by Vernor Vinge
“There you are! My point is that if things do not go one hundred percent our way, we want an outsider to present our view, ideally someone who has seen exactly what we’re doing. It could mean the difference between going silently to jail—and making an effective moral statement.”
“Yes,” said Rivera. “You’re a security genius, Professor Parker. But even the best-laid plans can go awry. If you can accommodate Sharif, that would be a…a kind of safety net.”
Tommie pounded his head gently on the table. “You guys don’t know what you’re asking.”
But for all the histrionics, Tommie had not said no. After a moment, the little guy sat up and glared at them. “You’re asking for a miracle. Maybe I can do it and maybe not. Give me a day to think.”
“Sure, Professor.”
“No problem.” Blount was smiling with relief.
Tommie shook his head and hunched down behind his laptop. He seemed just as happy when the other gang members adjourned the meeting and wandered off toward the elevators.
Usually, there was an elevator waiting by the time they got there. Apparently Tommie’s deadzone had left even the elevator software in the dark. After a moment spent staring at closed doors, Carlos reached over and punched the ground-floor button. “The virtue of maintaining antique controls,” he said with a weak smile.
Winnie was grinning, but it had nothing to do with the elevator. “Don’t worry. Tommie will come up with a solution.”
Robert nodded. “He always has, hasn’t he?”
“‘Yup,’” said Winnie, and they all laughed. And suddenly Robert understood why Winnie and Carlos wanted Sharif on board.
As the elevator doors opened and Rivera and Blount stepped in, Robert said, “Catch you later. Maybe I should see the Library Militant again.”
Winnie rolled his eyes, “Suit yourself.” And they were gone.
Robert stood for a moment, listening to the sound of the departing elevator. Beyond the stairway door on his left was the descent into the virtual library. There had been no more faux earthquakes, but the Librarians Militant still played with heavy amplifiers. He could hear the sounds of creeping masonry, louder now than the elevator. The floor under his feet trembled to the tune of Jerzy Hacek’s fantasies.
He waited a moment more, and then—instead of heading down the stairs—he walked back around the sixth floor to Tommie Parker.
TOMMIE WAS LEANING forward, his nose still buried in his computer. His deadzone LED was still lit. In a very concrete way, he looked like a wizard with a book of ancient lore. No virtual realities needed here. Robert slid into the opposite chair and watched. It was quite possible the guy hadn’t even noticed his arrival. He really could get totally absorbed by games and puzzles and cracking schemes.
“I am everywhere, and I appear however I wish, to produce the results that I wish.” That was the Mysterious Stranger’s brag. After last night, after the miracle in the front bathroom, Robert was willing to believe that whatever the Stranger was, he might be nearly as powerful as he claimed. I wonder what he has on Winnie and Carlos?
Finally, Robert broke the silence: “So, Tommie, how badly have we screwed up?”
Blue eyes appeared over the top of the laptop. Tommie’s expression seemed to say what are you doing here? His gaze turned back to his computer. “Dunno. I just wish you guys would make up your minds.” A quick glance back Robert’s way. “But you didn’t push for this change, did you?”
“I have…mixed feelings about it.” Now the Stranger would be on-site next Monday, proving again his claim of ubiquity. “I’ve always believed in letting you tech geniuses get the job done your own way.”
Tommie bobbed agreement. “Yup.”
Actually, the old Robert had never cared about technology one way or another. Now things were very different. “I remember you were always good at pulling miracles out of your hat, though. Are we asking too much this time, Tommie?”
Parker sat up and gave Robert all his attention. “I…I just don’t know, Robert. In the old days, there’s no way I could swing something like this. I could design super ASICs. I could hack protocols. I could do a dozen things outside my narrow academic specialty. But that doesn’t count for so much now. It’s that—”
“It’s that you’re working on problems bigger than any set of specialties.”
“Yes! How did you know that?”
Ms. Chumlig told me. Aloud, Robert said, “Nowadays, you deal with completely unrelated specialties.”
“Right. Some of my core skills are still important. In those I’m as effective as I ever was. But…by the time I retired, I was almost an embarrassment to my department. I was good in certain niche courses, but when I tried to teach the new integrative stuff—well, all my life I’d been way ahead of the students, even in new courses. But toward the end, I was floundering. I got through my last semester by assigning weekly projects, and then having the kids critique each other.” He looked seriously embarrassed. Nothing like this had ever happened to the old Robert—but I could always define what quality and performance meant.
“Anyway, after I retired, I went back to school—at least inside my head. There’s a whole different way of looking at problem solving if you want to solve large problems fast. It’s like learning to use power tools, except that nowadays your tools aren’t just Google and symbolic math packages, they’re also the idea boards and future speculations and—”
“And dealing with people?”
“Yup. People were never part of my equations—but that doesn’t matter anymore. There are design bureaus that specialize in handling the nicey-nice.” Tommie leaned forward, confiding. “Since I started working on this project, everything has come together! Getting into the tunnels would be useless if the staff were still in the labs. So I’ve turned the political maneuvering between the Hacekeans and the Scoochis into the most spectacular media distraction—a clash of belief circles. It’ll be so cool! I’ve found a design coordinator who understands what I’m after. I make the overall concept and he farms it out all over the planet. The detailed plans just grow into place!”
