FOR THE FIVE DAYS OF the shareholders meeting, this will be my routine: My wrist pad will wake me a few minutes before the technicians arrive in my room. I will set its alarm myself, so I don't feel as if the technicians are controlling my schedule. But they are. They will unzip me from the sleeping sleeve that prevents any of my genetic material from escaping into the sheets and mattress. I will bathe for ten minutes in the water showers, and while technicians help dress me, others will filter and dispose the gray water and clean the tiles. I will be injected with three serums and my vitals catalogued. At one time, I had a venal port installed to minimize the daily injections and blood withdrawals I had to endure. It was removed several months before the first generation of neural ports, back when Pureline was still considering installing them in synths. I suspect it was to highlight the convenience of the neural procedure. "Pureline makes our lives easier." Even if it has to first complicate them to do so.
Then Maman will inspect my appearance. She will dust my shoulders with a sweep of her fingers, smooth the fabric of my lapels. She will make sure my hair is shaved down to smooth skin and covered securely under my translucent scarf, which she will pin in place with the silver symbol of Pureline, the pierced sphere. She will inject me with another set of chemicals. These have always been my favorite moments of the day: just the two of us, her careful attention. I'm sure the monitors would show my heartbeat quieting, my brain waves calming, my breath serene.
Once approved, I will accompany her and Selo to various testing rooms. The tests have a mental component (interviews, intelligence exams, puzzles) and a physical component (everything from blood, bone, and tissue samples to stamina, coordination, and endurance tests). The tests are long. Usually they involve my completing a task and then waiting up to an hour while various Pureline doctors analyze and discuss the results with Selo and Maman out of my hearing. Then there is the waiting while Pureline administers tests to the other synths from our delegations. They are young and new and unknown. Their tests will be longer. I am old. Every cell of my body has already been poked, prodded, sampled, and tested many times. I am what was once called a well-thumbed book. My tests will be shorter.
Afterward is usually a small space of time where I can rest in the delegation suites. At the conclusion of the day is a plenary event -- dinner, the exhibits, a presentation, or a social gathering of some sort. Selo and Maman will change their attire to evening wear, but I will stay in my uniform. Then I am escorted back to my chamber in our lab, undressed, re-clothed in sleeping attire, and zipped into my sleeve.
This routine does not really vary that much from my usual one, except that I would have fewer tests and I would make a visit to the coding room, a task that is temporarily (I hope temporarily) suspended during the annual meeting.
I began to work as a decoder after testing well a few years ago for languages. I'm not sure if it was a reward for doing well or a result of Pureline's genuine need of the skill. Maman encouraged it. I welcomed it, as it brought the possibility of my living longer. Selo was unimpressed.
My task is to interpret messages. Our delegation hasn't isolated what part of my genetic material is linked to this talent yet. I suspect they will soon. It's enough for now that I'm useful, alive, and that I have something to occupy my time between having my blood drawn and taking new tests.
Each day, I enter the coding room. A laser scans my retina, and the glass doors slide open. I sit at my table, and archaic characters appear on a screen.
I only receive pieces of a message. Maybe two or three words. Sometimes as many as ten or twelve. They come in a single string of symbols that I break into discrete pieces. In most languages, the last few characters of the word tell me the part of speech, what function it might have in the syntax of the sentence. Depending on the other words and their functions, the word may have different meanings. The messages are complicated further in that the symbols and characters may be from different languages. I then must determine whether the arrangement of the characters and their respective language systems suggest an overarching syntax. Sometimes the syntax may be complimentary, sometimes divergent. If it's divergent, I will have to attempt to translate various possibilities and settle on the more likely translation.
The multitude of meanings the words may have are another variable. Some languages have words that mean different things depending on the other words in the phrase. Words not only talk to us, they talk to each other. Of course, I can't account for the part of the message I don't have, so there is a potential for mistake.
Messages are coded by dead languages. We call it dead code.
In a dead language, there is no risk that the possible meanings of a word will expand or contract, no risk of the syntax evolving. All of the variables are frozen in time, embalmed for dissection. It gives the coding more certainty. It eliminates the risk of unauthorized translation. I can count on one hand the individuals authorized to know any archaic language. I am fluent in forty-three, although some are derivations of others. I am fluent in only one living language, the national language of Pureline. I should say that there is only one living language, yet I know enough from my training and translations that there are more. But we do not speak of that.
Of course, what is inconvenient is that no language is truly dead. There is always a bit of green inside. When the staff of deadwood is planted in the mind, there is always a risk that a shoot will sprout. So it is with deciphering. The coders sheath their messages in certain ways, and I can already recognize styles. Like a fingerprint. If I were tempted, I could perhaps take the discrete snippets of messages that I receive and group them by style and formulate (again, perhaps) a single coherent missive.
The translations do tempt my imagination, of which I have too much. Once I received a phrase that translated, their progeny in pieces. It could have read, their result ruined, but I discounted that. While the characters I decoded as progeny -- really, most likely children -- were sometimes used to mean creation, as in a work of art, the etymology of the characters for pieces was generally medical: amputation. I suppose the author could have intended that an emotional, familial tone accompany the destruction of someone's oeuvre or composition,a poetic metaphor, but it would have been more shocking to encounter emotion than the strange phrase indicating that children's bodies were amputated. Pieces and progeny seemed the more pleasant words to allow for the hope of an altogether different meaning.
This message haunted me for days. I still question my translation and the image it embedded in my brain. It colored all the other missives I received. Satellite camps became the place that the tiny bodies were strewn. Ample supply reserves were the needle and thread needed to stitch the ragdoll children back together.
My task at decoding is something a computer program has not been developed to do. It was tried. It is still being tried. I'm sure there is a computer rendition of all my translations by which to test and compare the latest software. The same for the human coders who create the message. But the thought process involved to separate the single cluster of characters into words and then select which meaning of the words would logically fit into a meaningful phrase was too complex for any of the programs. Humans had a greater success rate in staying true to the intent of the author. But there is always the possibility that the software will catch up, or that a better way to cipher and decipher messages will be found.
If my task is obsolete, will I cease to exist? Maman becomes upset when I ask these questions. She says I am no longer in the Pure now. My mind is polluted with possible futures.
But I can't stop. Were the children angels? Did their function cease?
YOU ARE READING
Pureline
Science Fiction"I am a synth. It's a word that's wielded like a baton. Sometimes, they call us betas or prototypes. Or rabbits, for those who like their cruelty to have a more clever bent. It's also a dangerous word. When you get down to the bone...
