Native Tongue

by Shannon Greenland

  TL cupped Parrot on the shoulder. “You need to put the past behind you.”

  With a nod, Parrot dropped his gaze to the table.

  I stared at his bowed head and the black shininess of his hair. My mind whirled with questions. Which man on the screen was TL referring to? Had something happened between the chief and Parrot? Or maybe Parrot had lived on one of those chief’s reservations. Was whatever happened the event that had led the Specialists to him? And what was this about a Venezuelan runway?

  And suddenly it occurred to me that every “bad guy” I’d run into so far had had a personal connection with me or one of my teammates.

  Some sort of history, a past, plagued every member of my team. None of us came from pristine childhoods. Some had suffered more than others. Could that be one of the reasons why we’d been recruited?

  It made me wonder what things I’d yet to learn, or maybe would never learn, about this group.

  “GiGi?”

  I snapped my attention to TL. “Yes?”

  “Did you hear what Jonathan said?”

  “No. I’m sorry. I was thinking about the whole situation.” TL had talked to me many times about my mind-wandering penchant. I hoped he let this one slide.

  He cocked a disciplinary brow.

  No, guess this one wasn’t sliding.

  “What can you tell us about cave drawings?” Jonathan repeated himself.

  I quickly got my mind back on track. “They’re a system of writing where pictorial symbols represent meanings and sounds.” Did I sound like a dictionary or what?

  Actually, Chapling and I had been working with glyphs for a mission in Egypt that Piper and Curtis, from Team One, were currently on. And I was developing a computer program that translated the ancient writings. “They can be found, surprisingly, everywhere. North America, South America, Europe, Australia . . .”

  “I know you’ve been assisting Chapling with the Egypt mission and decoding some drawings. And he tells me you’ve taken the initiative to create a translation program. According to him, you’ve made considerable progress.”

  I nodded, swelling a bit with pride. It really was a cool program.

  “Give us a quick rundown.”

  I took a moment to simplify things in my brain. “Piper found some glyphs, and she and Curtis were poring through research books trying to figure them out. It made sense to me to code it all into a program that’ll do the work for them. This way we can scan in the drawings and my program will provide the various translations. But I’m still in the initial stages.” And I had a long way to go. It was a good thing the glyphs weren’t a key part of the Egypt mission, because I had weeks and weeks of work to do to perfect the program.

  With a nod, Jonathan clicked his pen. “Good. The Junoesquian girl, Jaaci, retrieved the artifact from a cave. A cave that has never been documented in history but has always been a legend. According to her deceased father and the legend, the drawings in the cave are an ancient native code revealing a key piece of information about the vase. Obviously, we don’t know what that information is, but we are speculating it will reveal who the vase belongs to. So while Parrot’s translating the meetings, you’ll be in the cave decoding glyphs with your new program.”

  “But . . .” I detected a whiny note to my tone and concentrated on sounding more collected. “Why can’t we just video feed everything back here so Chapling and I can work on it together?”

  Jonathan pushed back from the table. “Sorry. It’s against Rutina law to photograph or film the caves. Besides that, a good majority of the glyphs are too faded to show up clearly on film.”

  My shoulders dropped. Of course they were.

  The conference door opened and Chapling, my mentor, waddled in. “Sorry. Sorrysorrysorry. Got sidetracked. Sidetracked sidetracked.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. Chapling had a unique way of bringing that out in me.

  Climbing up into the chair beside David, Chapling plunked a folder down on the table. He looked at TL and then Jonathan. “Am I up?”

  They both waved him on.

  Chapling rubbed his hands together. “Okay. Preliminary intel has revealed the drawings are a combination of numerous cultural glyphs. It would take a historian years to decipher the pattern.” He looked across the table at me. “But with smart girl’s new program, it can all come together in a matter of days.”

  Great. Talk about pressure.

  Chapling tapped his fingers together. “Which is a good thing because I just intercepted a message between two unknown parties that they are planning on stealing the vase.” He slid his folder down the table to Jonathan.

  “Meaning,” David spoke, “that you’ve got to decipher the glyphs as soon as possible and find out what the key piece of information is.”

  I did say pressure, right?

  Jonathan stood. “Do your best to find out who those unknown parties are.”

  Chapling nodded.

  “Anything else?”

  Chapling shook his head.

  Jonathan nodded to TL, who gathered up the folders in front of him. “Okay, follow us,” TL said.

