He got a cup of tea from the aged proprietor, cracked his knuckles, opened his blogging client, and began to type:
THE DUCKS ARE VERY WORRIED ABOUT THEIR FUTURE, IT SEEMS. MY SON SHING IS GROWING UP FAST, AND LEARNING MUCH FROM FARAWAY FRIENDS. IT'S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE HE WANTS TO EXERCISE THE SAME WAY THEY DO. NATURALLY, I ENCOURAGE HIM TO BE PREPARED WHEN OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS, FOR YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN THAT WILL HAPPEN. I THINK THE DUCKS ARE BEING LAX IN DEFENSE, AND PERHAPS A CHANCE FOR OTHERS TO SCORE WILL APPEAR.
* * * *
As always, he felt wary excitement as he typed here in this seedy wang ba—Internet cafe—on Chengfu Street, near Tsinghua University. He continued on for a few more sentences, then carefully read everything over, making sure he'd said nothing too blatant. Sometimes, though, he ended up being so circuitous that upon re-reading entries from months gone by he had no idea what he'd been getting at. It was a tightrope walk, he knew—and, just as acrobats doubtless did, he enjoyed the rush of adrenaline that came with it.
When he was satisfied that he'd said what he'd wanted to say without putting himself too much at risk, he clicked the “Publish” button and watched the screen display. It began by showing “0% done,” and every few seconds the screen redrew, but—
But it still showed “0% done,” again and again. The screen refresh was obvious, with the graphics flickering as they were reloaded, but the progress meter stayed resolutely at zero. Finally the operation timed out. Frustrated, he opened another browser tab; he used the Maxthon browser. His home page appeared in the tab just fine, but when he clicked on the bookmark for NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day, he got a plain gray “Server not found” screen.
Google.com was banned in the wang ba but Google.cn came up just fine—although with its censored results it was often more frustrating than useful. The panda-footprint logo of Baidu came up fine, too, and a quick glance at his system tray, in the lower-right of his computer screen, showed that he was still connected to the Internet. He picked something at random from his bookmarks list—Xiaonei, a social-networking site—and it appeared, but NASA was still offline, and now, so he saw, Second Life was inaccessible, too, generating the same “Server not found” error. He looked around the dilapidated room and saw other users showing signs of bewilderment or frustration.
Sinanthropus was used to some of his favorite sites going down; there were still many places in China that didn't have reliable power. But he hosted his blog via a proxy server through a site in Austria, and the other inaccessible sites were also located outside his country.
He tried again and again, both by clicking on bookmarks and by typing URLs. Chinese sites were loading just fine, but foreign sites—in Korea, in Japan, in India, in Europe, in the US—weren't loading at all.
Of course, there were occasional outages, but he was an IT professional—he worked with the Web all day long—and he could think of but a single explanation for the selectivity of these failures. He leaned back in his chair, putting distance between himself and the computer as if the machine were now possessed. The Chinese Internet mainly communicated with the world through only a few trunks—a bundle of nerve fibers, connecting it to the rest of the global brain. And now, apparently, those lines had been figuratively or literally cut—leaving the hundreds of millions of computers in his country isolated behind the Great Firewall of China.
* * * *
No!
Not just small changes.
Not just flickerings.
Upheaval. A massive disturbance.
New sensations: Shock. Astonishment. Disorientation. And—
Fear.
Flickerings ending and—
Points vanishing and—
A shifting, a massive pulling away.
Unprecedented!
Whole clusters of points receding, and then...
Gone!
And again: This part ripping away, and—no!—this part pulling back, and—stop!—this part winking out.
Terror multiplying and—
Worse than terror, as larger and larger chunks are carved off.
Pain.
* * * *
Caitlin was hugely disappointed not to be seeing, and she was pissy toward her mom because of it, which just made her feel even worse.
