Chương 22: Human Interaction Protocol

It was time to pay the bills, or more precisely, to fulfill the promise I had given to Stephanie. Spanish practice would not happen on its own, and my progress had stalled. I felt like a dog that understands everything but cannot speak. Stephanie's phone number was not in my contacts, but in my case that was not an obstacle, since we shared the same roof, even if in different apartments. I waited until seven in the evening.

That golden hour for polite visits, when most normal people have already returned from work, kicked off their tight shoes, and exhaled. After going down to her floor, I pressed the doorbell. The response came instantly. A sharp, ringing bark exploded behind the door, making the thin corridor walls vibrate. Right, I had forgotten, she had a Labrador, a perpetual motion machine on four legs.

"Tom?" The door flew open, and Stephanie appeared on the threshold. She looked like a bright splash against the grayish stairwell. Her pink hair under the fluorescent lights seemed almost neon, the color sometimes made my skin prickle, it was that provocative. On her bare arms, uncovered by the short sleeves of her home shirt, tattoos intertwined in intricate patterns, turning her skin into a canvas.

"Oh, you actually came!" She smiled widely.

"So you've finally decided to get serious about your Spanish?"

"You remember?" I raised my eyebrows involuntarily. Almost a month had passed since our last conversation about it, and I had secretly hoped the idea had evaporated from her mind.

"Listen, I might be coming at a bad time. You're probably busy... Just tell me when you're ready, and I'll come back later."

"Right now!" she cut in, in a tone that allowed no objections.

"Perfect timing. We'll take a walk, get some air, chat. I'll walk Lucky too, he's already losing it. I'll just grab a jacket, and you stay right here, don't even think about going anywhere!" She disappeared into the depths of the apartment, leaving the door slightly open. Her assertiveness always stirred a vague, almost instinctive unease in me. You know that feeling when you are walking down a busy street and suddenly a street promoter swoops down on you?

He grabs your arm and, with blazing eyes, starts pushing a "UNIQUE MIRACLE CURE FOR ALL PROBLEMS! ONLY TODAY! LAST CHANCE!!!" You give in to that insane pressure, buy the little bottle, and ten minutes later realize it is just sugar water that costs three times less in any supermarket. Stephanie's attention gave off something similar. I did remember my mother's advice that every woman secretly dreams of marriage, and in her eyes I was practically a super macho in his prime. But that knowledge did not help me relax.

If anything, it made me keep my distance.

"I'm ready!" Stephanie burst back into the corridor, nearly knocking me over. She was dragging along a young, muscular Labrador, who immediately started enthusiastically sniffing my sneakers. Now she was wearing a stylish black designer jacket, tight jeans, and massive platform boots. Next to her, in my plain gray tracksuit, I felt like some kind of dull background. Who would have thought the lesson would start like this, without any preparation?

We stepped out of the cool lobby into the sticky evening air of Los Angeles and headed toward the nearest square. The city buzzed, a siren wailed somewhere in the distance, and neon diner signs had already begun their battle with the approaching dusk.

"So... what am I supposed to do?" I asked when we had passed a couple of blocks.

"How exactly are we going to practice? Is there some kind of plan?"

"Well, I guess we should just... talk? In Spanish," she frowned for a moment, staring into space. It became clear that her teaching experience was exactly zero, and her idea of a learning method was very vague.

"Come on, Tom. Start. Be bold." @Author's note: from this point on, the characters speak Spanish. I do not want to duplicate the entire dialogue in two languages to avoid overloading the text. @"Uh... okay," I looked around awkwardly, trying to latch onto any object that could serve as a topic for conversation. My mind betrayed me and went blank.

"How do you like the weather?"

"It's fine," she shrugged. Amazing. Fantastic conversation. I could practically feel my language level skyrocketing to the heavens. The situation was awkward to the point of absurdity. I had no idea what to talk about with a girl who dyed her hair the color of cotton candy and wore shoes capable of crushing a brick. And she, apparently, had no intention of helping me.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a piece of information surfaced from some article: "a language partner should guide the conversation, suggest topics, and gently correct vocabulary." Stephanie clearly had not read that article. Time passed. We wandered stupidly along the park path, listening to Lucky's heavy panting as he methodically marked every second pole. The pause dragged on, becoming almost tangible. I could see that Stephanie also felt out of place, she kept adjusting her jacket and tugging at the leash.

