Chirps and squeaks

His hands clutched on his knees and his breath a bit shorter than usual, Noah was having a harder time recovering from this eight-mile run than he usually would. His half marathon was about two months away and clearly, this wasn’t the best way to prepare for it. He still had plenty of time to get back in shape, but he needed to cut down on his business travels and happy hours, if he wanted to finish the race.

The orange and red colored lines on his running app were only adding to his frustration, confirming and reminding him of his painful and sub-par run. He probably should’ve gone to bed earlier than 1 am the previous night and drink fewer beers. Still, it felt good to sweat a bit and get his head ready for his investor meeting later that morning. Noah never found a better way to fight against jet lag than going on a run in the morning during his trips.  

As he stood tall, finally catching his breath, he started seeing floaters and spots in front of his eyes, much like the last Instagram filter he had used last night. Except for this time, he was clearly down on sugar or some other stuff. It was still early, and his meeting wasn’t until a couple of hours, so he decided to test a local joint for breakfast. 

The perfect mix of trash juice and humid weather wasn’t exactly creating the ideal perfume that suddenly brings you joy and appetite. However, it made a sensorial combination with the colorful yet old and decrepit buildings around him.The area was already busy like a beehive, with hundreds of individuals buzzing around, installing products on shelves taking up half of the sidewalk, and robot-like passers-by lost in their thoughts. The signs in each shop created a challenge for Noah that limited knowledge of foreign languages. 

“Time for some dogfooding.” Noah thought. 

A couple of feet away, he spotted a store with meat displayed in the front windows and a couple of people around high tables in the front on the sidewalk. He pulled out his phone, swiped, opened an app with no icon, and pointed his camera toward the store sign at the top.

The translation came in: “Chicken was here.” 

That didn’t seem quite right. So he changed a couple of settings and gave it another try.

“Chicken Earth Aki.” 

Noah sighed and quickly looked around in disbelief. No need to conclude that something wasn’t working right. Not a shocker either, as his visual translation feature wasn’t yet entirely bug-free. In all fairness, none of the app features were, but the scenarios he had practiced for his presentation were ready. He’d need to stick to it and remember not to translate anything with chicken.

He walked to a small bald man dressed in a half-open shirt standing behind a table filled with movies on burned DVDs. Noah used his questionable mime skills to ask where he could find food. The man looked at him for a second, then looked around him while pulling his pants up with a brief and dirty sniff. 

“Alright, remember that you made me do this, my friend. Time to dogfood again. Let’s keep it simple, shall we”. Noah said while quickly typing, “where can I find good breakfast” on his app. He then turned the phone towards the man and played the translation on his speaker. 

The man frowned, and Noah used his mime skills again while playing the translation one more time. The guy looked around him and suddenly down to his feet, and he started doing little jumps with a disgusted face. Subsequently, Noah noticed a couple of rats running around their feet. Not only was this exchange a waste of time, but these rats added a twist to the already colorful environment.

He walked a bit and went into a food court. He wandered around various stands displaying a wide range of prepared food proudly showcased by their owners. They were practicing a fairly common sales practice of shouting louder than their neighbor while dropping and picking up different food to get a reaction from Noah. 

He finally stopped by a booth that only featured a chef, busy cooking rather than shouting to customers. It sounded like a much more friendly option for someone with a language barrier. A small line of three people patiently waited for their turn to order. He took the next spot and tried to identify what the other customers were picking while carefully watching what the chef was cooking as inspiration for his order. The chef flipped shrimps and pieces of meat in the air while flames of fire were getting out of his grill. It reminded Noah of these master chefs he had seen on TV. As his turn came, he typed a simple order, a bit of grilled beef and scrambled eggs, hoping his app would do well. He pressed play and turned the phone to the chef, who frowned like the salesman in the street. Then, the chef did his thing, flipped a few pieces of meat, and added a bunch of spices which sparked flames ten inches tall. He poured what seemed to be black beans marinated into a bowl and packed everything up before handing it over to Noah.

The next challenge was to find a place to eat in a crowded and loud dining area located at the center of the food court. He wasn’t sure what he was getting out of this box, but the mix of paprika and curry smell from his packaged box brought him much anticipated pleasure. Abandoning the idea of finding a quiet and isolated spot for his meal, he approached a four-seat table occupied by an old lady half hiding behind a journal. Rather than using his poor mime skills, he jumped right into his app with renewed confidence in its capabilities to translate and used to ask if he could sit down. She lowered her journal a bit, frowned, and made it seem like she was turning his back while not moving an inch. Noah decided to sit down anyways, and as he was taking his first bite, he saw a bunch of rats under the food booth he had just ordered food. 

“Damn, they’re everywhere! That’s disgusting.” 

The old lady got up from her seat, dropped her journal on the table, and went to see a mid-age man standing a couple of feet away from the dining table. Noah was watching from his corner, trying hard not to attract attention to him. Finally, the man, with the old lady right behind him, came to the table and started talking to Noah, which was the one this time to frown. 

“I don’t understand. Hold on,” Noah said. 

He took his app out again, typed, and played. The young man frowned and turned to the old lady, confused. At this moment, Noah received a flurry of marinated beans all over his face and chest. He quickly got up and backed away from his chair. That’s when he saw a giant rat jumping out of his bowl. He quickly brunched a couple of beans from his face and saw a bunch of rats running in every direction at his feet. The old lady screamed and climbed on the table while the young man turned on himself like he was trying to make sense of this mess.

“What is going on here?!” said Noah.

As rats ran everywhere, people started to spread out and leave the food court. Finally, Noah had enough, he reached the table to grab his phone, but it wasn’t there anymore. The day was getting better and better; he got robbed! Even worse, the app he was supposed to present in a couple of hours was gone. He looked around in despair and saw a couple of rats running toward a water drain in the back of the dining area. One of them was carrying his phone in his mouth. As he started running towards them, two rats fell into his head from the ceiling, scratching him as they were trying to hold on to a piece of Noah’s clothes to stop their fall. As he was getting rid of these sudden invaders, he only had time to see the two thieves disappear down the drain.  

 “You gotta be kidding me!” He said. He turned around, and as if addressing a big attentive crowd in a theater, he yelled, “Damn you all! Keep the damn phone. The app sucks anyways!”. 

He turned around and left the food court, which was slowly returning to normal. Customers came back to form new lines at the food stands, and others were already sitting down with their plates to finish their meals.

A couple of meters below the food court, the two rats stopped on a pile of trash composed of leftover food and other random items. The bigger one with a chipped front tooth took a hard bite of the phone, which broke with a spark. A bunch of rats started to gather around quietly. It was the closest they had gotten to a disaster. They'd never imagined a human smart enough to develop a translation device capable of revealing their master plans. If he had spread it out to others of his species, it could have ruined their ultimate goal of overtaking New York City. Now more than ever, they need to increase their security and intelligence operations and seize every suspect device. The rise of the rats wouldn't fail so close.