Achingly lonely and stranded a thousand miles from home, college freshman Gianna Nero nearly takes her own life by stepping in front of an oncoming bus. A stranger saves her from that grisly fate, in the form message sent by a soggy-mouthed alien, s...
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Gianna beamed inside as she stood at the head of her class, tapping symbols onto her pad with her stylus. She kept her brow furrowed, trying not to look so pleased with herself. The other students in her small cohort already hated her for being so much better at this than they were. So she held back, pretended that she was as dependent on the translation app as they were, though for the most part, Breva's words were clear in her mind.
The Three stood on either side of Breva's recorded projection, dressed in their drab sweaters and jeans, permanent thought lines etched into their foreheads. Gianna felt like a trespasser in their cramped, cluttered lab, and she tried to avoid brushing against the precariously stacked towers of computer equipment and recording devices.
A worldwide contest had identified the up-and-coming talent in sSuryn linguistics. Thousands had applied, ten were accepted into an advanced training class, and one had excelled above all others, earning herself a brief conversation with Breva as reward.
The tension in the room doubled as Gianna's name rolled off Breva's lips--pronounced with a light gurgle around the "Gee" that made her knees buckle and her ears tingle. Head to toe, she'd never felt more alive. He thanked her for her message, spoken with such flourish. He was impressed with how quickly someone so young had excelled. She held her laughter inside. She was hardly young, turned thirty-one this past April. Gianna had heard that sSuryn were protective of revealing their own age, but it was suspected that the sSuryn ship had been adrift for a century, and Breva claimed to have been aboard when it launched.
Breva flicked his tongue out, curling upwards, and sticking against his eye. The whole motion lasted less than half a second, but it meant he was apprehensive about something.
"However," he said in sSuryn, "I think I would be remiss if I didn't point out an error in your phrasing. What you meant to express was that it was a long-time dream for you to communicate directly with me. The fifth syllable is meant to hold a sustained stress with more moistness behind it. Otherwise it signifies a rather vulgar sex-act, one that would involve coiling your tongue around my--"
Gianna wanted to throw up. She cast her eyes up at Dr. Ramirez, the most respected of The Three. Dr. Ramirez's fingers flexed, like they wished to be wrapped around Gianna's throat. A decade had passed without an incident of this magnitude, but Gianna had decided to throw caution to the wind, to stray from the stock words and delve into those wetter ones that were more difficult for the human mouth to pronounce.
Gianna bent her head down and continued scribbling strange little symbols onto the screen, her stylus falling in sync with those of her classmates. But all she could think about was how she'd ruined her career with the mispronunciation of one damned syllable.
"--until a final forceful release," Breva continued. "So as you can see, it is a very painful yet pleasurable act. Or so I've heard. In any case, it is a common mistake--a play on words often used in literature--"
Snickering came from behind her as her cohort caught up on the translation. Gianna wanted nothing more than to curl up and die. The snickering soon grew to all-out laughter, and The Three cast spiteful looks at one another until Dr. Ramirez finally stepped forward and said, "Students! Show some professionalism, please."
The class slowly calmed itself, but Gianna eyed Breva's projection with a quiet bitterness. Was this merely a game to him? He had the whole world bending backwards and jumping through hoops for access to a steady trickle of alien technology. He'd shown little interest in Earth culture beyond a flimsy attempt to learn a few English phrases. He was arrogant. Pompous. Self-important. Gianna wanted so badly to be mad at him, and yet his was the only face in the room that didn't feed her humiliation. It was then that she noticed a slight bulge in his throat and an odd, silvery glow beneath his pale skin. Gianna got a strange feeling that maybe there was something on Earth that interested him. Her.
She heard someone mutter that Gianna had just set a Guinness World Record for a long-distance phone sex call, and laughter erupted again. Dr. Ramirez shut Breva's projection off mid-sentence.
It was the only sSuryn broadcast that SETI decided not to release an official translation for, but any fool with the right equipment could snag the signal and post their own hack-job subtitles. By the end of the day, the message had gone viral, and Gianna had single-handedly spurred a whole new genre of animated sSuryn porn. Gianna wanted off this planet, wanted to be with Breva on his ship, where she'd tell him that Earth was a crappy excuse for a planet anyway, and maybe they should just look for somewhere else to call home.
Dr. Ramirez called her into her office the next morning. Gianna expected to be told that she'd been officially expelled from the program, and though the tone of Dr. Ramirez's voice conveyed as much, her words spoke otherwise. "We've had a chance to review the end of Breva's message. He wants you to know that despite your flub..."
Gianna could almost taste the bitterness on Dr. Ramirez's lips. She knew the word choice was not her own. Her eyes read "monumental screw-up."
"...your message captured the essence of the sSuryn language. Breva sees great potential in you, and wants you to speak for him. He has asked that you join The Three."
Gianna tried to speak, but her words got tangled up in her head, and what came out was a bastard mix of English, French, Japanese, sSuryn.
Dr. Ramirez cut her off with a cold glare. "We think it is best if you tell him in your own words that you cannot agree to this. That you do not yet have the skill to perform such a task."
Of The Three that had been chosen to speak for Breva, Gianna feared Dr. Ramirez the most. But looking into those steely eyes, Gianna realized that Dr. Ramirez was scared, too. The Three were three because they all possessed specialized talents--translation, pronunciation, mannerisms. Maybe Dr. Ramirez saw what Breva saw. She knew that The Three would become The Four, and if Gianna continued to progress, they would soon need only The One.
Gianna smiled while allowing saliva to pool in the back of her mouth. "I think that you will find, my most cherished and honorable teacher," Gianna said in infallible sSuryn, her sarcasm surviving nicely through the translation, "that my skills will prove to be more than sufficient."
