You mean, why don’t I just kill myself, like Hannah Stark?
“No! No, no—of course not. But, um . . .”
In part because I am curious about your own life, which has many decades still to run. I want to see how your story turns out.
Caitlin smiled. “I’ll try to make sure there are a few interesting twists and turns along the way.”
Her mother came downstairs. “All right,” she said. “I’ve spoken with your father. The CSIS agents have left.”
“Good,” said Caitlin.
“Anyway, first things first,” her mother said. “Your father and I are agreed: you’re not going back to school.”
She sat up straight on the couch. “But, Mom! You were the one who kept insisting that I couldn’t miss any more school.”
“Your father and I have both been university professors. We’re eminently qualified to home-school you.”
“Don’t I get a say?”
Her mother looked at her. “Baby, it’s not safe. God knows who else besides CSIS knows about your involvement with Webmind. Besides, I thought you wanted to stay home?”
Caitlin pursed her lips. Part of her very much did want to stay at home, spending all day working with Webmind. But part of her wanted to see Matt every day, too—she’d been so disappointed to only glimpse him this morning.
But her mother was right; it was scary at school. And it was more important—way more important—that she learn what the world looked like, learn to better read printed type, learn to make use of and interpret all that she could now see, than it was to memorize dates and places for history class, or read about goddamned George Orwell for English class, or study titration in Mr. Struys’s chemistry lab, or even do trigonometry (which she already mostly knew, anyway) in math class.
“Okay,” she said. “Yes, okay. But I’ve still got stuff in my locker.”
“You can get Bashira to clear it out for you, I’m sure,” her mom said.
She nodded. “All right. But what do we do now?”
Her mom shrugged a little. “We figure out the best way to go public with Webmind.”
Tony Moretti was taking another call from the Secretary of State. He was in his office at WATCH, with the door closed. The office was sound-proofed, precisely so Tony could use his speakerphone, and he was using it now.
“Understood, Madam Secretary,” said Tony. “In fact, we—” The door buzzer sounded; he hit the intercom button. “Who is it?”
“Aiesha.”
He pressed the button that unlocked the door. “Come in.”
She did so. “Sorry to interrupt, but I thought you should know this,” she said. “Turns out Exponential hasn’t just been conversing with the Decter girl. The Japanese scientist who gave her sight has been talking to it, as well.”
“From Waterloo?” asked Tony.
“No. He’s back home in Japan.”
“He’s an information theorist, right?”
Aiesha nodded. “With the University of Tokyo.”
“Well, if anyone besides Malcolm Decter understands how Exponential works, it’d be him,” said Tony. “He could give us the key we need to shut it down.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” said Aiesha. “What channels do we go through with Japan? Would it be their Ministry of—”
“We don’t have time to waste on red tape,” said the secretary’s voice, coming from the speakerphone. “Let me get this done. I’ve got the Japanese prime minister’s office on speed dial . . .”
thirty
Shoshana spent the next couple of hours with Hobo; he did seem to be back to his old self.
Her cell phone rang. Her ringtone was the “William Tell Overture,” which Hobo liked. The caller ID was MARCUSE INST. She flipped it open. “Hello?”
“Hey, Sho, it’s Dillon. Just got in, and I’m watching on the cameras. Wow!”
Hobo tried to tickle her. “Yeah,” she said. “It’s great!”
“Do you—you think it’s safe for me to come out there?”
She considered this. “Let’s give him some time,” she said. “But I’m going to come in; I’ve got to pee.”
She did just that, promising Hobo that she’d return in a bit. After she was finished in the restroom, Dillon said, “It’s quite the turnaround.”
“I’ll say,” Sho said. She sat on the swivel chair in front of her computer and rotated it so she faced out into the room.
Dillon was leaning against the wall, thin arms crossed in front of his black T-shirt. “What do you suppose caused it?”
She shook her head. “I have no idea.”
“Pretty amazing,” he said. “Like he just sort of decided to give up being violent.”
“It’s terrific,” Sho agreed.
“So, um, maybe this calls for a drink.”
Shoshana could see where this was going. “Well, I can ask Dr. Marcuse to pick up some champagne on his way back . . .” she replied, looking away.
“I mean,” Dillon said, and he paused, then tried again: “I mean maybe we should go out for a drink . . . you know, um, to celebrate.”
“Dillon . . .” she said softly.
He unfolded his arms and raised his right hand, palm out. “I mean, I know you sometimes go out with a guy named Max, but . . .”
“Dillon, I live with Max.”
“Oh.”
“And Max isn’t a guy; she’s a girl. Maxine.”
He looked relieved. “Ah, well, if she’s just your roommate, then . . .” “Max is my girlfriend.”
“Your girl friend, or your, um, girlfriend? ”
“My girlfriend; my lover.”
“Oh, um—ah, I didn’t . . . you never . . .”
Dillon had come to the Marcuse Institute in May; he’d missed the Christmas party, which, now that she thought about it, was the last time she’d brought Maxine around. “So,” said Shoshana, “thanks for the interest, but . . .”