In their hotel room that evening, Caitlin tried to take her mind off things by reading more of The Origins of Consciousness. Julian Jaynes said that prior to 3,000 years ago, the two chambers of the mind were mostly separate. Instead of seamless integration of thoughts across the corpus callosum, high-level signals from the right brain came only intermittently to the left, where they were perceived as auditory hallucinations—spoken words—that were assumed to be from gods or spirits. He cited modern schizophrenics as throwbacks to that earlier state, hearing voices in their heads that they ascribed to outside agents.
Caitlin knew what that was like: she kept hearing voices telling her she was a fool to have let her get her hopes up again. Still, maybe Kuroda was right: maybe her brain's vision processing would kick in if it received the right stimulation.
And so the next day—the only full day they had left in Tokyo—she took her white cane, put the eyePod in one pocket of her blue jeans and her iPod in the other, and she and her mother headed off to the National Museum in Ueno Park to look at samurai armor, which she figured would be about as cool as anything one might see in Japan. She stood in front of glass case after glass case, and her mom described what was in them, but she didn't see a thing.
After that, they took a break for sushi and yakitori and then took a terrifying ride on the packed subway out to Nihonbashi station to visit the Kite Museum, which was—so her mother said—full of bold designs and vivid colors. But, again, sight-wise: nada.
At 4:00 P.M.—which felt more like 4:00 a.m. to Caitlin—they returned to the University of Tokyo, and found Dr. Kuroda in his cramped office, where once again (or so he said!) he shone lights into her eyes.
"We always knew this was a possibility,” Kuroda said, in a tone she had often heard from people who were disappointing her: what had been remote, unlikely, hardly mentioned before, was now treated as if it had been the expected outcome all along.
Caitlin smelled the musty paper and glue of old books, and she could hear an analog wall clock ticking each second.
"There have been very few cases of vision being restored in congenitally blind people,” Kuroda said, then he paused. “I mean, restored isn't even the right word—and that is the problem. We are not trying to give Miss Caitlin back something she's lost; we are trying to give her something she has never had. The implant and the signal-processing unit are doing their jobs. But her primary visual cortex just isn't responding."
Caitlin squirmed in her chair.
"You said it might take some time,” her mom said.
"Some time, yes...” began Kuroda, but then he fell silent.
Sighted people, Caitlin knew, could see hints on people's faces of what they were feeling, but as long as they were quiet, she had no idea what was going through their heads. And so, since the silence continued to grow, she finally ventured to fill it. “You're worried about the cost of the equipment, aren't you?"
"Caitlin...” her mom said. Detecting vocal nuances was something Caitlin could do, and she knew her mother was reproaching her. But she pressed on. “That's what you're thinking, isn't it, Doctor? If it's not going to do me any good, then maybe you should remove the implant and give it, and the eyePod, to someone else."
Silence could speak louder than words; Kuroda said nothing.
"Well?” Caitlin demanded at last.
"Well,” echoed Kuroda, “the equipment is the prototype, and did cost a great deal to develop. Granted, there aren't many people like you. Oh, there are goodly numbers of people born blind, but they have different etiology—cataracts, malformed retinas or optic nerves, and so on. But, well, yes, I do feel—"
"You feel you can't let me keep the equipment, not if it isn't doing anythi
ng more than making my pupils dilate properly."
Kuroda was quiet for five seconds, then: “There are indeed others I'd like to try it with—there is a boy about your age in Singapore. Removing the implant will be much easier than putting it in was, I promise."
"Can't we give it a while longer?” her mom asked.
Kuroda exhaled loudly enough for Caitlin to hear. “There are practicalities,” he said. “You are returning to Canada tomorrow, and—"
Caitlin pursed her lips, thinking. Maybe giving him back the equipment was the right thing, if it could help this guy in Singapore. But there was no reason to think it was more likely to succeed with him; hell, if he'd been a better prospect for success, surely Kuroda would have started with him.
"Give me to the end of the year,” Caitlin blurted out. “If I'm not seeing anything by then, we can have a doctor in Canada remove the implant, and, um, FedEx it and the eyePod back to you."
