by Rajnar Vajra
"Are we going to be working with projections that good in all our subjects?"
"That's the plan.” Took an entire summer and several dozen people to get these things set up. Maybe I hadn't wasted anyone's time.
Cher's proxy blew out a perfect sphere of smoke. “What do you have in mind for—” a smoke ring caught up with the sphere and embraced it “—astronomy?"
I smiled. “Tell you what: if we can get through today's lesson plan today, or even come close, I'll give everyone a sneak preview. It'll be worth it. You should all have a pile of books nearby. Grab the one with the exciting title Basic Algebra and let's get started."
By two o'clock we hadn't gotten halfway through the lesson plan despite the mere half-hour lunch break, but I was getting far better cooperation than I'd expected from everyone but Madeline, who remained a lump. I decided a reward was in order.
"The bell's going to ring in another twenty minutes,” I announced, “and we're already working like a team. So I'll show you another trick I've got up my sleeve—part of it, anyway. Sit tight and be ready for anything."
I triggered the first astronomy sequence. With no transition, we were seated outdoors at night under a full moon that somehow failed to bleach the stars in the slightest. I smiled at the gasp chorus. These kids, as the cliché goes, hadn't seen nuthin’ yet.
Then the ground fell away as if our chairs were snubbing gravity. Oohs and Ahs. We sailed up beyond the few scattered cumulous clouds then past some much higher cirrus jobs. Finally we slowed to a stop, resting on nothing at the fringes of Earth's atmosphere. We could see from Ecuador to Alaska. Here, during our educational trip to the moon, I'd pause to lecture about atmospheric layers and composition and even I wasn't sure what else. Right now, I wanted to show the kids what ViewNet could do....
I waited a moment before speaking. “Pretty as a picture?"
We descended rapidly and I knew the kids were assuming the ride was over. But I stopped us within a few hundred feet of ground level.
In the present mode, my function buttons controlled various plug-ins. I pressed F5, a plug-in developed for Enhancement by the people at Adobe, and the scene transformed into a vast somewhat cartoon-like painting. The moon still silvered the trees below, but it had become a crude ball, roughly cratered, impressionistic, surrounded by a swirling aura of indeterminate colors. The stars had grown their own auras, pastel twists suggesting Van Gogh's Starry Night but smoother and in a thousand tints. The effect was peaceful and beautiful.
We sat in midair and gazed on a world turned to art and no one spoke until the bell sounded.
* * * *
When the student images faded away and my OSP shut down, I stood up and opened the shades. The afternoon sunlight poured into my studio like hot tea and my eyes watered. Without the OSP, I felt half-blind but I also felt damn good.
My ViewNet link was scheduled to last another hour yet, but without any special feed, the world seemed pleasantly normal. Until I turned around. My supervisor, Marty Robley, was standing there, apparently haunting me.
As used by Enhancement and similar companies, a ViewNet proxy is intended to act as an optical shell around a person's body, modifying their appearance as they wish for all nearby Viewnet clients. In bright light, a proxy without a body underneath appears vaporous.
"This is a visitation, I presume?” I said, quoting from my daughter's favorite book: Edward Eager's Half Magic.
"Bill, I'm just blown away. How the hell did you come up with those great animation sequences?"
"Thanks, Marty. Stroke of luck, really. Last spring, I met with Teresa Laudy of Enhancement Incorporated to discuss putting more zip into our ViewNet classrooms. I said it was a shame that we couldn't use some of the audio-video tricks they use on the VR channels."
"And?"
"Teresa said that Enhancement was working on a big project to compete with VR. Millions of people are on ViewNet these days and they wouldn't need much extra equipment to play virtual-type games or experience something equivalent to the ‘realies.’ And ViewNet has some plusses. The resolution is finer than human vision and there's a psychological component: when you're not wearing VR goggles, everything you see seems more ... authentic."
"I noticed. That monster of yours.... So Enhancement just let you borrow some of their new programs?"
"Not exactly. I told Teresa what I wanted to do. She loved the idea and asked for a list of possible ‘illustrations’ for the subjects I had to cover. Over the summer, she and I chose animations from Disney and the Discovery Channel, got permission to use them, and Enhancement converted them over to ViewNet simulations. This was done just for us. For free. Can you believe the job they did?"
He shook his head. “Incredible! But you know, you've got a tiger by the balls."
