Wonder w-3

by Robert J. Sawyer

  His first thought was to pull into a public library, sign onto a computer there, and just start posting everywhere he could what he knew about how Webmind worked. But Webmind was monitoring everything online—jumping into countless conversations, posting comments on endless numbers of blogs—which meant that no sooner had he posted the secret, Webmind would delete it, as if it were so much spam.

  No, he needed to get the word out in a way that Webmind couldn’t yet censor—and fortunately, for a few days more at least, there were still some ways to practice free speech.

  Back on Sunday morning, a driver had come to pick him up, and he’d been tired enough to not really pay attention during the trip. And so, for the first time in days, he turned on his car’s GPS. As he waited for it to acquire satellite signals, he typed in the name of the place he wanted to go. Once the GPS was oriented, he headed on his way, smiling slightly at the irony of a flat, mechanical voice giving him directions to freedom.

  Wong Wai-Jeng never thought he’d see the inside of the Zhongnanhai complex—the inner sanctum of the Communist Party. But now he had a cubicle here! He was one of dozens of programmers charged with probing the Great Firewall, looking for weaknesses so that they could be plugged before others could exploit them. He missed the IT department at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, and felt guilty that he’d left so many tasks incomplete there; he wondered how kindly old Dr. Feng was making out without him. Of course, once he’d been arrested, somebody else had been hired to do his job; no one had expected him to be seen in public anytime soon.

  He was doubtless being watched here: he’d spotted one of the cameras and had no doubt there were others. He was also sure they were using a keylogger to keep track of every keystroke and mouseclick he made. But although Sinanthropus had been silenced, and his freedom blog was no more, maybe he could still do some good here in the halls of power. A word in the right ear at the right time, perhaps; a gentle suggestion here and there. Maybe even, after a year or two, a bit of authority to actually change things. As Sun Tzu had said, only he who knows when to fight and when not to can be victorious.

  Wai-Jeng shifted uncomfortably in his rust-colored padded chair. His leg was still in a cast. Before Dr. Kuroda had left for Tokyo, he’d had him sign it, a string of green Kanji characters. But it would mend, and although he’d thought he’d never be able to do such things again, soon he’d be able to run, and dance, and jump, and—

  He hadn’t done it for a decade, not since he’d been a teenager. He could walk the Changcheng—the Great Wall—again.

  But all that would have to wait. For now, Wai-Jeng had work he was required to do. He tapped away at his keyboard, doing his masters’ bidding.

  Peyton Hume stood on the threshold of WNBC, the Washington NBC affiliate. He took a deep breath and ran a freckled hand through his short hair. If he did this, he might well be court-martialed, and he’d certainly lose his security clearance. But if he didn’t do this—

  It was a warm, sunny October day. A young African-American woman was coming down the sidewalk, pushing a stroller with a baby in it. Two small white boys came running down the sidewalk in the other direction, their exasperated father trying to keep up. An Asian-American teenage girl and a white boy passed him, holding hands. Some Italian tourists were chatting among themselves and pointing at the sites. A Sikh was standing near him, talking and laughing on a cell phone.

  It was their world—all of theirs. And he was going to make sure it stayed that way.

  Besides, all he was going to do was practice a little transparency—and wasn’t that all the rage these days? He pushed open the glass door and entered. As before, there were display cases with awards—including what he recognized as an Emmy—and posters of local and network personalities on the walls. But the receptionist—young, pretty, blonde—was different from the one who’d been here on Sunday. He strode up to her desk.

  “Hello. I’d like to see the news director.”

  She’d been chewing gum—a fact that had been obvious when he entered but which she was now trying to hide. “Do you have an appointment, Colonel?”

  He smiled. So many young people today had no idea how to read rank insignia. “No,” he said, handing her his Pentagon business card. “But I was a guest on Meet the Press this week, and I have a news story that I’m sure he’ll be interested in.”

  The woman looked at the card, then lifted a handset. “Ed? Reception. I think you’ll want to come out here…”

  “What are you doing?” Caitlin asked as she came into the kitchen. Her mother was sitting at the small table there.