Tommie sat back, his frustration swept away by this vision of his new powers. “And look at my computer!” His hand passed lovingly across the device. The cabinet was nicked and scratched. It looked like it had hosted generations of burglars. The LEDs along the top were set in little pits hacked into the metal. Ol’ Tommie didn’t believe in “no user-serviceable parts within.” “Over the years, I’ve replaced everything inside. Too often the changes were to satisfy new standards and the damned SHE. But now in the last couple of months, I’ve put a revolution inside this box. It subverts nontrivial parts of the Secure Hardware Environment. I swear, Robert, I’m hotter than DARPA and CIA ever were in the twentieth century.”
Robert was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I’ll bet you will figure some way to get Sharif in.”
“Ha. That would be the frosting on the cake. The obvious trick is straight out of the twentieth century: we just lay our own cable. That would support decent data rates—enough for Sharif, anyway—and we’d still be all dark and quiet.” He glanced at Robert and apparently took his silence for incredulity. “I know, it’s a long walk, and the tunnel security will be mostly live. But there’s a kind of slimclad optical fiber…or there will be after I get done with my design coordinator.”
“Yes. Your design coordinator.”
“I am everywhere, and I appear however I wish, to produce the results that I wish.” The new world was a magical place, but there was a hierarchy of miracles. There was what Juan and Robert could do. There was what Louise Chumlig was trying to teach. There was what Tommie had taught himself. And somewhere above it all, there was what the Mysterious Stranger could do.
19
FAILURE IS AN OPTION
At Fairmont High, final exams were spread across several days. There were some similarities with what he remembered of childhood. The kids were distracted by the upcoming holidays. Worse,
the Christmas movie season was something that was beginning to pervade the various shared worlds they lived in.
But finals were different in one profound way from his experience in high school. For Robert Gu, these new exams were hard. It was not a foregone conclusion that he would max the tests and outdo everyone around him. The only similar situation from his past was in undergraduate school, when he had briefly been forced into real science courses. In those classes, he had finally met students who were not automatically his inferiors—and he had also met teachers who were not impressed by his genius. Once past the mandatory science curriculum, Robert had avoided such humiliation.
Until now.
Math and formal common sense. Statistics and data mechanics. Search and analysis. Even the S&A exam limited one’s opportunity to go out on the net and use the intelligence of others. Though she taught collaboration, Chumlig had always droned about the importance of core competencies. Now all her mismatched platitudes were coming together in one hellweek of testing.
Right after the “common sense” exam, the Mysterious Stranger manifested himself. He was just a voice and a greenish glow. “Having trouble with the exams, my man?”
“I’ll get by.” In fact, the math had actually been interesting.
Miri --> Juan, Xiu:
Xiu --> Juan, Miri:
Miri --> Juan, Xiu:
Juan --> Miri, Xiu:
The Stranger chuckled. “At Fairmont High, they don’t give automatic A grades, or even automatic passing grades. Failure is an option, but you—”
Relief was in sight. He saw Juan Orozco coming out of the class building, heading his way. The stranger continued, “—and Juan Orozco are not certain F’s. You’re on a simplified curriculum. You should see the exams they’re planning for your granddaughter.”
“What about my granddaughter?” If the slimeball brought her into this—
But the voice did not reply.
Juan looked around questioningly. “Were you talking to someone, Robert?”
“Not about school things.”
“Because I didn’t see anybody.” He hesitated, and letters coursed across Robert’s view. Juan --> Robert:
“I understand,” Robert replied out loud.
“Okay.” Clearly Juan didn’t think Robert could pass all the tests. Sometimes it seemed like the poor kid was trying to protect him. “See,” Juan continued, “the school uses a real good proctor service. Maybe there are some kids who can fool it, but there’s a lot more who only think they can.”
And then there’s the Mysterious Stranger, who seems to have no trouble at all with security. The Stranger was so powerful, yet he still got pleasure from taunting Robert. Could it be some old enemy—someone a good deal brighter than Winnie Blount?
“Anyway, I think we have a chance for an A in our semester demo, Robert.” The boy launched into the latest plans for using his writing together with manual music and Robert’s network algorithms. It was the blind leading the blind, but after a few moments Robert was absorbed in it.
THINGS WERE VERY tense around the house, and it had nothing to do with final exams. In point of fact, Robert’s midnight fracas at the front bathroom amounted to a physical assault. Never mind that he’d been trying to protect Alice—that was scarcely something he could claim. This time there were no threats, no showdowns. But Robert could see an uneasiness in Bob’s eyes that hadn’t been there before. It was the look of a fellow who begins to wonder if the snake he’s been keeping might actually be a black mamba. That conclusion would get Robert shipped to Rainbows End faster than any mere boorishness.
Miri gave him a clue as to why this hadn’t happened. She caught up with him one afternoon as he wandered around West Fallbrook hoping for contact with some friendly form of Sharif.
Miri rode her old bike along beside him for a few paces, matching his speed, and wobbling wildly. Finally she hopped off and walked the bike. As usual, her posture was schoolmarm straight. She looked at him sideways for a moment, “How are your finals going, Robert?”
