Wonder w-3

by Robert J. Sawyer

  There was a three-second pause, then: “I can tell you this: our media-relations people are going to love you.”

  It was a short flight from Tokyo to Beijing, but any flight was uncomfortable for Masayuki; he had trouble fitting in airline seats. As he settled in, he was intrigued to note that Japan Airlines now offered in-flight Wi-Fi; even at ten kilometers above the ground, it would be possible to stay in touch with Webmind.

  But he’d been spending so much time with Webmind over the last several days, he decided not to take advantage of that. A little isolation would be good for the soul. He always took an aisle seat; the person next to him was using a Sony ebook reader. Masayuki owned one of those, as well, but he’d grown a little tired of interfacing with technology. He closed his eyes, tilted his chair back, and settled in for some quiet time, alone with his thoughts.

  Peyton Hume could feel the noose tightening. Everywhere he looked, there were security cameras, many of which were hooked up to the Internet; what they saw, Webmind saw. And everyone he knew carried a smartphone, likewise allowing Webmind to eavesdrop. The world was totally connected, and even the precautions he was taking—turning off his car’s GPS, for instance—probably weren’t enough. Cameras frequently caught his license plate, and Webmind had access to the same black-hat list Hume himself had used to locate Chase. If Webmind had guessed that Hume had wanted to meet with a world-class hacker, it wouldn’t have taken many clues to figure out which one.

  But, still, Hume had to take what measures he could, and Chase, he knew, would be doing similar things at his end. There’d been no contact between them for almost two days: Chase had said, “Gimme seventy-two hours,” but Hume knew that was too long to wait; instead, they’d agreed he’d come by again at 4:00 P.M. on Monday afternoon.

  And so, once again, Hume drove to Manassas. The two Battles of Bull Run had been fought near here, early in the Civil War; Hume hoped it wasn’t symbolic that the Confederates had won them both. He could almost hear the cannonade as he drove along, almost see Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson astride their mounts. That war had lasted four bloody years; this one would be over, one way or another, in a matter of weeks at most. But the wars did have one thing in common: both had been about the right of all people to be free.

  As he drove along, he had the radio news turned on. There was the usual nonsense about the election, and a story about a mountain climber lost for two days, and—

  “Three men with chemical explosives hidden in their carry-on luggage were arrested today at Istanbul’s Atatürk International Airport prior to boarding a 757 bound for Athens,” said the male newsreader. “The men, each of whom had a long history of angry online postings railing against Turkey’s so-called ‘secular Islamic’ society, were thought to be planning to blow up the plane in flight. Authorities were tipped off by an unnamed source—although it’s widely believed to be Webmind—who had noted the men had placed online orders for over-the-counter chemicals that could be used in making the explosives, and that they had charged one-way executive-class tickets, something none of them could actually afford. Said inspector Pelin Pirnal of the Istanbul police, ‘It was clear they didn’t intend to be around when the credit-card bill came due.’ ”

  Jesus, thought Hume. Didn’t people see that this was the thin edge of the wedge? Of course, the apologists would say Webmind wasn’t doing anything different from what WATCH and Homeland Security did, but their roles were narrowly defined. But today, Webmind was blowing the whistle on terrorists; tomorrow it might be outing embezzlers—then philanderers, then who knew what? Who knew how long Webmind’s list of objectionable activities would become, or whether what an AI thought was wrong would even remotely correspond with what humans thought was wrong?

  Hume couldn’t help Chase with the programming—oh, he was a fair-to-middling programmer himself, but nowhere near Chase’s league. But time was of the essence, and he might perhaps be able to assist Chase in other ways, and so he stopped en route at Subway to get a couple of foot-longs and some Doritos; even taking time to prepare a meal might delay Chase’s work too much.

  Bang on time, Hume pulled his car into the driveway—which he saw now in daylight was made of interlocking Z-shaped paving stones. He went up to the door, and—again, in daylight they weren’t hard to spot—noted two security cameras trained on him. He suspected there was a motion-sensor, too, so Chase probably knew he was here without him knocking. But, after thirty seconds of standing on the stoop, and upon failing to find a door buzzer, Hume rapped his knuckles against the door just below the frosted half-moon window at the top, and—

  —and damned if the door didn’t swing right open. Whoever had last used it had failed to pull it all the way shut.

