Chapter Three
Jake studied the computer screen, peering over the professor's shoulder, trying to decipher the graphics the app was displaying as the linguist tweaked parameters. Nathan-- Jake couldn't remember his last name-- hunched in his office chair, pursing his lips as he played with his scraggly beard, studying the computer monitor.
"This is puzzling. Not getting much." Nathan clicked on a menu and tapped some keys. "Oh well. Sending it up to the data center. These AI beasts use a humongous amount of memory. But the clips are short, so it won't take too long. This is all you've got?"
Jake had met Nathan in a faculty lounge earlier, introduced by colleagues when he'd asked if anyone knew a linguist. Nathan was a messy person: wrinkled clothes and uncombed hair, an equally disordered office, to which he'd led Jake when he heard the request. Jake had had to step over piles of books, magazines, papers, souvenirs, and who knew what else to move around to where he could watch what the linguist was doing. The piles gave the room a slightly musty, old-library scent, not pleasant.
A window popped up after a minute. Jake leaned forward next to him and tried to decipher the app's results. "Interesting," Nathan commented. He continued stroking his beard. "You said she spoke these sentences in her sleep?"
"Yes."
"Hmm." Nathan leaned back in his chair, forcing Jake to trek back around and take a seat in front of Nathan's desk after moving a pile of papers to the floor. "And she didn't tell you where she's from?"
"She says she can't. I'm not sure why."
"Well, she sounds northern European to me, Germanic or Scandinavian, and I speak at least three of those languages. It's strange the first pass didn't find anything like that. But see this K-means?" Nathan turned the monitor around a bit for Jake to see. "It at least found a decent set of phonemes. Except they're split into two clusters, which is weird."
Nathan had input Jake's recordings into an app he called ROSIE, some tortured acronym connoting the Rosetta Stone. He touted it as ML-based, optimized to identify spoken languages, and stated that he'd been collaborating on it with other researchers. The big tech companies had similar tools, but Nathan went on at length during the department happy hour on the superiority of his team's engine. As they trekked later down the halls to his office, he continued about how ROSIE had the advantage of using the thousands of field recordings linguists had been making for decades. He claimed it could identify hundreds of languages, including some obscure native American and Southeast Asian ones that were now extinct. "And you met this girl how?"
"Um... at a disco." To Nathan's skeptical side glance he quickly explained how he'd given a tech talk at an event there and she'd struck up a conversation afterwards. "We talked a lot and... sort of... hit it off." He did not, of course, mention the incredible sex.
"But she won't say where she's from? No clues? Her name?"
He felt embarrassed about her names, or rather her disregard for them, and that he'd gone along with her despite that. "Tahsin," he said as a compromise.
"Not familiar with that one. Family name?"
He shrugged. "I think she might be a refugee from somewhere." It was a lame excuse, and she'd denied it.
Nathan sighed. "So you picked up this girl at a disco-- okay a scientific talk at a disco-- and you hit it off and-- oh." An alert appeared on his screen. "Oh, I see." He worked at the keyboard. "This is why ROSIE is superior to those big tech models." Soon two dialogue windows opened. "Interesting. You said she was talking in her sleep? Very interesting." Nathan continued to study the screen, pulling up more windows with curves and graphs.
Jake watched but didn't understand any of it. "And?"
Nathan sat back. "Your girlfriend was speaking in two different languages." Jake suppressed the reflexive response to say she wasn't his girlfriend. "Listen," Nathan said, and clicked a button in one window.
Out of some beat up old speakers came her voice. The words really did sound almost English, almost Shakespearian. Nathan clicked a button in the other window. Her again, but totally different. Jake couldn't even say what continent the language came from. "Great! Okay, that's a start. Which languages?"
"That's the very interesting part. The computer identified one, but not the other."
"That's progress."
'Well... first, your guess about her accent doesn't seem far off. See this tree?" He pointed to a diagram. "One language is definitely Germanic. The computer suggests Frisian, maybe Danish or a koinê between that and Dutch, but not strongly. A koiné is a sort of upper-class creole."
"That makes sense."
"Except it's none of those. My collaborators at Oxford have a more focused model of Germanic samples. I could send it to them."
"Um, maybe later." He was feeling more guilty about recording her now that he was actually getting information about her from it. "What about the other language, the one ROSIE identified?"
