly, indicating it had detected and captured the sound. It was promptly followed by words being listed on the right side, but the video resolution was too tiny to read them.