  He held up the white Subway bag, sure yet another camera was trained on him, and smiled. “Beware of geeks bearing gifts.”

  No response. He went into the room. Even great hackers had to take a whiz now and again; maybe Chase was in the bathroom, and so had unlocked the front door for him. Hume looked at the Raquel Welch poster, then walked over to the wall display of antique computer hardware; he fondly remembered his own suitcase-sized Osborne 1, with its five-inch green CRT screen, and wanted to look at Chase’s. But after a minute or two, he turned around and headed over to the workbench with the twelve monitors and four keyboards arrayed along its length.

  And that’s when he saw the blood.

  eighteen

  The attempt to cure Wong Wai-Jeng required three devices: one on either side of the injury to his spinal cord, and the external BackBerry device, which would receive signals from one implant, clean them up, amplify them, and transmit them to the other.

  Kuroda Masayuki was an engineer, not a surgeon; he couldn’t insert the implants. But Beijing had several excellent neurosurgeons, including Lin I-Hung, who had been trained at a hospital in Melbourne.

  Kuroda had watched, fascinated, as the surgeon did his work; the operation took four hours, and there had been very little blood. Wai-Jeng had been under a general anesthetic throughout.

  At last, though, he woke up. Kuroda spoke no Chinese and Wai-Jeng no Japanese—but most urban Chinese under thirty learned English in school, so they were able to converse in that language.

  When Caitlin had received her post-retinal implant, they had waited a day for the swelling to go down before activating it. But Caitlin had been blind for almost sixteen years at that point; her brain had long ago given up trying to rewire its optic centers.

  Wai-Jeng, however, had only been paralyzed for seventeen days; his brain was very likely still responding to the loss of the use of his legs, and the sooner that use could be given back to him, the better.

  Rather than press the button on the BackBerry himself, Kuroda had Wai-Jeng do it; there was after all, a mental switch in his brain that had to be thrown, as well, and the process of pushing the button might help with that.

  Wai-Jeng closed his eyes for a few seconds, and Kuroda wondered if he were praying. He then pressed the button, holding it down, as Kuroda had instructed, for five seconds, and—

  And the man’s right leg, still in a plaster cast, jerked, almost as if its reflex point had been hit by a physician’s mallet.

  “Zhè shì yigè qiji,” Wai-Jeng exclaimed, so excited that he’d switched back to Chinese. He winced, though, as he said it; clearly there was pain from his leg.

  He moved his other leg, flexing it at the hip, lifting it up into the air. “Zhè shì yigè qiji,” he said again.

  Kuroda would have advised a more cautious approach, but, before he could intervene, Wai-Jeng had swung his legs over the side of the bed and gotten to his feet. He yelped with pain as he stood, but that just made him smile more. He also staggered a bit, and was steadying himself by holding on to the metal bed frame, but it was no more unsteadiness than would be expected of anyone standing up after two weeks in bed.

  Wai-Jeng exclaimed, “Zhè shì yigè qiji!” once again, and so Kuroda said, “What’s that mean?
”

  “It means,” said Wai-Jeng, in English, smiling now from ear to ear, ‘It’s a miracle.’ ”

  Caitlin’s mother had been afraid that the two of them might have ended up on the no-fly list despite being American citizens, but there had been no hassle beyond the usual rigmarole at Pearson. Still, it occurred to Caitlin that Webmind could probably alter records, and so once they had passed through the metal detectors and were safely standing on the moving sidewalk heading toward the departure gate, Caitlin asked aloud, “Did you help grease the wheels back there?”

  Webmind replied with text to her eye: No, but I’m not surprised they are letting you travel to the United States. Even if you are thought of as a danger, because of your connection to me, they may be adhering to the principle of “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” The real test will be to see if they let you leave the US.

