5Zoe Part 2:
Translator
Sorry about the wait. There was this short story comp, which I had 2 weeks to write at least 2000 words in, and feeling really uninspired about my idea. Needless to say, I abandoned it. And then there was me trying to be more organised with my schoolwork (it lasted for about 2 days) and then Zoe wasn't listening to me. Again. And then…
Thanks for the reviews:
Roma-roma: I know Chinese because I've been learning it for about 6 years as a second language. Great language, great culture. More fun than European languages, a lot less conjugation :-)
Earthdragon: I was just a little worried about people trying to figure out how the Chinese sounds. I haven't seen firefly, but sounds cool (Joss Whedon thing, how could it not be cool?) And will go on. I hope. Me from Geelong. Yay?
And by the way: except for Zoe, not mine. BBC's, I think. And everyone who put something into the creation of the doctor; past and present writers, past and present actors.
In a cramped storeroom-now-office on the fifth floor of the Shanghai museum, Zoe typed away on an outdated computer, translating Chinese to English for foreign tourists. The job was boring, low paid by Australian standards, but it was something.
Zoe leaned back in her chair and stretched. She'd been there typing for a few hours and needed a quick break. Marking where she was up to and saving the document, she stood up to walk around a little. Her necklace came undone and fell to the floor.
The pendant was rather heavy, shaped like a spiral sea shell and the colour of rose gold. Her father had always joked it was made of orichalcum- he'd given it to her, said it was a present from his parents. Its chain was almost more unusual than the pendant- it was bright blue and impossible to break, except for that damn clasp.
Zoe stuffed it in her pocket, not game to try to get it back on.
She got back to work. The computer program that wrote Chinese was awkward and annoying to use; it listed characters in the order they would appear in the dictionary, rather than by how often they would be used in normal language. At least it didn't automatically change the pinyin into characters when she tapped the spacebar. Things could always be worse.
Something dropped from one of the storage shelves onto a wooden crate. It sounded like whatever had dropped was made of metal, but small, like a small tin or something. She clicked on the save icon, just in case, and got up to investigate.
How could anything have fallen off one of the shelves? The people who put the artefacts away were very diligent in making sure they were placed well away from the edge. Its not likely that they left a tin of something anywhere, but it wasn't impossible.
Zoe, finding nothing on the crates, gave up and returned to her cramped desk and her computer. She had just started typing again when she heard a knock on her door. She saved her work again, and got up to open it.
Standing there was the foreigner from the morning.
"Well, hello," he said. "I wasn't expecting to see you here."
Zoe gripped the edge of the door hard with nerves. She wasn't all that good at dealing with strays.
"I'm sorry, this is a staff area. Go back down the stairs-"
"I got a call to check up on a problem, so here I am."
She was gripping the door so hard that her knuckles were white.
"They don't usually hire foreigners for maintenance work," she said quietly.
"Yet here I am," he replied. Zoe maintained her grip on the door.
"Are you going to let me in or not," he said sharply. She opened the door and let him in. He went straight to the wooden crates.
"What did they call you in for?" She had a horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach that she shouldn't trust him, that he hadn't been called in by the museum.
"They said there were termites in the crates."
She would have loved to call his bluff, but what if she was wrong? She'd look really stupid then.
"They don't look like they have termites," she prodded, a lot gentler than she would have liked.
"That doesn't mean there aren't any." He pulled out a metal tube from a pocket inside his jacket, about the size of a small torch.
She had tried, that was good enough for her. She wouldn't admit to anyone but herself that she was scared to try again. She gripped the pendant in her pocket. After all, if he wasn't here because he had been asked, he was most likely doing something illegal, and would probably hurt her if she tried to get in the day.
"Who called you in?" she asked, barely realising she had spoken the words.
"I don't know. He didn't tell me his name."
"The head of the museum or the museum's head of maintenance?"
He looked like he was going to answer for a second, then he changed his mind. "I don't know. Am I supposed to?"
"I don't know. It's just… odd that the museum would hire a foreigner."
"Yet they hired you."
Zoe let the pendant go. She didn't know what to say. She wasn't expecting it. He was right, but it hurt. Not belonging anywhere was the bane of her existence.
She sat back down at the computer, and resumed her work.
"I'm the Doctor."
"What?"
"I'm the Doctor. You wanted to know my name, so there it is. The Doctor."
She kept typing, unsure what to say.
"What's your name?"
She scrolled across the bar to find the character she needed. How could she respond when he hadn't given her what she had asked for.
"I told you my name, so what's yours?"
Zoe typed in the next word.
" 'The Doctor' isn't a name, it's a title. You don't look like much of a doctor," she added, as if that was a good enough excuse. Honestly, she wasn't sure that he could even be trusted with her name. She scrolled through the bar, clicked on the wrong character, and went on to the next word.
"Looks can be deceiving."
She thought that he meant something else, but she kept her mouth shut. No point in saying anything. She'd said enough already.
He got off the crates and put the metal thing back in his pocket.
"Done. No more pesky termites."
He strolled out the door.
"Thanks."
Zoe closed the door behind him.
Almost immediately, a small insect bit her on the leg. The bite really hurt. She turned her legs out from under the cramped desk and pulled up the leg of her pants. There was a small cut on her leg, bleeding a little. She wiped the blood away. It felt like a pin or a staple had embedded itself in her leg, but when she felt it more carefully, it felt normal.
While she was examining her leg, a pair of miniature tarantulas, like tiny golden robots, jumped from the desk into her backpack unnoticed. Having reached their destination, they extended their fangs and waved their forelegs in the air in triumph.
You like? You not like? Sorry it was a bit boring, but it should get better. Soon. Ish. In my first draft when Zoe had a different name and was cool as a cucumber, she had the Doctor over the balcony outside her office. :-) Iwould have loved to put it in, but itwouldn't fit the characterquite fit… Anyway, please R&R.
A/N: Pinyin isa system ofwriting down how chinese characters sound. The language would be really hard to learn without it.