Catalyst (Breakthrough Book 3) by Michael C. Grumley Read Free Book Online Page A

during the translations.  When the first feedback finally came across Lee’s screen, it did so in a flood of colors.
    “Whoa!”

6
     
     
     
     
    Alison Shaw burst into the computer lab and found them all huddled around Lee’s desk.  “Okay, I’m here. What is it?”
    DeeAnn, dressed in khaki shorts and a matching shirt, turned around.  “Lee’s a genius, that’s what!”
    “Well, I don’t know about that.” 
    He motioned Alison over and pulled out his chair for her.  She crossed the room and sat down, examining the screen.
    “Is this audio?”
    “It sure is.”
    “What does it mean?”
    Lee smiled at DeeAnn.
    “It’s the problem they’ve been working on.  Lee came to me last night with an idea that we were missing something.”
    “It was a problem we couldn’t figure out,” he added.  “No matter how much we dug into the code.  Then it occurred to me that maybe there are more complexities going on that we still don’t know about.”
    Alison turned back.  “So, what is this?”
    “It’s what IMIS is really hearing.”
    “More sounds?”
    “More frequencies.  The colors represent the wider bands, much wider than we can hear.”
    “What does that mean?  It hears more words than we thought?”
    “Maybe.  But I suspect it may be more about tones or inflections.”  He looked to DeeAnn.
    “I’m sure it is.  In a lot of languages it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.  We should expect the same pattern with gorillas and other primates.  We knew some of that was in the gesturing and expressions, but I certainly never expected the rest to be in sounds we couldn’t hear.”
    Alison looked at her curiously.  “So, primates can hear sounds that we can’t?”
    “The designs of our auditory systems are very similar, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they work exactly the same.  Some researchers have suggested that having more advanced brains may have caused us to devolve out of certain basic abilities.  Like the range of our hearing.”
    The room fell silent.  It was a powerful thought.  Devolution and evolution happening together.  On a certain level, it made sense.  Everything in life had a balance to it.  Few things could be gained without something also being lost. 
    “Not to take away from the moment,” Lee said, “but there’s something even more interesting about this.”
    “Like what?”
    “Well, we think we know how IMIS is truly communicating with Dulce now.  Which is big.  But…” He looked at them with excitement.  “This is not something we programmed IMIS to do –– to listen to such a broad frequency range.”
    “Meaning?”
    “Meaning that no one told IMIS to do it.”  Lee smiled, waiting for them to pick up on his suggestion.  Finally, he said it.  “IMIS made the decision.”
    At that moment, they all could have heard a pin drop.
    “Whoaaa,” Juan whispered.
    DeeAnn looked at Lee with wide eyes and tilted her head.  “Are you saying that IMIS is thinking ?”
    He grinned.  “Thinking, no.  At least not as we understand it.  But the system does employ several algorithms that give it a certain capacity for artificial intelligence.  It’s not thinking…but it is getting smarter at solving problems.”
     
     
    One floor below, the heavy figure of Bruna Lopez, the Center’s administrative assistant, hurried over the dark tiles which lined the ground floor.  When she reached the bottom of the wide staircase, the admin grasped the railing with her right hand and continued her rush up the stairs.
    Once at the top, she immediately covered the short distance to the double metal doors and pushed them open, looking around the room.
    “Miss…Alison…”
    Alison turned away from the others at Lee’s desk and spotted Bruna in the doorway, breathing heavily.
    “Yes, Bruna.  What is it?”
    “Someone…is here to see you.  She said…it was urgent.”
    Alison turned to DeeAnn with a concerned look.  The last time someone