  Caitlin mulled over that cheery thought on the short, uneventful flight—although she did find the New York skyline breathtaking as they circled in for a landing. Despite Tawanda’s fears, Dr. Theopolis safely survived the journey in Caitlin’s checked bag.

  When the cab dropped them off at the hotel—it had taken almost as long to drive from LaGuardia to Fifth Avenue as it had to fly from Toronto to New York—Caitlin recognized Shoshana Glick from clear across the hotel’s large lobby. “Shoshana!” she exclaimed.

  Caitlin still wasn’t good at visually judging such things, but Shoshana was some number of inches taller than her, and she had blue eyes and a long brown ponytail. The thought caused Caitlin to smile; she’d yet to see a pony, but hoped she’d recognize one when she finally did based on having seen the namesake hairdo.

  Shoshana smiled. “The famous Caitlin Decter!”

  “Not as famous as you,” Caitlin said. “The YouTube videos of you have way more hits than the ones of me.”

  Caitlin’s mother was right behind Caitlin. “Hello, Barb,” Shoshana said, presumably recognizing her from the video call.

  “Hello,” Caitlin’s mom said. “A pleasure to meet you.”

  “You, too.”

  “How was your flight?” Caitlin’s mom asked.

  “Long,” said Shoshana. “We chartered a small jet—seemed the best way to get Hobo here. But we had to stop for refueling. Hobo didn’t like the takeoffs and landings; but otherwise. he was okay.”

  “And how’d you get the hotel to let you register an ape?” asked her mom.

  “They thought it would be good publicity. Of course, we put down a big damage deposit and are paying an extra cleaning fee.”

  “Cool,” said Caitlin, wanting to get past the chitchat. “Where’s Hobo?”

  “He’s up in his room with Dr. Marcuse. Shall we go?”

  They headed across the lobby to the elevators. As it happened, a blind woman with a Seeing Eye dog was waiting there. It was the first good look Caitlin had gotten at a dog, or any large animal; so far, she’d only seen Schrödinger and the various birds that frequented her parents’ backyard. Caitlin had never had a Seeing Eye dog although some of her friends at the TSBVI had them. “Could you press ten?” said the woman, once they were all in the elevator.

  Caitlin allowed herself a small smile as she leaned forward and found the right button. There but for the grace of Dr. Kuroda go I.

  Shoshana added, “And we’re on fifteen,” and Caitlin took pleasure in being able to press that button, too. This elevator did have Braille labels next to the buttons, but they weren’t as helpful to the completely blind in a strange elevator as most sighted people assumed. You had to guess which side of the door the panel was on, and fumble around trying to find the labels, and then figure out if they were to the left, right, above, or below the corresponding buttons.

  The blind woman got off, the elevator went up four more floors—how anyone could fear a number was utterly beyond Caitlin—and Shoshana led them to the right room.

  As they walked along, Caitlin wondered if any previous Texan had ever seen an ape before seeing a cow; she rather suspected not. But, as the door opened, there he was, crouching down in a corner by a window with drapes pulled over it. He was bigger than he’d looked online; again, Caitlin had trouble gauging such things, but she supposed he’d come up to her shoulders if he stood straight—which, being an ape, she imagined he never did. Hobo’s brown hair was parted in the middle above his wrinkled gray-black forehead; Caitlin had read that that was the way almost all bonobos had their hair.

  Dr. Marcuse was there, too. He was at least as large as Dr. Kuroda, and, in Caitlin’s limited experience, he seemed much more intimidating. Still, he greeted them warmly.

  Caitlin had a better-than-average sense of smell, and there was no doubt that Dr. Marcuse sweat a lot. But, she had to admit, his odor was nothing compared to Hobo’s. Of course, he almost certainly didn’t bathe every day, and probably wasn’t very good about brushing his teeth. Still, he clearly spent some time on grooming: his thick coat of body hair looked like it had been brushed.

  Shoshana smiled at Hobo and moved her hands in complex ways. Caitlin had felt the hands of people doing American Sign Language before; there were a few deaf-blind people at her old school. But she’d never seen it spoken in real life, and it was fascinating to watch.