“Hi Miri. How are your finals going?”
“I asked first! Besides, you know my finals don’t start till after the break.” Her ebullient bossiness seemed to collide with diplomacy. “So how are you doing?”
“It looks like I’m going to get a C in math.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh! I’m sorry.”
Robert laughed. “No. That’s good news. I wouldn’t have even understood the problems, back before the Alzheimer’s.”
She gave him a sickly smile. “Well, that’s okay then.”
“Hmm. A…friend…of mine told me that the kids in your classes are really good at these things.”
“We know the tools.”
“I think I could be a lot better in math,” said Robert, almost to himself. “It might even be fun.” Of course, if his real plans for the next few days worked out, he would have his poetry back and none of this would matter.
This time Miri’s smile was happier. “I’ll bet you could! You know…I could help you on that. I really like math, and I have all sorts of custom heuristics. Between semesters I could show you how to use them.” Her voice slipped into leader mode as she planned out his vacation for him. That’s the Alice in her, thought Robert. He almost smiled. “Hold on, there’s still finals to get through.” And he thought about Juan’s latest demo plans. The boy was doing okay. It was Robert who was having trouble with his part, the graphics and the interfaces. “That’s where I really need help.”
Miri’s face snapped around, “I will not help you cheat, Robert!”
They both stopped and stared at each other. “That’s not what I meant, Miri!” Then he thought about what he had actually said. Christ. In the old days I insulted people all the time, but I knew when I was doing it. “Honest. I just meant that finals are a problem, okay?”
Lena --> Miri, Xiu:
Xiu --> Lena, Miri:
Miri glared at him for a second more. Then she made a strange sound that might have been a giggle. “Okay. I should have known a Gu would not cheat. It’s just that I get so mad at some of the kids in my study group. I tell them what to do. I tell them not to cheat. And yet they are always chiseling at the collab protocols.”
She started walking again, and Robert followed along. “Actually,” she said, “I was just making conversation. I have a mission, something I should tell you.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Bob wants to send you out-of-state. He figures you tried to beat up Alice.” She paused, as if waiting for some defense.
But Robert only nodded, remembering the look in Bob’s eyes. So Rainbows End was too close by. “How long do I have?”
“That’s what I want to tell you, not to worry. You see—” It turned out that his rescue came from an unlikely source, namely Colonel Alice herself. Apparently, she hadn’t felt the least bit threatened by him. “Alice knew you were just desperate, I mean—” Miri made a verbal dance of avoiding insult and gross language: Basically, Alice already thought he was a crazy old man. Crazy old men have to go to the bathroom all the time; they get overly focused on that problem. Furthermore, Alice didn’t regard his manhandling of her as assault. Robert remembered how sore his head was after he tripped over her feet and slammed into the doorjamb. Black-belt whatever must be one of Alice’s myriad JITTs. Alice was the dangerous one. Poor Alice, poor Bob. Poor Miri.
“Anyway, she told Bob that he was overreacting, and you really need your schooling here. She says you can stay as long as your behavior is…” her voice dwindled into silence, and she looked up at him. She couldn’t figure how to pass on the rest d
iplomatically: as long as you don’t blast my daughter again.
“…I understand, Miri. I’ll be good.”
“Well. Okay.” Miri looked around. “I, um, I guess that’s all I had to say. I’ll let you get on with…whatever you’re doing. Good luck with finals.”
She swung back on her bike and pedaled industriously away. That old bike had only three speeds. Robert shook his head, but he couldn’t help smiling.
20
THE OFFICER OF THE WATCH
Robert’s finals were over. He had earned a 2.6 average, and a B in Search and Analysis. He had worked harder than he ever had in his life. If it weren’t for the imminent irrelevance of it all, he would have been proud of himself.
Now it was Monday afternoon and Robert was counting the hours, almost down to counting the minutes. The Mysterious Stranger had been very scarce lately. The cabal had met a couple of times, with Tommie doling out information on a need-to-know basis. Tommie had read too many spy novels. For now, all Robert knew was that they were meeting at the library at 5:30 tonight.
MEANTIME, SOMEWHERE UNDER Camp Pendleton…
In theory, being Officer of the Watch for Continental U.S. Southwest was no different than running a snoop-and-swoop operation anywhere in the world. In theory, there could be world-wrecking conspirators at work here. In fact, this was home, in some of the best-connected real estate in the world. The chances they’d have to swoop were near zero. Nevertheless, for the next four hours Lieutenant Colonel Robert Gu, Jr., would be responsible for protecting about one hundred million of his neighbors from mass destruction.
Gu arrived twenty minutes early, checked in with the current Officer of the Watch, and then looked for DHS screwups. Those were usually the worst thing about CONUS Watches. Through the miracle of virtual bureaucracy, Gu’s Marine Expeditionary Group was tonight a part of the Department of Homeland Security. This was how DHS kept its budget so, ahem, small. “Like a modern corporation, DHS seamlessly meshes with whatever organizations are needed at the moment.” That was the hype. And tonight—well glory be—there was not a single authorization glitch in sight.