  “Filling out my absentee ballot,” her mom said.

  “For the presidential election, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “But the election is weeks away.”

  “True. But I’ve heard horror stories about Canada Post. And it’s not like I’m going to change my mind.”

  “And you’re voting Democrat, right?”

  “Always do.”

  “How does that work? I mean, where is an absentee vote counted?”

  “In Texas—it’s counted in your state of last residence.”

  Caitlin opened the fridge and poured herself a glass of orange juice, which delighted her in being now both a flavor and a color to her. “But Texas is overwhelmingly Republican. Your vote won’t make a difference.”

  Her mother put down her pen and looked at her. “Well, first, miracles do happen, young lady—your sight is proof of that. And, second, it makes a difference to me. We’re trying to transition to a new world in which mankind is not the brightest thing on the planet, while keeping our essential humanity, liberty, and individuality intact. Every time we fail to assert our liberties, every time we fail to express our individuality, we lose a piece of ourselves. We might as well be machines.”

  “Colonel Hume,” said Edward L. Benson, Jr., as he entered the lobby; Hume remembered the news director’s full name from the business card he’d been given on Sunday. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.” Benson was black, early forties, six-two, on the high side of three hundred pounds, with hair buzzed short; he was sporting wire-frame glasses and wearing casual clothes.

  “Thanks for making time for me,” Hume said, shaking Benson’s large hand.

  “Not at all, not at all. Listen—sorry about those comments on our website about your appearance on MTP. Webmind’s got a lot of fans out there, it seems.”

  Hume had been unaware of the comments, but he supposed they had been inevitable. “That’s okay.”

  “For what it’s worth, I thought you made a lot of good points on Sunday,” Benson said.

  “Yes, you said that afterwards. That’s why I’m here. Do you have time for a quick walk around the block?”

  Benson frowned, then seemed to get it. He looked at his watch. “Sure.”

  They actually walked for the better part of an hour, never stopping long enough to let any pedestrians’ open cell phone overhear more than a few words of their conversation.

  “We don’t normally use live interviews, except with our correspondents, on the evening newscast,” Benson said.

  “This has to be live. It has to be live, coast-to-coast.”

  “That’s not possible. There will be time-zone delays. We’re live here on the East Coast, but delayed three hours on the West Coast.”

  Hume frowned. “All right, okay. If that’s the best you can manage.”

  “Sorry, but it is,” said Benson. “One other thing, though. Of course, your credentials were fully vetted by our legal-affairs guys prior to your last live appearance, and, as far as I know, you came to me today in your official capacity as a Pentagon staff member and an advisor to the National Security Agency. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.”

  “I won’t dispute that,” said Hume. “You have my word.”

  “Good. But when it is eventually exposed—and make no mistake, Colonel, it will be—that you’re speak
ing without the authority to do so—”

  “It’ll cost me my job and maybe more. Yes, I know. And, yes, I’m sure I want to do this.”

  twenty-four

  Caitlin had missed Matt a lot when she was in New York, and although they’d IM’d in the evenings, it hadn’t been the same. But he’d come over today right after school. Her heart pounded every time she saw him, and as soon as her mom headed up to her office to work with Webmind, she gave him a long kiss.

  But now they had settled in on the white living-room couch, his hand on her thigh—after she’d placed it there—and her hand overtop of his. Of course, they were being watched by Webmind, through the netbook on the small bookcase—but Webmind always saw what she was doing, anyway. She and Matt were looking at the big wall-mounted flat-screen TV.

  CKCO, the same local CTV affiliate Caitlin had gone to for that awful interview, showed The Big Bang Theory in syndication every weekday at 4:00 P.M. Caitlin had sometimes listened to it along with her parents back in Austin during its first run, but it was astonishing seeing it. She’d had no idea Sheldon was so much taller than everyone else; in that, he was like her father. And, of course, Sheldon was like him in other ways, too: both were clearly on the autism spectrum.

