Lee smiled at DeeAnn.
“It’s the problem they’ve been working on. Lee came to me last night with an idea that we were missing something.”
“It was a problem we couldn’t figure out,” he added. “No matter how much we dug into the code. Then it occurred to me that maybe there are more complexities going on that we still don’t know about.”
Alison turned back. “So, what is this?”
“It’s what IMIS is really hearing.”
“More sounds?”
“More frequencies. The colors represent the wider bands, much wider than we can hear.”
“What does that mean? It hears more words than we thought?”
“Maybe. But I suspect it may be more about tones or inflections.” He looked to DeeAnn.
“I’m sure it is. In a lot of languages it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. We should expect the same pattern with gorillas and other primates. We knew some of that was in the gesturing and expressions, but I certainly never expected the rest to be in sounds we couldn’t hear.”
Alison looked at her curiously. “So, primates can hear sounds that we can’t?”
“The designs of our auditory systems are very similar, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they work exactly the same. Some researchers have suggested that having more advanced brains may have caused us to devolve out of certain basic abilities. Like the range of our hearing.”
The room fell silent. It was a powerful thought. Devolution and evolution happening together. On a certain level, it made sense. Everything in life had a balance to it. Few things could be gained without something also being lost.
“Not to take away from the moment,” Lee said, “but there’s something even more interesting about this.”
“Like what?”
“Well, we think we know how IMIS is truly communicating with Dulce now. Which is big. But…” He looked at them with excitement. “This is not something we programmed IMIS to do –– to listen to such a broad frequency range.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that no one told IMIS to do it.” Lee smiled, waiting for them to pick up on his suggestion. Finally, he said it. “IMIS made the decision.”
At that moment, they all could have heard a pin drop.
“Whoaaa,” Juan whispered.
DeeAnn looked at Lee with wide eyes and tilted her head. “Are you saying that IMIS is thinking?”
He grinned. “Thinking, no. At least not as we understand it. But the system does employ several algorithms that give it a certain capacity for artificial intelligence. It’s not thinking…but it is getting smarter at solving problems.”
One floor below, the heavy figure of Bruna Lopez, the Center’s administrative assistant, hurried over the dark tiles which lined the ground floor. When she reached the bottom of the wide staircase, the admin grasped the railing with her right hand and continued her rush up the stairs.
Once at the top, she immediately covered the short distance to the double metal doors and pushed them open, looking around the room.
“Miss…Alison…”
Alison turned away from the others at Lee’s desk and spotted Bruna in the doorway, breathing heavily.
“Yes, Bruna. What is it?”
“Someone…is here to see you. She said…it was urgent.”
Alison turned to DeeAnn with a concerned look. The last time someone came to see them unannounced things ended very badly. “Who is it?”
“A woman. From San Juan. A Boricua.”
Both women quickly followed Bruna. She led them back downstairs but stopped short upon reaching the bottom step where they spotted a middle-aged woman curiously looking around their observation area.
When the woman saw Bruna returning, she appeared relieved and quickly closed the distance between herself and the women, staring intently at Alison as she did so.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “’I’m sorry. I was just-”
Bruna was breathing hard again but still managed an irritated glare. “I told you I would get her.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine.” Alison could see puffiness around the woman’s eyes. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m very sorry. I don’t mean any disrespect, but I have to speak with you.”
“About what?”
The woman took a deep breath. “My name is Lara Santiago. I've come to ask you for help. Not for me, for my daughter.”
“Your daughter?”
“Sofia. She’s eight. Her class came here recently on a field trip.” The woman frowned before continuing. “My daughter couldn’t come. She…she hasn’t been to school for a long time. She’s very sick.”