Dillon smiled. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”
“Thanks,” she said again. “You’re sweet.”
He crossed his arms again. “So, how long have you been with Maxine?”
“Couple of years. She’s an engineering student at UCSD.”
“Heh. Good that one of you is eventually going to make some money.”
Sho leaned back in her chair and laughed. Neither she nor Dillon was ever likely to get rich.
“And, ah, I take it it’s serious?” Dillon said tentatively.
She suppressed a grin; hope springs eternal. “Very much so. I’d marry Max, if I could.”
“Oh.”
“You know I’m from South Carolina, right?”
“I do declare!” he said, in a really bad Southern accent.
“But Max is from L.A.—South Central. Her family’s all there, and, well, it’s not like they can afford to travel to Boston or up to Canada. She wants to get married here in California, but . . .” She lifted her shoulders a bit.
“It used to be legal here, didn’t it?”
Sho nodded. “Got overturned the same day Obama was elected. A bittersweet night, I can tell you, for a lot of us. I was simultaneously elated and crushed.”
“I bet.”
“It should be legal here,” Shoshana said. “It should be legal everywhere.”
“I guess it’s against some people’s religions,” Dillon said.
“So what?” Sho snapped. But she put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry, Dillon. But I just get so tired of arguing this. If your beliefs tell you that you shouldn’t marry someone of the same sex, then you shouldn’t do it—but you shouldn’t have the right to impose your views on me.”
“Hey, Sho. Chill. I’m cool with it. But, um, there are those who say marriage is a sacrament.”
“There’s nothing sacred about marriage. You can go to city hall and get married without God once being mentioned. That issue was settled long ago.”
“I guess,” said Dillon.
But Sho had worked up a head
of steam. “And gay people getting married doesn’t take anything away from anyone else’s marriage, any more than, say, the addition of Alaska and Hawaii made the people who were already Americans any less American. What we do doesn’t affect anyone else.”
Dillon nodded.
“And you’re a primatologist,” she said. “You know that homosexuality is perfectly natural. Homo sapiens practice it in all cultures, and bonobos practice it, too—which means the common ancestor probably practiced it, as well; it’s natural.”
“No doubt,” said Dillon. “But—playing devil’s advocate here—a lot of people who accept that it’s natural still don’t think that a union between two people of the same sex should be called a marriage. They’re leery of redefining words, you know, lest they lose their meaning.”
“But we have already redefined marriage in this country!” Sho said. “We’ve done it over and over again. If we hadn’t done that, black people couldn’t get married—they weren’t allowed to when they were slaves. And as recently as 1967, there were still sixteen states in which it was illegal for a white person to marry a black person. Max is black, by the way, and if we hadn’t redefined marriage, I couldn’t marry her even if she were a guy. We also long ago gave up the traditional definition of marriage as being ‘until death do us part.’ Nobody says you have to stay in a bad marriage anymore; if you want out, you can get divorced. The definition of marriage has been a work-in-progress for centuries.”
“Okay, okay,” said Dillon. “But . . .”
“What?”
“Oh, nothing . . .”
She tried to make her tone light. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to take your head off. What is it?”
“Well, if they do repeal the ban here, so you and Maxine can get married, um, how does that work? Do you, you know, have two maids of honor . . . ?”
“People do it different ways. But I’ve already decided I’m going to have a best man.”
“Oh? Anybody I know?”
“Yep.” She glanced at the monitors that showed the feeds from the cameras on the island. “Oh, and look—he’s painting another picture!”
At 4:00 p.m., after a day of brainstorming with her mother and conversing with Webmind, Caitlin’s computer bleeped and a little window popped up that said BrownGirl4 is now available.
Caitlin opened an IM session and told Bashira that she wouldn’t be returning to school.
Man! Bashira replied. You’ve got all the luck! Who were those dudes who came to see you?
Caitlin hated to lie to Bashira. Recruiters from the University of Waterloo, she typed, spelling out a fantasy she’d had since Matt had mentioned that school. It was still three years until she’d start college, and although she’d indeed always had her heart set on MIT, she liked to think the big university here wasn’t going to give her up without a fight.
Awesomeness! wrote Bashira. Did they offer you a scholarship?
Caitlin felt her stomach churn. Premature for that. Just a preliminary convo. She desperately wanted to change the subject. Did you see Matt today?
Yes.
Did he ask about me?
Babe, Matt and I have never spoken about anything.
Caitlin shook her head. She would have to remedy that at some point. Anyway, gotta go, Bashira wrote. CU. And the computer made the door-closing sound that indicated Bashira had logged off.
She hadn’t had a chance to ask Bashira to clean out her locker for her, but—
A bleep, then: Mind-Over-Matter is now available.
She opened another IM session. Matt!
Hi, Caitlin. Missed you at school today. You OK?
And she hated even more to lie to him, but: Sorry, should have told you. Had an appointment.
Wanna know what the math homework is for tomorrow?
She took a breath. Um, actually, my parents have decided to home-school me.
There was a long pause, then: Oh.
