“I'm not a bad person, so it just seems unfair that I'm locked in this place. Bad people deserve bad things, that's nature, but I'm...well I'm not a good person since those don't actually exist, but I'm certainly not a bad person. I skew way more towards good if anything. I help those around me, I pay my taxes. People who pretend to be good are the ones you actually have to watch out for. My ex-boyfriend was like that, always prattling on about charity and useless bullshit like that. He thought that his donations granted him an automatic pass at life; that his supposed altruism meant he could look down at me and everyone else. He really was just an asshole playing at being good, and I was the only person who ever saw through that facade of his. Fat lot of good that did me.”
“Fascinating,” came the droll reply from the bespectacled man clacking away at his keyboard.
“Go to hell,” Isabelle said, unable to muster up as much passion for the vague threat as she wanted to. She'd currently draped herself over the spare desk to the man's right and had been trying to get a worthwhile rise out of him for a good hour now. Her stamina was beginning to wane though, so she'd just devolved into letting her thoughts roam free.
“If you didn't want me to ignore your incessant whining then it would behoove you to keep quiet, yes? My work will proceed far slower if you are constantly buzzing in my ear like some sort of...” there was a brief pause as he searched for the right word to use, “...insect.”
“Can't you find me something to do then? I'm soooooo bored.”
“Be that as it may there's simply nothing to do here other than design the floors. My creator left me little in the way of leisure. Rightly so I might add, creating The Tower should only take 5000 years or so, a bit of a stretch but nothing I am not capable of powering through.”
She paused before answering, thinking to herself that maybe that sort of timescale wasn't something she was ready or able to comprehend, “5000 years is overtime to you?”
The tiny man's hands paused for the briefest of moments, an ebb in the tide of tapped keys as he processed what she'd said, resuming as he caught up to the conversation. “I suppose that would be an appropriately colloquial way of phrasing it.”
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“If you're going to create this grand Tower for humans shouldn't the way you talk be a little more approachable?”
“You understand what colloquialisms are, don't you human?”
“The way normal people talk?”
Isabelle hadn't seen the man's face deviate from a look of indifference the entire time she'd been here, which granted wasn't long, but two days was still far longer than you'd need to confirm the inflexibility of another person's face. Still, she wasn't sure if she was imagining it when a look of complete and utter derision flickered across his eyes for the briefest of moments before he began. “Colloquialisms create pathways in human speech that are implicitly understood by those who have observed them. That being the case, does it not then seem rational that if we were to sample twenty random humans, even if those humans were from the same country, that there would not be significant overlap in their understanding of culture? Take the population of South Korea, currently sitting at a comfortable 51,765,301. The likelihood of a complete overlap in understanding between twenty people randomly selected from a group of that size is-” his head twitched a little as he performed the calculation, “less than 0.0000004%.”
“As impressive as whatever you just said was, I zonked out when you started talking big numbers.”
An exacerbated sigh escaped his lips. “My point being, that using colloquial language can only serve to assist some people, while using longer, broader sentences that fully encompass an idea will make sure all players have an equal understanding.”
“You got a definition of bias in that database head of yours?”
Again, Isabelle spotted an almost inflection of curiosity pass through those vacant eyes. “I have several, most commonly it refers to inclinations or prejudices for or against people or groups particularly relating to unfair treatment.”
“I'm more talking about preconceived notions, you picking up what I'm putting down?”
“You mean to imply that my supposition that fully encompassing an idea through text will lead to an equal understanding is itself a biased position?”
“Exactly my friend. You think that everyone can just read a long paragraph of dense text filled with words they probably haven't had to read since high school and completely understand what every part of it means instantly? Or worse yet, hear it once and fully comprehend it? You don't understand anything about humanity if you actually think that.”
“And your proposed solution is for me to couch my words in colloquial language so as to better communicate with the ‘common man’ so to speak?”
“That sounds like a terrible idea.”
“So you have no proposed solution human?”
“Nope, but now you have a problem. That's why I was voted most likely to cause trouble in my senior year.” From her inverted position on the table she rose a nonchalant peace sign towards the man who said nothing back, simply continuing to type away at his computer, eyes unnaturally focused on his many monitors. Unfortunately, despite doing what she did best Isabelle was still bored. Nothing for it I guess she thought, I'm sure I can come up with something while I'm here, or else I might end up killing this nerd just to feel something. I can only imagine what 5000 years is going to do to my sanity...