Angels and Wormholes

Alien Interpreter

"He just got four implants." Cutter held up the fingers on his hand. "Give 'em some time."

Wojtek looked back to the lizard. "Hello?"

"Hello," the lizard said, in a human voice overlaid with a soft hiss.

"Hey, you can talk after all." Wojtek looked over at Cutter and smiled. "Good job."

The lizard looked at Cutter, who instinctively leaned back in his chair.

"Back here." Wojtek snapped the fingers on his robotic hand with a loud metallic ping. The lizard turned back to face him. "What's your name?"

"Name?" The lizard blinked.

"Yeah, your name. It's not a trick question."

The lizard tilted its head and remained silent.

"I think you broke it," Wojtek said to Cutter, "thing doesn't even know its name."

"Give him a minute," Cutter said. "That's practically a brand new brain in his head. Could be confusing taking it for its first run."

"You remember your name?" Wojtek stared at the lizard.

The lizard stared back for a moment. "I am Chaicauhtli."

"Chai' what?"

"Chaicauhtli."

"See?" Cutter said. "He just needs to wake up a bit."

Wojtek leaned onto the foot of the surgical table. "Alright, Chai'. I'm going to make this really simple for you. I'm looking for two people who look like us -" he motioned to Cutter "- two humans. You tell me where they are then you can go."

"I don't know," Chaicauhtli said.

Wojtek sighed. "Two people that look like us." His voice grew louder. "We know they were headed to your mountain."

"Mountain?"

"The mountain we picked you up from."

"I don't know."

Wojtek looked at Cutter. "You sure you didn't screw with his memory?"

"Yeah." Cutter motioned to the data on the computer. "He was in neural stasis. His memory should be fine."

"Chai' -" Wojtek turned back to Chaicauhtli "- what's the last thing you remember?"

"I remember -" Chaitcauhtli tilted his chin up to the ceiling and closed his eyes "- walking across the starwalk on Peregrine station..."

"Peregrine station?" Wojtek looked to Cutter. "You're sure you didn't mess with his memory?"

"Something must be wrong." Cutter set to work at his computer. "I'll figure it out."

"How could his last memory be Peregrine station?"

"I used neural maps as templates to construct some missing concepts -but I inhibited cellular growth. He shouldn't remember any of it. The only thing I modified was the libraries and the interface."

Chaicauhtli observed them silently.

"What neural maps did you use for the templates?" Wojtek asked.

"Patient backups," Cutter answered.

"That explains Peregrine station."

"But he was in neural stasis. He shouldn't remember it."

"Clearly something went wrong."

"Yeah, I get that. I'm working on it. But can you still use him?" Cutter motioned to the alien.