  He led us from the conference room and down the hall. When we passed my computer lab, Chapling ducked off inside. We crossed in front of Wirenut’s electronic warehouse and Beaker’s chemistry lab and came to a stop at one of the mysterious locked doors.

  When I first came to the Specialists, these secret doors drove me insane with curiosity. After seeing what was behind three of the six, though, I suspected the remaining doors had something to do with Parrot, Mystic, and Bruiser’s specialties.

  Then again, in this new life of mine I’d learned not to expect the expected. Just when I thought I’d figured something out, it’d turn out different.

  TL pointed to the key pad. “This is coded in Uopoei, your first language. For now your code is simply the address of the last place you lived. I want you to change your code within twelve hours and inform me of the new one.”

  Parrot nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  TL stepped aside. “This is your room, your work area. You may come here during any free time you have.”

  Huh. I had only been allowed one hour an evening in my special room. Granted, now I could go anytime I liked, but in the beginning it’d only been an hour. Come to think of it, Wirenut and Beaker hadn’t been limited in their time, either.

  Parrot punched in his code. The door slid open to reveal an elevator. This was different. Mine, Wirenut, and Beaker’s doors opened directly into our special rooms.

  David, TL, Jonathan, Parrot, and I stepped inside the car, and the door slid closed. I glanced around. Nothing unusual. Just a plain old elevator. Except there was no directional panel with numbers and arrows. Instead, a panel of black glass, about one inch wide by six inches long, ran horizontal on the door.

  David stepped up and looked into it. A retinal scan. Cool.

  “This retinal scan is programmed to read you and me and TL,” David explained to Parrot. “You’ll stand looking in for three seconds.”

  The elevator slowly ascended.

  Ascended. I knew there were floors between the underground conference area and the ranch level. Every day was like a new discovery around this place.

  The elevator stopped. David motioned Parrot to do the retinal scan. “This is Subfloor Two.”

  The door slid open, and I followed the guys out. “If the ranch is ground level and the conference area is Subfloor Four, what’s on Sub One and Three?” I asked.

  “You’ll find out when the time is right,” TL answered.

  I smiled. I knew TL would say that, but I just had to ask.

  We entered a large room approximately fifty by fifty. Flat-screen TVs covered every inch of the four walls. The news silently played on every screen. Countries, dialects, and regions labeled the top of each monitor. Liberia, Australia, the Netherlands, Thailand, and on, and on. Some countries I’d never even heard of.

  A control panel, complete with headphones, a
keyboard, buttons, and dials, spanned the center of the room. Two white leather chairs sat in front of it.

  TL crossed to the center. “Parrot, this is where you’ll do your research. Let’s say, for example, you’re going to Japan.” He typed Japan on the keyboard.

  All the monitors in front of us tuned in to Japanese television and radio programs.

  “This is every single TV and radio station playing in Japan right now. If you want to watch cartoons”—TL picked up a laser remote and pointed the red beam at the cartoon station—“you simply select it.”

  The flat screens changed channels until Japanese cartoons took up the entire area.

  “And for volume”—TL rotated a dial on the control panel—“here’s your knob.”

  Surround-sound Japanese cartoons filled the room.

  Neat. Parrot must be ecstatic. I glanced over at him, smiling, excited for him. But his face held no expression as he watched the cartoons.

  “You know Japanese.” TL muted the cartoons. “Name a language you don’t know.”

  Parrot thought for a second. “There’s an island in the South Pacific whose inhabitants speak Loura.”

  TL keyed in Loura. The screen changed to display different television and radio stations from the South Pacific.

  He handed Parrot the remote. “You have five minutes to say this”—he indicated a paper on the control panel—“in Loura.” TL turned the volume knob.

  Oh my God. Was he kidding?

  With a calmness that I certainly didn’t feel, Parrot pointed the remote. One by one he flipped through the TV and radio stations.

  I watched his concentrated face as he tuned everything out and focused on the new language, listening, learning.

  “Fepqu, bee, aor, hikn . . .” Parrot started trying words a minute later.

  Words slowly turned to sentences. Sentences took paragraph form. Then Parrot picked up the paper and read it.

  My jaw dropped. Granted, it wasn’t completely seamless, but certainly better than expected. Unbelievable, in fact. Not even five minutes had passed. Given more time, he would have sounded like a true native of that South Pacific island.