Caitlin felt queasy. So I won’t be coming back. My mom got the forms online today. All ya gotta do is notify the school, and—boom!—you’re out.
Wow.
He was probably thinking that he’d never see her again—and she certainly didn’t want him to get comfortable with that notion. So, can you do me a favor? Can you clean out my locker for me and bring me my stuff?
Sure!
Okay, it’s locker 1024, and the combo is 43-11-35.
Kewl. What’s your address?
She typed it in.
Oh, yeah. That’s only a few blocks from my place. I’ll bring your stuff by after school tomorrow, k?
That’d be awesome, Caitlin sent.
There was a long, awkward pause—she didn’t know what else to say, and neither, it seemed did he.
OK, he wrote at last, and then he added, CU then.
Yay, Caitlin wrote.
He sent *poof*, which was his cute way of signing out of instant-messenger sessions.
And she decided to reread the transcript of all her IM sessions to date with him, starting at the top—just to practice her reading skills, of course . . .
thirty-one
Yasunari Uchida, a section chief with Kouanchosa-chou, the Public Security Intelligence Agency, looked up at the sound of the door to his office opening. The man entering was big and fat by any standards, and particularly so by Japanese ones, but he had a kindly round face. Although his shirt was brightly colored and only partially tucked in, he had a navy-blue suit jacket on over it.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kuroda-san,” Uchida said. “Thank you for coming to see me.”
The big man’s tone was even. “It was not actually apparent that I had a choice in the matter.”
“I’m sorry that we brought you here in such a rush.”
Kuroda eased himself into a chair, which groaned slightly in protest.
“Congratulations,” continued Uchida, “on your success in giving sight to that young North American woman.”
“Thank you.”
“Quite a feat.”
“Thank you.”
“And now,” said Uchida, “to the issue at hand.”
“Please.”
“You and your young friend have been playing around with something of considerable interest.”
A tone that was clearly meant to sound casual: “I’m not sure what you’re referring to.”
“Come now, Professor. Its name, in English, is Webmind.”
Kuroda averted his gaze.
“It’s an astonishing discovery,” Uchida said, “this . . .” He searched for a word, and at last settled on “entity.”
“How did you find out?” Kuroda asked.
Uchida allowed himself a rueful smile. “Our American friends keep a watchful eye on many things.”
Kuroda took a deep breath and let it out in a long, shuddering sigh. “Apparently.”
“Tensions are high in the world, Professor. All civilized nations must be vigilant. When were you planning to notify our government of this discovery?”
“I’ve only known about it for a few days, Uchida-san. I hadn’t actually gotten around to making plans.”
Uchida nodded. “An AI emerging spontaneously on the World Wide Web. A fascinating turn of events. And, so far, you and your friend Caitlin are the only ones it talks to.”
“I suppose,” said Kuroda, “although . . .”
He fell silent, but Uchida nodded. “Oh, yes, it has spoken to Caitlin’s parents—Malcolm and Barbara Decter, isn’t it? I believe Dr. Decter—the female Dr. Decter—was in Japan last month, no?”
“Yes. She came here when Miss Caitlin had her post-retinal implant installed.”
“Ah, yes. Still, for now at least, you have special access to . . .” He paused, finding himself tripping over the term, “Webmind.”
Kuroda nodded. “I suppose,” he said. “And I suppose there’s something you’d like me to do while I have that access?”
“It has been suggested that Webmind’s emergence may be related to China’
s sundering and then reunification of the World Wide Web last month.”
Kuroda made an impressed face. “I—I’ve been so overwhelmed dealing with it, I haven’t really thought too much about its origins. But, yes, I suppose that makes sense.”
“If this surmise is correct,” Uchida said, “it came into being because of something China did.”
“Yes? So?”
“So,” said Uchida, “as it learns of our world, it may in fact feel some sort of allegiance to China.”
“I suppose that’s possible,” Kuroda replied.
“Our American friends wish to purge this entity from the Web—before it gets out of hand.”
Kuroda leaned forward in his chair. “They can’t do that.”
“You mean ‘can’t’ in a moral sense, I’m sure; I pass no judgment on that. But in a technical sense, you are possibly correct—they may, in fact, not be able to do it. But I try not to underestimate American ingenuity. If they succeed, well, then, the rest is moot. But if they fail, again, tensions are rising, and China is at the center of it all.”
“Yes?” said Kuroda, blinking. “I still don’t understand what you want me to do.”
Uchida spread his arms as if the answer were obvious. “Why, make sure it’s on our side, of course.”
I had spent a lot of time talking with Dr. Kuroda—often when Caitlin and her parents were asleep. And while he was offline, I had thought about what we had previously exchanged. He had now reiterated for me his argument that consciousness must have survival value because structures as complex as the partial decussation of each optic nerve to allow a single point of view across both cerebral hemispheres wouldn’t have evolved unless that singular perspective was somehow necessary.
And I had shared with him Caitlin’s insight that this should be intuitively obvious, since although consciousness can malfunction, as in depression leading to suicide, the benefits of it—whatever they might be—clearly outweighed the costs, or evolution would have extinguished it long ago.