A colorful way to put it, but ... “Are you suggesting there's some danger in—"
"Don't get yourself worked up, Bill. Your idea looks to be pure gold, but you're a pioneer in this. Pioneers better damn well step carefully."
"How much of this session did you catch?"
He grimaced apologetically. “I've been watching since the beginning. So far, you're batting a thousand."
"Not the way I keep score. I didn't dent the Broms girl. Which reminds me: why is her file so skimpy? She was always a loner, but her schoolwork was top notch until she turned fourteen. I've got almost nothing about how she did that year, and bubkis about what happened to make her change so much. Marty, how can I have a decent chance with her unless I understand her?"
He stopped meeting my eyes. “Sure. I'll see what I can do, but I've been told that some of her records are sealed. Meanwhile, keep up the great work.” He vanished before I could respond. Evasiveness wasn't like him, not at all.
Heavy rumbling and brake-squealing from the street warned me that the school bus had stopped outside my house. I counted to myself and as I hit six, a small tornado hit the front door, hurled it open, and slammed it shut.
"Hey, dad!” the expected voice shouted. “You home? I'm starving! What's to eat?"
I hurried out of the room and ran toward the refrigerator, but as usual my younger son, Taff, was there first. I still felt good, but some kind of natural OSP warned me to savor the feeling while it lasted.
* * * *
I had trouble sleeping that night. The air refused to cool off and I was sticking to the sheets. I knew my wife, Dori, was fighting a cold because she kept snoring gently in her whistling way, but the real caffeine was Madeline Broms. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw hers. What had happened to her? I also worried over how the Greenburg boy had wound up so wound up, but at least his file was relatively complete. My clock was saying nasty things about how much sleep I wasn't going to get, but I lay awake anyway, thinking.
As I get older, I keep getting worse at handling a sleep shortage. The morning alarm was pure bad news and my coffee barely gave me enough energy to finish the cup. By the time Dori and I got our kids ready for school and out the door, I was ready for a real night's sleep. Dori downed her appalling diet-breakfast drink, kissed me, and scooted off to work. I brewed more coffee and yawned over the day's lesson plan.
I had an hour to kill and debated taking a nap. Trouble is, naps always leave me groggy to the point of stupidity. Besides, a bee was touring my bonnet.
I pulled out the Broms folder, which had been assembled at Enhancement while they were programming my OSP. Madeline had been born in Santa Rosa, California, where Luther Burbank had tweaked plants for so long. When she was ten, her parents separated and her mother took her to a ranch owned by the grandparents near Westlake Hills outside Austin, Texas. She remained at the Bar Celona Ranch until the age of thirteen, when whatever happened to her happened. Her present residence was a private assisted-living institution in New Hampshire. I went online and Googled the institution. Expensive.
I glanced at my watch. Austin and Chicago share a time zone. I looked up the number for the Westlake Hills Police Department.
<
br /> Sergeant Lopez was courteous, affable, and unhurried. I volunteered my name, address, telephone number, occupation, credentials and ways to check them. I talked fast but he didn't ask me to repeat a thing.
"How can I help you, Dr. Phillips?"
I don't usually wield my doctorate, but thought it might give my request more weight. “I'm trying to get some information about one of my students, Madeline Broms. Two years ago, I believe she lived in your district."
I could practically hear the click as his attitude shifted. “Tell you what, Doctor. Can you wait by the phone and I'll call you right back?” His voice was a bit too casual.
"Put me on hold if you like, Sergeant."
"Let's do it my way."
"Okay. I'll be here.” I hung up. He wanted to check me out and then, after confirming that the telephone number I'd given him was in my name, make sure I was actually at that phone. What the hell had happened to Madeline?
Ten minutes passed before the ring....
"Sorry to make you wait so long, Doctor."
"No problem."
"I'd like to help Maddie, I surely would. And I'd like to help you help her. My wife's a teacher.” Long pause.
Maybe a touch of the personal would encourage the man to open up. “Mine's a management consultant. I've never been able to figure out what she actually does."
He chuckled politely. “All I can say about Maddie is that I can't say anything."
Sigh. “I didn't want to trouble her parents or grandparents, but if I got their permission—"
"Doctor, the case is out of our hands here. And I shouldn't tell you this, but don't you go poking the folks in Austin; that won't buy you squat."
