Chapter Two
Four hours later, Isaac sent his finished report off to Raviv, then closed the virtual screens over his desk and stood up.
“I’m heading home,” he said to Susan. “Don’t work too late, okay?”
“I’ll try not to,” Susan replied, staring intently at her screen.
“Also, Nina’s been bugging me for updates. You hear anything back from the director yet?”
“We won’t be hearing back for a while.”
“Why not? It’s been long enough for his reply to come back.”
“No, because I haven’t sent the request yet.”
“Excuse me?” Isaac asked. “You haven’t sent it?”
“I’m still writing it.”
“But didn’t you start working on that four hours ago?”
“I want to make sure it’s good enough,” she defended.
“Don’t you think you’re cutting it a little close? Our flight leaves tomorrow morning, so if Nina’s going to be on it . . .”
“I know.” Susan checked a virtual clock on her desk. “I still have time.”
“What seems to be the hold up?”
“It’s . . . here. Would you mind taking a look? I could use a second opinion.”
“Sure, no problem.” Isaac rounded the desk and took a knee beside Susan. The privacy filter lifted, and the text of her message crystalized.
Except he couldn’t read it. She’d written the message in the Admin’s version of Modern English, which was a combination of what people nowadays referred to as Old English and Old Spanish. He could make out about half the words, but the sum of it was still gibberish to him.
He activated a translation program through his wetware, and the text reappeared as the SysGov version of Modern English, which incorporated pieces of Old English and Old Chinese, though the tonal inflections from Old Chinese were now used to convey a subtext of meaning to the words. However, since Admin English lacked any equivalent, the translated text read a bit flat to him.
Though that wasn’t the only problem.
Not by a long shot.
“Oh dear.” Isaac began scrolling through the message. It took a while to find the bottom.
“You see what I’m dealing with, don’t you?”
“It’s a tad on the long side, I’d say.”
“I know, but all of it’s important. Trust me on this. I need to make a solid case if we’re to have any hope of getting Nina her ticket.”
“Hmm.” Isaac picked a passage at random. “‘Allotment of additional resources will lead to multitudinous beneficial factors. See bullet point list below.’”
“What do you think?”
“Your bullet points have bullet points.”
“That’s because I have a lot of points to make.”
“Maybe so, but . . .” He picked another passage. “‘Incontrovertible positive influence on cross-transdimensional political and social landscape.’”
“You don’t like it?” Susan asked, sounding worried.
“I think you’re leaning too heavily on your thesaurus.”
“Maybe, but I don’t want to come across as an idiot.”
“Don’t you think you’re overdoing it a bit?”
“Of course not. Trust me, Isaac. You have no idea how much scrutiny a request like this is going to receive. Never mind the fact that I’m”—she leaned toward him and whispered conspiratorially—“basically asking for a freebie so a friend can see the tournament live. Let’s be honest, everything I’ve written here is complete crap.”
“Yes, I think we can agree on that.”
“But it’s necessary crap. I’m trying my best to mask the true intent behind the request.”
“Susan, I think you’re getting more worked up over this than it warrants.”
She leaned back from him. “You think so?”
“I do. Part of your job is to be a representative for your people. Doesn’t this request fit in with all that?”
“You mean, by using my influence to help the sister of a co-worker attend a first-of-its-kind event live?”
“Well, when you put it that way, it does sound a little dubious.”
Susan let out a weary sigh and turned back to her letter.
“You think it’s good enough to send like this?”
“Sure, why not?” He stood up. “Zhǔ hǎo yún,” he added, inflecting the versatile SysGov phrase with a tonal subtext that transformed the Old Chinese words for “good luck” into something close to “nothing ventured, nothing gained” or “we make our own luck.”
“Point taken,” Susan said. “All right, I’m going to send it.”
“That’s the spirit.” He patted her on the shoulder. “After all, what’s the worst that could happen?”
“Ahh!” Susan covered her face. “Please stop saying things like that!”