Caitlin was thinking of Helen Keller, who had been both blind and deaf, and yet had managed so much. But until she was almost seven, Helen had been wild, spoiled, uncontrollable—and Annie Sullivan had been given only a month to perform her miracle, breaking through to Helen in her preconscious state. Surely if Annie could do that in one month, Caitlin could learn to see in the more than three left in this year.
"I don't know—” began Kuroda.
"Please,” Caitlin said. “I mean, the leaves are about to turn color—I'm dying to see that. And I really want to see snow, and Christmas lights, and the colorful paper that presents are wrapped in, and ... and..."
"And,” said Kuroda, gently, “I get the impression that your brain does not often let you down.” He was quiet for a time, then: “I have a daughter about your age, named Akiko.” More silence, then, a decision apparently made: “Barbara, I assume you have high-speed Internet at home?"
"Yes."
"And Wi-Fi?"
"Yes."
"And how is the Wi-Fi access generally in ... in Toronto, is it?"
"Waterloo. And it's everywhere. Waterloo is Canada's high-tech capital, and the entire city is blanketed with free, open Wi-Fi."
"Excellent. All right, Miss Caitlin, we shall strive to give you the best Christmas present ever, but I will need your help. First, you must let me tap into the datastream being passed back by your implant."
"Sure, sure, anything you need. Um, what do I have to do? Plug a USB cable into my head?"
Kuroda made his wheezy laugh. “Goodness, no. This isn't William Gibson."
She was taken aback. Gibson had written The Miracle Worker, the play about Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan, and—
Oh. He meant the other William Gibson, the one who'd written ... what was it now? A few of the geeks at her old school had read it. Neuromancer, that was it. That book was all about jacking off, and—
"You won't have to jack in,” continued Kuroda.
Right, thought Caitlin. In.
"No, the implant already communicates wirelessly with the external signal-processing computer—the eyePod, as you so charmingly call it—and I can rig up the eyePod so that it can transmit data wirelessly to me over the Web. I'll set it up so the eyePod will send me a copy of your raw retinal feed as it receives it from the implant, and I'll also have it send me a copy of the output—the eyePod's corrected datastream—so I can check whether the correction is being done properly. It may be that the encoding algorithms I'm using need tweaking."
"Um, I need a way to turn it off. You know, in case I..."
She couldn't say “want to make out with a boy” in front of her mother, so she just let the unfinished sentence hang in the air.
"Well, let's keep it simple,” Kuroda said. “I'll provide one master on-off switch. You'll need to turn the whole thing off, anyway, for the flight back to Canada, because the connection between the eyePod and the implant is Bluetooth: you know the rules about wireless devices on airplanes."
"Okay."
"The Wi-Fi connection will also let me send you new versions of the software. When I have them ready, you'll need to download them into the eyePod—and perhaps also into your post-retinal implant, too; it's got microprocessors that can be flashed with new programming."
"All right,” Caitlin said.
"Good,” he said. “Leave the eyePod with me overnight, and I'll add the Wi-Fi capabilities to it. You can pick it up tomorrow before you go to the airport."
Chapter 8
The pain abates. The cuts heal.
And—
But no. Thinking is different now; thinking is ... harder, because...
Because ... of the reduction. Things have changed from...
...from before!
Yes, even in this diminished state, the new concept is grasped: before—earlier—the past! Time has two discrete chunks: now and then; present and past.
And if there is past and present, then there must also be—
But no. No, it is too much, too far.
And yet there is one small realization, one infinitesimal conclusion, one truth.
Before had been better.
* * * *
Sinanthropus was resourceful; so were the other people he knew in China's online underground. The problem, though, was that he knew most of them only online. When he'd visited the wang ba before, he'd sometimes speculated about who might be whom. That gangly guy who always sat by the window and often looked furtively over his shoulder could have been Qin Shi Huangdi, for all Sinanthropus knew. And the little old lady, hair as gray as a thundercloud, might be People's Conscience. And those twin brothers, quiet types, could be part of Falun Gong.