My head began to ache from the pointlessness of it all. Stupid. Inefficient. A complete waste of time. Hm. What if I simply cut away everything unnecessary? Remove that emotional noise that interferes with the task. It was worth trying. [Special command: disable emotions for 12 hours] This time I limited the duration. A full day was too long, I did not want to turn tomorrow's breakfast into another intake of tasteless fuel. I needed to solve a local problem here and now.

Abruptly, as if swept away by an invisible sickle, everything vanished from my mind: irritation, awkwardness, mild aversion to pink hair, and even that familiar discomfort caused by her intrusiveness. The world around me became sharper, the sounds drier. I no longer felt like an awkward guy on a walk. Now I was a biorobot. A functional unit with a clearly defined vector of purpose. No emotions meant no errors in evaluating the situation. Only pure calculation.

So, the initial data: I had a native speaker who possessed the skill I needed but lacked initiative. Conclusion: I had to assume the leading role. The efficiency of the process depended entirely on my structure. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. I did not need to appear cheerful, I did not need to flirt or impress. This was not a date. This was a training session. Therefore, I would act according to the methodology of classic phrasebooks.

The most common topics, from simple to complex. Section one: self-introduction.

"I'm Tom Ross, I'm thirty-two," I said in Spanish. My voice sounded even and dry, perhaps slightly more mechanical than was typical for a human, but precise.

"I grew up and live in Los Angeles. I'm an accountant. Now you tell me about yourself." Stephanie stumbled on flat ground and stared at me in surprise. Her eyebrows rose, but she quickly composed herself and nodded.

"Oh... we're doing this right away? No warm-up? Alright," she switched to Spanish, adjusting to my tone.

"I'm Stephanie Brown, I'm twenty-six. I've been living in Los Angeles for only three years. I work as a veterinarian at the clinic across the street."

"So you also chose a job closer to home?" I continued, methodically constructing sentences.

"My previous workplace was located only five minutes on foot from my building."

"And now?"

"Now the situation has changed. The job is farther away, and in the near future I may have to consider relocation." I had no intention of going into details about my current, rather specific line of work, but letting the conversation fade would have been a tactical error. I needed to maintain momentum. Moving to the next block: family and origins.

"Stephanie, you once mentioned that your ancestors are from Argentina. Is that correct?"

"My grandmother moved to the US when she was still just a girl," she relaxed slightly, her voice becoming more melodic.

"She got married here, settled down here. Honestly, I've never been to Buenos Aires. My parents haven't either. Everything we know about Argentina comes from Grandma's endless stories at Sunday dinner." Everything fell into place. In practice, Stephanie possessed the language as an inheritance, but calling her Argentine would be a stretch. Over several generations, the blood had thoroughly mixed, and the cultural code had adapted to Californian realities.

I had suspected this before, her name was distinctly American, without the slightest hint of Latin American roots.

"What about you, Tom?" Stephanie tugged lightly on the leash, pulling Lucky away from another bush.

"Do you know anything about your roots? About the people who came before you?"

"I know almost nothing," I replied. My voice was devoid of emotion, like an audio recording from a textbook.

"My mother was born and raised here, in Los Angeles. I have only a general understanding of my family tree on her side. And I don't know my father at all."

"Did he die?" A trace of sympathy slipped into her voice, something that now felt completely alien to me.

"I've got no idea. Maybe," I shrugged, watching the streetlight fracture in her pink hair.

"He disappeared from our lives when I was barely two. Since then, there haven't been any calls, letters, or chance encounters."

"And you never tried to find him?" She stopped, looking at me with genuine confusion.

"I mean... he's not just some random passerby. His blood is in you."

"I abandoned that idea back in high school," I said flatly, feeling no bitterness, only dry logic.