"Oh, that." Nathan didn't look happy. "Must be an artifact. I thought we'd got rid of those long ago. I mean, it is another language, that's clear..."
"But?"
"But... the computer says it's Akkadian. That can't be right."
"I'm sorry, what did you say?"
Nathan shook his head slightly and rubbed the back of his neck. "Akkadian. Two Ks."
"Where is that? I never heard of that country."
"Because it doesn't exist. At least not anymore. Not since the Bronze Age."
"I think she lived in the Middle East for a while. Maybe some people still speak it?"
"Some archaeologists, maybe. They teach ancient Egyptian in a lot of departments. I think a couple of other languages from that era. From cuneiform tablets."
"She did say she was an historian."
"There you go. That's a clue. Does she look Middle Eastern? Iranian?"
"Hard to tell."
"Got a photo?"
"Um." He reluctantly took out his phone and showed Nathan the picture he'd taken, obviously in bed next to her. He'd already mentioned that she'd been talking in her sleep, but even so he now felt more guilty.
"Whoa. I see why you want to find out more about her. Could you maybe get her to meet me? We could talk? I speak several languages besides the Germanic ones."
The people in the lounge who'd pointed out Nathan had mentioned that. They didn't know how many languages he spoke, six or eight at least, maybe ten. But it looked like that one photo had given Nathan non-professional reasons to want to meet her.
"She, uh, is a very private person. Probably won't want to."
"Does she have a sister?"
# # #
She met him in front of the student cafe, which this evening had turned itself into a student tavern and hangout, but that wasn't their destination. He'd picked the place only because they both knew it and it was not far from the workshop. When he'd told her he had a LASSO event he needed to attend she'd insisted she should join him.
She was playing the historian card. "It's your fault," she said. To his dumb look she added, "When you told me about how fusion development collapsed, I did some research. It turns out you're right." She patted his arm, as if he were a bumbling amateur astronomer who'd stumbled on a new planet between Venus and Earth, but now the pro was taking over. "Your group should be a good place to start talking to people. Find out what really happened."
He reluctantly agreed to bring her. It was an informal event, guests allowed. At least, he thought, meeting some members of the collaboration and seeing the workshop would help to settle any remaining fears she might have regarding what he did there.
"You know," he said to her as they walked from the cafe, down the main path, to the workshop, "you didn't have to dress up for this. I mean, it's just an informal celebration we like to have when we ship out a detector. You look unbelievable, by the way."
He wasn't flattering her. Top to bottom she wore a crisp white blouse, a black pencil skirt, and pumps: a business outfit. She carried a small purse instead of her usual pouch. But the blouse was slightly translucent over her braless breasts, the skirt barely reached mid-thigh, and the shoes were black leather platform heels, almost goth, with straps that matched her real gold necklace, bracelets, and earrings. She was, as usual, smoking hot.
"I'm adapting to your culture." As if she'd put on a toga or ceremonial headdress.
"Should we come up with a culturally acceptable name for you?"
She eyed him slyly. "You're starting to get the hang of this. Try me."
"Let's see." He looked her up and down. "Ms.... Ms. Something, since you're sort of dressed for business. Ms. Pepper? Because you're so hot. But maybe that's too corny. Ms. Bedwell?"
"That's not exactly subtle. You're horny for me, I can tell."
"I'm always horny for you. But especially the way you look now."
She stopped walking and faced him, her hands on her hips, a faint but suggestive smile showing. "Should I bend over for you later?" She scanned around. "Or now?"
"I was picturing you on your knees, actually. Ms. Horn. To start."
She nodded. "Ms. Horn can be available later." The smile turned smug. "I guess you're stuck with 'Jake' for the evening. As always."
They arrived at the overgrown shed that was the workshop. He pointed down a narrow sidewalk that led around to the entrance to the shipping bay, the big space where they always held the parties.
Of course she made an impression on the team when they walked through the door. Jake realized in that moment that he hadn't prepared adequately for the team's reaction. Not even close. Though he couldn't imagine how he could have prepared, either them or himself. Every head, male and female, turned to her. He was used to seeing men's heads turn whenever they walked into a restaurant or bar. With a cohesive group the effect was even stronger. They all fell silent, leaving only some forgettable pop music echoing from somewhere. She'd taken over the room instantly, effortlessly.