  Caitlin loved the show’s humor. Today happened to be a repeat of the series opener. Penny had just introduced herself by saying, “I’m a Sagittarius, which probably tells you way more than you need to know.” To which Sheldon had replied, “Yes, it tells us that you participate in the mass cultural delusion that the sun’s apparent position relative to arbitrarily defined constellations at the time of your birth somehow affects your personality.” Burn!

  But, actually, the clip from TBBT that had gone viral online this past week was the one in which Sheldon burst into Leonard’s bedroom to announce, “I’m invoking the Skynet clause of our friendship agreement,” to which Leonard responds, “That only applies if you need me to help you destroy an artificial intelligence you created that’s taking over the Earth.” Dozens of people had forwarded the link to Caitlin.

  Once the episode was done, she hit the mute button; that was something else that was startling. She’d enjoyed TV when she’d been blind, but it had never registered on her that the pictures kept running even after you pressed mute.

  An ad came on for the CIBC. Caitlin had previously noted that Canadian restaurants liked to hide their Canadianness behind names such as Boston Pizza and Swiss Chalet. She’d recently discovered that Canadian banks—there were only a few major ones—mostly hid behind initials now, trying to disguise their humble origins as they played on the international stage: TD, instead of Toronto-Dominion; BMO instead of Bank of Montreal; RBC, instead of Royal Bank of Canada. On the other hand, the CIBC’s full name—Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce—was so pompous, the initials were an improvement. And CIBC didn’t have anything as prosaic as bank branches, as she could see on the sign for the one being shown in the commercial. Rather, it had “Banking Centres”—with Centre spelled the Canadian way, of course. All words still looked funny to Caitlin, but that one especially did, and—

  And Matt must have been watching the commercial, too. “Hey, Caitlin,” he said, “try this, you American, you. There are lots of words in Canadian English that are longer than they are in American English: ‘honour’ and ‘colour’ with a u, ‘travelling’ with two l’s, ‘chequebook’ with a q-u-e instead of a c-k, and so on, right?”

  Caitlin smiled at him. “Uh-huh.”

  “And there are plenty that are the same length, but with the letters in a different order.” He gestured at the screen: “ ‘Centre,’ ‘kilometre,’ and so on, with r-e at the end instead of e-r.”

  “Complete madness,” said Caitlin. “But, yeah.”

  “But what common word is shorter in Canadian English than in American English?”

  Caitlin frowned. “Um, ah… hmmmm. Well, what about ‘Toronto’? We Americans say it like it’s got seven letters and three syllables in it, but you guys seem to think it’s only got six and two: ‘Trawna’—T-r-a-w-n-a.”

  Matt laughed. “Cute—but no. Guess again.”

  “I give up.”

  “ ‘Centred,’ ” said Matt triumphantly. “It’s c-e-n-t-r-e-d up here, but c-e-n-t-e-r-e-d in the States.”

  Caitlin nodded, impressed. “That’s cool.”

  “You could win money with that, betting people at parties, and…” He trailed off, perhaps because he didn’t get invited to a lot of parties. But then he added, “The only other common one is a form of the same word: ‘centring,’ c-e-n-t-r-i-n-g.”

  “What about ‘metered’?”

  “No, we only spell that with r-e when it’s a noun; the verb is e-r.”

  “Like I said before, Matt, this is one whack-job country you got here.”

  He usually smiled when she said that, but he didn’t this time. “Caitlin,” he said. “Um…”

  “Hey, I’m just kidding, baby. I love the Great White North.” She tried to imitate the call of a loon—and discovered it was much harder to do properly than she’d thought.

  “No, it’s not that,” said Matt. “It’s just…” He trailed off again.

  “What?”

  “I just… No, forget it.”

  “No, what is it?”