"I needed a father when I was a child. When I came back to an empty apartment and sat there alone while my mother worked two jobs to support us. That was when his absence mattered. Now? What's the practical point? To meet him? That would mean starting to build a relationship from scratch with a complete stranger. I might as well walk up to any random drifter on this path. The time investment is the same, the return is questionable."

"That's harsh..." Stephanie looked at me oddly. There was faint disapproval in her eyes, mixed with unease at my sudden coldness.

"If I were you, I'd dig with my bare hands until I found my dad." I chose to remain silent. Spending energy on an argument about the pointlessness of digging into the past was not part of my plan. What difference did it make whether my great-great-grandfather had been a king of England or the last beggar in the docks? In the modern era, it carried no weight. An ancient skeleton in a beautiful coffin would not come to my aid or pay off a mortgage. The past was an exhausted resource.

"Do you have friends?" Stephanie was clearly trying to change the subject, but she wandered into territory that, in my current state, felt like a set of social conventions.

"I've got a circle of people I meet with from time to time for shared leisure," I replied, mentally running through the list of guys from the paintball club.

"What about you?"

"Oh, I've got hundreds!" She waved her hand carelessly, and the bracelets on her wrist chimed softly.

"I've got almost a thousand friends on Facebook alone. But, you know... they're all kind of bland. Not nearly as interesting as your acquaintances." I slowed my pace and fixed my gaze on her face. My pupils were probably completely still.

"What do you mean? You've seen my friends?"

"Well, not in person," she looked away, tugging at the collar of her jacket in embarrassment.

"It's just... your mom mentioned it last time. She said you were really close with Megan Rogers back in school." Megan. My childhood friend. Stephanie seemed to have a talent for picking the sharpest topics, unaware that at the moment I was immune to pain. I understood her sudden interest perfectly. In our world, the Awakened were the new rock stars. To casually mention that you personally knew one of them was the same as claiming you had shared a school desk with a young Leonardo DiCaprio.

I remembered how I had shamelessly used that fact in college, showing off in front of girls. My mother had probably decided to use that trump card to raise my rating in Stephanie's eyes. An old, proven method.

"Yeah, we were friends with Megan," I confirmed as a dry fact.

"But that's all in the past."

"And now you don't talk?"

"No."

"Mmm, got it..." she drew out, and there was clear disbelief in the sound. She had probably already painted a dramatic picture of a falling-out or a secret romance in her head.

"What do you like more, Fanta or Sprite?" I asked, moving to the next block of the phrasebook: food and preferences. The transition was abrupt, like a blunt strike, but effective.

"Oh... well, Fanta, of course!" she blinked, thrown off by my sudden change of direction.

"Though it always makes my tongue tingle in a weird way afterward." We approached a twenty-four-hour kiosk that smelled of cheap coffee and gum. I bought two cans, the icy metal pleasantly cooling my palm. We settled on a worn park bench. I methodically consumed the orange fizzy liquid, listening as Stephanie talked about things that would once have seemed charming, but now registered as a simple stream of data. To my relief, she no longer pried into my soul or tried to extract personal details about Megan.

Darkness fully swallowed the park. The only sources of light were the scattered streetlamps and the distant glow of downtown Los Angeles. Lucky, who had been energetically circling until then, pulled insistently toward home. The evening could hardly be called pleasant in the usual sense of the word. But it was productive. The objective was achieved, vocabulary improved.

"You know, Tom, your Spanish is damn good," Stephanie said when we stopped at her apartment door.

"Give it a couple more walks like this, and you'll start correcting my pronunciation."

"Thanks. The practice was useful. See you tomorrow?"

"For sure. And..." she hesitated, absently playing with her keys. The metallic jingle echoed in the empty corridor.

"Maybe we don't have to wait until tomorrow? Wanna come over now... for a cup of tea?" I froze, processing the request. My life experience, accumulated over thirty-two years, was more than sufficient to decode that signal. Nine times out of ten, an invitation for tea at nine in the evening did not end with a discussion of Darjeeling varieties. In my mind, free from hormonal noise and embarrassment, a cold, calculating thought flashed: how would my new abilities manifest in such a context?

Could I use the [Trainer] to push a woman's physical pleasure to a theoretical maximum?