Dirk stared at her, quizzically. D Ann sad.
“A little.” DeeAnn still couldn’t quite get used to the way IMIS pronounced her name during a translation. According to Lee, the computers seemed to have trouble resolving a double “e” following the letter “d.” He didn’t understand it either, but the resulting pronunciation sounded more like “D-an” with a stutter. It wasn’t a big deal, but it always reminded her that a machine was ultimately behind the translations.
Why sad.
DeeAnn looked at Alison. “It’s a long story.”
A loud buzz sounded from a monitor on the main desk. On the screen, a red error message displayed “unable to translate – story.”
“It’s all right,” Alison said. She changed the subject. “Are you ready for food?”
Dirk became noticeably excited once Alison’s words were translated into a series of clicks and whistles. Yes, food now.
Alison turned to Sally, who was hovering slightly closer than Dirk. “How about you, Sally? Are you hungry?”
The women heard their translation emitted from the underwater speaker, but Sally did not answer. Instead, she simply stared at them with her dolphin’s perpetual smile.
“Sally?”
Again the speaker sounded. After a long silence Sally finally replied.
You leaving.
Both Alison and DeeAnn’s eyes widened in surprise.
“That’s…right, Sally.” DeeAnn answered. “How did you know that?”
Why you leave?
She frowned. How could she explain human emotion to a dolphin? It was a lot of things. Depression. Grief. Fear. Fear of somehow losing the purest thing she had ever known. And the love of finally feeling like a mother.
“It’s…complicated.”
The translation system buzzed again, unable to translate “complicated.”
DeeAnn tried again. “It’s hard to tell you.”
Her response was successful, but Sally didn’t answer. DeeAnn wasn’t sure whether that meant Sally was satisfied with the answer or not. Dolphins were not human, but even with her limited time speaking with Dirk and Sally, she was surprised at how human-like some of the communication felt. She wondered if much of what we considered unique human communication actually had more underlying commonalities with other forms than we knew.
How you Alison?
“I’m good,” she smiled. “How are you?”
How you hurt?
Alison glanced down at her bandage. “I’m getting better. Thank you.” Since they had returned, both Dirk and Sally were surprisingly curious of their injuries, including those of Chris and Lee. In fact, curious wasn’t quite the right term. They were more “attentive.” She was very touched by their concern and wondered if they were somehow feeling responsible. They may have been there when it happened, but they certainly were in no way responsible. Still, at times it left her with a distinct feeling of not only sympathy from the dolphins but a sense of empathy. It prompted her to ask them on multiple occasions if they had been hurt by the explosion. They insisted they hadn’t, but she wasn’t so sure.
Where man?
Alison gave Sally a sly grin. The dolphin was asking about John. He had spent a few days with her on the island after their return and spent some time talking to Dirk and Sally. Being an expert in technology, he continued to marvel at what they had done with IMIS. He was particularly impressed with the vests Lee and Juan designed. Clay warned her that it was just a matter of time before the world truly understood what she and her team had achieved. He warned her to prepare for that. The wave of publicity they’d received in Miami after the first breakthrough would be nothing compared to what was coming.
Alison brushed her dark brown hair back behind an ear and answered Sally with a girlish chuckle. “John had to leave. He had to go home.”
Sally made the familiar sound that IMIS had long ago identified as laughter. He come back.
Alison sure hoped so. And maybe one day he’d be back to stay.
Upstairs, Chris was sitting with Lee Kenwood and Juan Diaz in the computer lab. It was comfortably sized and well organized with metal tables along the wall. Neatly stacked shelves hung above them, filled with books, a wide range of computer parts, and mounds of magnetic backup tapes. Another larger table rested in the center of the room, illuminated by a bright lamp overhead. On the table lay a new vest with various cables strung to a nearby computer.
Positioned in the middle of the vest was a large speaker with a much smaller microphone and digital camera embedded just a few inches above it. It was a replacement for the damaged unit that DeeAnn had brought back from South America. The system data had still been intact, but the small motherboard and processor were not worth salvaging.