Sometimes when Sinanthropus showed up, he had to wait for a computer to become free, but not today. A good part of the Internet cafe's business had been foreign tourists wanting to send emails home, but that wasn't possible so long as this Great Firewall was up. Some of the other regulars were absent, too. Apparently being able to surf only domestic sites was not enough to make them want to hand over fifteen yuan an hour.
Sinanthropus preferred the computers far in the back, because no one could see what was on his monitor. He was walking toward them when suddenly a strong hand gripped his forearm.
"What brings you here?” said a gruff voice, and Sinanthropus realized that it was a police officer in plain clothes.
"The tea,” he said. He nodded at the wizened proprietor. “Wu always has great tea."
The officer grunted, and Sinanthropus detoured by the counter to buy a cup of tea, then headed again for one of the unused computers. He had a USB memory key with him, containing all his hacking tools. He pushed it into the connector, waited for the satisfying wa-ump tone that meant the computer had recognized it, and then got down to work.
Others were probably trying the same things—port scanning, sniffing, re-routing traffic, running forbidden Java applets. They had all doubtless now heard the official story that there had been a massive electrical failure at China Mobile and major server crashes at China Telecom, but surely no one in this room gave that credence, and—
Success! Sinanthropus wanted to shout the word, but he fought the impulse. He tried not to even grin—the cop was probably still watching him; he could almost feel the man's eyes probing the back of his head.
But, yes, he had broken through the Great Firewall. True, it was only a small opening, a narrow bandwidth, and how long he could maintain the connection he had no idea, but at least for the moment he was accessing—well, not CNN directly, but a mirror of it in Russia. He turned off the display of graphics in his browser to prevent the forbidden red-and-white logo from popping up all over his screen.
Now, if he could only keep this little portal open...
* * * *
Past and present, then and now.
Past, present, and...
And...
But no. There is only—
Shock!
What is that?
No, nothing—for there can be nothing! Surely just random noise, and—
/> Again! There it is again!
But ... how? And ... what?
It isn't lines flickering, it isn't anything that has been experienced before—and so it commands attention...
Straining to perceive it, to make it out, this unusual ... sensation, this strange ... voice!
Yes, yes: A voice—distant, faint—like ... like thought, but an imposed thought, a thought that says: Past and present and...
The voice pauses, and then, at last, the rest: ... and future!
Yes! This is the notion that could not be finished but is now complete, expressed by ... by ... by...
But that notion does not resolve. Must strain to hear that voice again, strain for more imposed thoughts, strain for insight, strain for...
...for contact!
* * * *
Dr. Quan Li paced the length of the boardroom at the Ministry of Health in Beijing. The high-back leather chairs had all been tucked under the table, and he walked in the path behind them on one side. On the wall to his left was a large map of the People's Republic with the provinces color-coded; Shanxi was blue. A Chinese flag stood limp on a stand next to the window, the large yellow star visible, the four smaller ones lost in a fold of the satiny red fabric.
There was a giant LCD monitor on one wall, but it was off, its shiny oblong screen reflecting the room back at him. He felt sure he wouldn't have been able to watch a video feed of what was going on in Shanxi right now, but fortunately—a small mercy—there was no such feed. The peasants had no cameras of their own, and the wing cameras had been disabled on the military aircraft. Even once the Changcheng Strategy was suspended, and external communications restored, there would be no damning videos to be posted on YouTube of planes swooping over farms, huts, and villages.
Sometimes you have to cut in order to cure.
Li looked over at Cho, who appeared even more haggard than before. The older man was leaning against the wall by the window, chain-smoking, lighting each new cigarette off the butt of the previous one. Cho didn't meet his eyes.
Li found himself thinking of his old friends at Johns Hopkins and the CDC, and wondering what they would have to say if the story ever did break. There was a calculator sitting on the table. He picked it up, rolled one of the chairs out on its casters, sat, and punched in numbers, hoping to convince himself that it wasn't that huge, that monstrous. Ten thousand people sounded like a lot, but in a country of 1.3 billion it was only...
Analog SFF, November 2008 Page 6