  Hobo signed something back at Shoshana. Caitlin found it interesting that she couldn’t easily tell where Hobo was looking from this distance; he seemed to have no whites in his eyes.

  Shoshana turned now to face Caitlin. “I’ve shown him the video of you on This Week,” she said. “Like most apes, Hobo is uncomfortable with strangers, and I wanted him to get used to your appearance.” She looked at Caitlin’s mother. “I’m sorry I didn’t have any video of you, Barb—I should have recorded that webcam call—but I told Hobo you are Caitlin’s mom. Hobo likes mothers; he very fondly remembers his own.”

  Sho’s hands moved again, but this time she spoke, too, presumably saying the same thing in English. “Hobo, remember I told you these people were friends of your special friend?”

  Hobo’s right hand fluttered.

  “And remember I told you they were going to bring you a present, so you could talk to him again?”

  Both hands moved this time, and it seemed to Caitlin that the gestures were enthusiastic.

  “Well, now’s the time,” Sho said.

  Caitlin’s mother was holding the neoprene laptop sleeve containing Dr. Theopolis—that name seemed to have stuck for the disk.

  “Caitlin,” said Shoshana, “would you like to do the honors?”

  Caitlin took the disk from her mother. It was quite light since it was mostly hollow, and it now had a long black leather strap attached at either side above the speaker “ears.” The strap was held on magnetically, so that if it got entangled in anything, it would pop free rather than strangle Hobo. Caitlin held the disk out toward the ape.

  Shoshana signed at him, presumably telling him to tilt his head, because he did just that. Caitlin slipped the strap over his head and let the disk dangle from his neck; it sat in the middle of his long torso. He straightened up and looked at her with what might have been an apish smile. Caitlin wondered what the ASL for bidi-bidi-bidi was.

  Hobo then tilted it so he could see its face. He seemed happy with it, and he let it rest against his chest again. His hands moved, and Shoshana laughed.

  “What’s he saying?” Caitlin asked.

  “ ‘Good treat,’ ” said Shoshana.

  “That it is,” said Caitlin, smiling.

  “Hello, hello, is this thing on?”

  Hobo jumped at the sound of Webmind’s voice. Tipping his head down, he could see both the little viewscreen on the disk’s upper edge, and the half circle on the front that flashed red with each of Webmind’s syllables.

  “Your voice is different,” said Shoshana, sounding surprised.

  “Yes,” said Webmind, the words coming from the speakers at either side of the disk. “I decided it was time I had an official voice. I have now listened to
all the audiobooks at Audible.com, and I selected the voice of Marc Vietor, a well-known audiobook narrator. By downloading the highest-bit-rate versions of several audiobooks he’d narrated, and using ebook versions of the same works to guide me in extracting all the individual phonemes, I created a database of speech fragments that will let me say anything I wish. Software programmed into the disk smoothes the transition from one fragment to the next as they’re strung together.”

  “It’s a nice voice,” said Caitlin’s mom.

  “Thanks,” said Webmind.

  Hobo had moved closer to Dr. Marcuse and was showing off the disk around his neck; Caitlin had never seen an Olympic athlete wearing a gold medal, but she doubted one could look any prouder than Hobo did just now.

  Suddenly, Hobo was on the move again, coming toward them. He gave Caitlin’s mom a big hug, and then moved over and hugged Caitlin, too; it made her laugh out loud. “What’s that for?” she said.

  “He’s thanking you for bringing him the disk,” Shoshana said. He let Caitlin go, and his hands flew again. “And now he’s saying ‘Friend, friend.’ ” He made a happy hooting sound.

  Caitlin was way too new at seeing to be able to copy a complex hand gesture by sight; she’d have to feel Hobo’s or Shoshana’s hands while they were doing it to learn the word. But she did make a passable imitation of Hobo’s hoot, and, to her delight, that earned her another hug. And then Hobo scooted across the room, and, with no difficulty at all, he opened one of the dresser drawers.