  “Good, Parrot.” Jonathan slapped him on the back. “Beyond good.”

  Parrot put the paper down. “Thanks.”

  I grinned. “Wow.”

  He spared me a brief smile, and I got the impression he’d rather be anywhere but here.

  TL folded his arms. “I’d like you to tell me what you know about North and South Native American languages.”

  Parrot thought for a minute. “I know there’re more than seven hundred Native American languages currently spoken, with about two hundred here in the States and in Canada, about seventy in Meso-America, and five hundred in South America. And none of these languages is primitive. Their structure varies greatly. Probably the most characteristic sounds come from the back of the larynx, and a number of vowels are pronounced as nasal sounds. These languages also tend to use just one word to communicate a complex idea. The word order in a sentence is usually subject-object-verb, but subject-verb-object is also used. And many unrelated tribes have similar consonant systems. Most tribes, depending on their locale, have borrowed words from different countries depending on who they’ve interacted with over the years.”

  Parrot stopped. “I could go on, but it’s pretty boring.”

  I blinked. Sheesh, he knew his stuff.

  TL picked up an earpiece with a slim mike attached. “This is for one-on-one practice with a native speaker.” TL checked his watch. “You’re scheduled to converse with a Fino native in a few minutes. It’s one of the languages you need to learn for your upcoming trip. After that you need to go to bed and get some sleep and start fresh in the morning. I’ll let you all know when you’ll begin your series of inoculations. And, of course, horseback-riding lessons, as that will be your main mode of transportation.”

  My stomach dropped. “Inoculations?” Needles weren’t exactly a thrilling thought.

  “We’re going into the jungle,” Jonathan said. “We’ll be exposed to malaria, yellow fever, typhoid, diphtheria, and rabies, to name just a few.”

  I cringed. “Exactly how many shots are we talking about?”

  “A lot.”

  I paused for a second as my brain rewound. “Wait a minute, did you say horseback riding?”

  “Yes,” TL answered.

  I waited, but he said nothing else. Did they really expect me to ride a horse? Hello? Me? Queen of uncoordination?

  TL handed Parrot the earpiece. “I’ll leave you to it. Chapling and I will explain the rest of this room to you tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir,” Parrot responded.

  As I followed TL, David, and Jonathan back into the elevator, I glanced back at Parrot. He put the earpiece on and took a seat, looking so sad I wanted to stay and talk or stand silently nearby. Anything to be a friend.

  TL stepped up to the retinal scan. “GiGi, Chapling will be expecting you first thing in the morning.”

  “Yes, sir,” I answered, and then it hit me, the things I’d been curious about. Normally I kept my questions in and quietly accepted things. But being with the Specialists had made me more bold.

  With a glance at David, I turned to TL. “Sir, I’d like to know the answers to two questions.”

  He nodded. “Proceed.”

  “Question number one: Why didn’t you take Parrot’s monitoring patch? And question number two: How come you gave me only one hour a day in my lab when I first had access to it, yet you put no restrictions on Parrot, Wirenut, or Beaker?” I realized question number two came out like I was accusing TL of picking favorites, but I didn’t mean it to. I just wanted to know.

  TL folded his arms. “I took Parrot’s monitoring patch months ago when we returned from Ushbania.”

  “Oh.” Why hadn’t I known? I knew when TL took Wirenut’s and Beaker’s. Why hadn’t TL told me about Parrot?

  Because TL doesn’t answer to me. I answer to him.

  Right.

  “Initially,” TL continued, “I only gave you one hour because I knew you would become another Chapling if I didn’t restrict your time.”

  I smiled. Chapling lived in the computer lab. He rarely came aboveground. In fact, I’d only seen him up top at the ranch a few times that I could recall.

  TL was right. I could very easily become another Chapling. TL had seen that tendency in me and made decisions in my best interest. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy that he cared so much.

  The elevator opened, and we stepped out. Jonathan headed left toward the front door of the ranch house.

  I turned to TL. “Well, thanks for having my back.”

  “Sure.” He chuckled and pointed down the hall. “Now get some sleep. You have a lot of work to do tomorrow. David, come with me.”

  “Slave driver,” I mumbled.

  [3]

  My watch alarm vibrated at 6:00 the next morning. With a low moan, I fumbled in the dark for it on my nightstand and pressed the button that turned off the alarm.