Talkative Benefactor

Anna was sitting cross-legged on the floor.

She seems to be browsing a social media site of sorts in one of her tablets. Occasionally she laughs and rapidly types something. For the most part, she just swipes the screen with a finger.

With one hand she was holding a poor excuse of a sandwich. I call it that way since the only thing that differentiates it from any other bun is the weird edible cream she whipped inside it. 

She simply called it Sandwich Cream. When I tasted it, it was like a mixture of ketchup and mayonnaise with a minty aftertaste. It was not that bad. However, I very much prefer to have just the bun.

I was on the couch, staring at Meep. The robot was carrying two bottles of milk. Quite a while ago, Anna ordered her to give her 2 glasses of milk. The mechanisms Meep used to grab two glasses of milk was a mystery to me, but not for long. A part of Meep's surface opened and a robotic arm emerged from it.

Meep then proceeded to place the milk glasses on the table.

"Anna, pray tell me. How do you know English while everyone else seems speaking an entirely different language?" I ask Anna while grabbing a glass.

"Entirely different language..." Anna mutters softly while still having her eyes glued on her tablet. "How do they sound to you?"

I take a sip from the milk before replying. "Undecipherable gibberish. I can not find any sense of familiarity to it either."

"Very understandable. They all speak English too, you know? Although they speak Post-Departure English that has undergone countless evolutions since its official conception in the 35th century."

"Post-Departure English?" I inquire before munching on another bun.

"An official term for the kind of English after the Great Departure. Though it was a term coined only in the 70s. Before that we had Post Modern English..."

Come to think of it, English officially invented in the 5th century and Modern English took shape in the 15th century. With a mere difference of around a thousand years, Old English has become nearly, if not completely, undecipherable for Modern English speakers such I myself.

During the 21st century, English was rapidly evolving too with new words every year and the new generation making their own shortened conventions. With how fast things were progressing in my century, I should be not too surprised for an entirely new English to emerge by 2100. How much more if it was 2000 years which is double the time it took for Old English to progress into Modern English. I would want to inquire about this Post-Departure Era thing, but that seems to be hardly relevant.

In the first place, Anna has not answered my question yet. Though, before I could keep the conversation back on track, it was already too late. Anna started blurting out a lot of sentences one after the other. I surely felt her passion on the subject, but I had a hard time following, nor I really cared about these stuff. Nevertheless, I thought it would impolite to not listen. She is sort of my benefactor after all.

"In my junior years in the University, I took 21st Century Literature. It was an interesting subject as it explored the era which saw a very steep rise of published books and pieces of literature. Sure there was a very steady rise that happened from the 25th to the 27th century due to the rise and spread of cybernetic brain implants that aided writers in their imagery, motivation and writing skills. But it spread quite slowly due to the skepticism and protests of traditional writers. There is also a significantly much steeper rise during the early 31st century due to the unregulated production of books written by artificial intelligence and androids. But it went to an abrupt decline due to protests of pure human and cyborg writers. Most of them were losing in sales after all. In the end, several regulations were imposed. And you know, it just felt very different to read books written by codes compared to books born out of the raw imagination and creativity of actual humans."

Anna pauses for a bit as she takes a gulp from her milk. After wiping the foam stuck above her lip, she continues "Different from the rest, the rise of literature in the 21st century was mostly due to widespread access of writing devices, internet, globalism and a lot more. It was written by pure humans without modifications in their body. I think that is amazing."

She kept on talking and talking until she reached the topic of Japanese light novels and manga which was mostly distributed to the global audience by independent fan translators. Also, most often these translations and scanslations are illegal.

After another 5 minutes, she finally said something that answered my question. "And so, after taking 21st Century Literature in the University, I took a 3 month class specifically about 21st Century English from a virtual school and another about Nihongo. Then I proceed to enjoy great pieces of literature in their raw untranslated form."

"Well, good for you." was the most response I could muster.

Anna sure talked a lot. Every simple question I asked was answered with a 10 minute speech. This was certainly a far cry from being the soft-spoken girl who stuttered a bit when I first saw her.

In summary, Anna chose an elective of ancient languages in her junior years in the university and has quite done well with it. She boasts she can also speak Old English, Mandarin, Nihongo and even Swahili. She says a couple of phrases in those languages to demonstrate to me her superb linguistic ability. When I remarked how amazing she was, she told me it was nothing special. She had some cybernetic brain implants after all, like most other students.

Her passion in lost languages is also one of the reasons why her thesis group thought of going as far as trying to revive ancient people. Though not exactly necessary, it was a huge bonus to have someone who can fluently speak a long lost language to communicate to their experimental subject. With Anna on board, they could communicate with an ancient person to gather data without renting or purchasing a translator android.

She remarked those are expensive for no reason. I roughly guess they are unreasonably expensive to not let those ancient languages courses go unpurchased. I do not have enough data to say that for sure though.

Regarding their thesis, they are trying to figure out at what was the earliest recoverable brain data. Before me, they have tried importing several brain data that dated older than my own. It took 14 experiments to get to me. They have also replaced their clones 2 times. The first clone suffered organ failure caused by errors and carelessness due to their inexperience. The second error was due to the clone suffered permanent brain damage after being uploaded incompatible or simply useless brain data.

Clones were expensive. It was so expensive to the point that a purchase of single clone alongside with necessary permits exceeded all the other expenditures they had. Before trying to import my brain data, their team extensively tested it on a brain simulation application used by cloning and brain importation facilities. This costed too much as well that the group was ready to fabricate their results if they failed in importing my brain data.

"It feels really surreal to be able to hold this conversation with you." Anna stands up after finishing her glass of milk, which by the way, took an hour for her to drink. "WE rented lot of androids with a wide database of ancient languages to hold a conversation with, as a requirement for my virtual classes. However, being able to use an ancient language to actually talk to you is a different experience. I totally have a lot of things to ask you and ask your thoughts on various stuff. I hope I can continue chatting with you during the rest of your stay here." She said with a warm smile that rivals witnessing the sunrise in the Pacific Coast.

I feel grim at the thought of listening to more of her lengthy rants, but it's not like I have a choice.