  He hesitated a moment longer, then said, “Umm, I know you’re no longer a student at Miller, but…”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, there’s a school dance the last Friday of each month, right? And that means there’s one next week, and—and, well, um, I’ve never been to a school dance. I mean, I never had anyone to go with before and, ah… I thought maybe you’d like to see some of the gang again.” He paused, then added, as if playing a trump card, “Mr. Heidegger is scheduled to be one of the chaperones.”

  Mr. H had been Caitlin’s math teacher; she certainly would like to see him, but…

  But the last school dance had been a disaster. Trevor Nordmann—the fucking Hoser—had taken her, but Caitlin had run off when he kept trying to grope her, and she’d ended up walking home alone and blind through a thunderstorm, after parting company with Sunshine Bowen.

  “Trevor will probably be there,” Caitlin said. “And, um, didn’t he—”

  “He said I should stay away from you, yeah. But…” He took a deep breath then exhaled noisily. “Caitlin, I’m not a tough guy. I know the simplest thing is to avoid him for, like, ever. But you like to dance, and there’s a dance coming up that I can take you to, and I want to do that.” He looked at her. “So, would you like to go?”

  “I’d love to!”

  “Great,” said Matt, nodding firmly. “It’s a date.”

  “… but the president dismissed that as mere posturing on his opponent’s part,” said Brian Williams, from behind the gleaming anchor desk on the NBC Nightly News. “Turning to an even larger story, a high-ranking government computing expert says he knows exactly what Webmind is, and, in an NBC exclusive, he’s in our Washington studio right now, to share his findings with us. Colonel Hume, good evening.”

  Hume had thought about changing out of his Air Force uniform; wearing it for this interview was just going to make matters worse for himself, he knew—but it added weight to his words. “Good evening, Brian.”

  “So—Webmind. Exactly what is it?”

  “Webmind is a collection of mutant packets on the Internet.”

  “Which means what, exactly?”

  “Whenever you send something over the Internet, be it a document, a photo, a video, or an email message, it’s chopped up into little pieces called packets, and these are sent out by your computer on a multileg journey; they’re handed off along the way by devices called routers.

  “Each packet has a header that contains the sending address, the destination address, and a hop counter, which keeps track of how many routers the packet has passed through. The hop counter is sometimes also called the time-to-live counter: it starts with the maximum number of hops allowed and works
its way, hop by hop, down toward zero. Of course, a packet is supposed to reach its intended destination before the counter hits zero, but if it doesn’t, the next router in line is supposed to delete the packet and ask the sender to try its luck again with a duplicate packet.”

  “Okay,” said Brian Williams. “But you said Webmind consists of mutant packets?”

  “That’s right. Its packets have hop counters that never finish their countdown; they never reach zero. Those packets were probably created by buggy routers in the first place, and now there are trillions of them, some of which might have been bouncing around the Web for years. The mutant packets are like cancer cells; they never die.”

  “It’s quite a breakthrough, Colonel Hume, and thank—”

  “FF, EA, 62, 1C, 17,” said Hume. He’d gotten it out—enough at least so that others could find the rest.

  “I—I beg your pardon?”

  “FF, EA, 62, 1C, 17. That’s the beginning of the Webmind signature: most of the mutant packets contain that hexadecimal code. It’s the target string.”

  “Target string?”

  “Exactly. If those packets could be deleted, Webmind would disappear.”

  “Colonel Hume, thank you. In other news tonight…”

  In the Washington studio, the floor director made a hand gesture. “And we’re clear!”

  The audio technician came over to remove Hume’s lavaliere microphone. “Unusual interview,” he said.

  Hume’s forehead was slick with sweat. “Oh?”

  “Yeah. Maybe it’s just me, but it sounded a bit like you were calling on the hacking community to write a virus to kill the Webmind,” said the audio man. “You know how those guys love a challenge.”

  Hume stood up and straightened his uniform jacket. “Do they?” he replied.

  twenty-five

  Houston, we have a problem.

  Caitlin was simultaneously alarmed and amused as those words flashed in her vision. She’d been born in Houston; her family had moved to Austin when she was six—and so she admired Webmind’s word play. “Wassup?” she said.