Well, at least I'd established the existence of a “case,” which had obviously left a big impression on Lopez since it was two years old. But if Austin was a dead-end.... “Sergeant, are you hinting that the FBI has—"
"I can't talk ‘bout that neither. But don't you worry ‘bout the mule, doc, just load up the wagon. I mean you do your part and others will do theirs. Find a way to do something good for that girl."
I had to force myself to be civil. “I'll do my best, but I'm working in the dark."
"Then you'd best grow a big ol’ sense of touch. Bye now."
Class went well that day considering that my personal oil wouldn't have showed up on the dipstick. Q-Ball only blew up twice, Kekipi was a thin skin over magma, White Night had the shakes, and Madeline was a lump. Cher asked if people hooked up to ViewNet audio ever received misdirected signals and heard strange things. I admitted that I didn't know, but this innocuous question tightened Buddha's grin into a Charlie horse of the lips.
For years, I'd felt that math and physics would make more sense to students if they were taught as an integrated whole. For this class, the Board of Education had given me carte blanche, so following my “tie it together” plan I used an animation of a red-haired lady on a vine-covered swing to demonstrate the properties of pendulums and the mathematical definitions of “arc” and “period.” I wasn't sure how well my students absorbed the lesson, but they were entranced. The lady swung with a dreamlike grace and the distant mountains were as pure as rainbows.
After class, Marty Robley showed up again for what I was beginning to think of as a debriefing.
"Were you here from the beginning again?” I asked.
"Not this round, Bill. Arrived in the middle of that Maxfield Parrish scene—kind of disorienting when you're not expecting something like that."
"I'm sure."
"Did I miss anything important?"
"Maybe. Cher—that's the Carpenter girl—asked if ViewNet ever gets its audio signals mixed up so that their clients wind up ... hearing things."
"Interesting question, but so what?"
"You should've seen Buddha's reaction."
"The kid with the grin?"
"Right. Chris Lowry. You know, his previous teachers have described that grin as anything from a hostile act to a bad habit but the way his face froze up even tighter ... I'm just thinking out loud. We've got three mysteries here, Marty, not two. Speaking of which, did you come up with anything more on Madeline Broms?"
He shifted uncomfortably. “Not really. Well, I'll be visiting you less frequently from now on. You seem to have it together. Wish I could shake your hand right now. Bottom line: you're handling a bitch of an assignment with flying colors!"
Two clichés and a sloppy metaphor. I stared at my ghostly visitor for a moment. “Is everything all right, Marty?"
"You bet. I'm just busy right now. Catch you later."
Apparently I'd found a quick way to get administration out of my hair. Just mention Madeline Broms.
* * * *
I cooked my famous Cajun spaghetti for the family that night and only got one grumble, “Too spicy again, Dad,” from Tendayi, my seven-year-old daughter, who asked for seconds despite her critique. Dori was feeling worse and went to bed early while the boys and I cleaned up. I kept mulling over my conversation with Sergeant Lopez. He hadn't specifically asked me to drop my own investigation. And his folk-ism about the mule and the wagon could be taken two ways.
The boys hit the books and I pulled out my Last Chance folders and joined my progeny in the living room. Tendayi was watching TV with the headphones plugged in and I put my ear close enough to hers to reassure myself that her volume wasn't too cranked. My wife refers to such parental tasks as being on “suicide watch.” As to the boys, Dori and I can't figure out how they can study when the TV's on, even if the sound is off, but they seem to prefer the, um, ambiance. The flickering kept distracting me, but then the files weren't telling me anything new.
Until I noticed something peculiar in the Broms profile: Madeline's mother was only listed under Corinne Broms, her married name, and the grandparents weren't named at all. Meaningless secrecy. How hard could it be to track down the Bar Celona's owners on the Internet? I nodded to the TV since it was the only thing in the room asking for my attention and hurried into the study before I could change my mind about calling the grandparents.
The National Telephone Directory had no listing for Bar Celona, likewise the White Pages, the Austin, and the Westlake Hills directories. Google grabbed a horde of restaurants, several warehouses and other ends and odds, but no ranches. Someone, or more likely some agency, had deleted every such reference. Several sites keep historical snapshots of the Internet by date and even there, I couldn't get a hit.
I found a number for Madeline's father, Robert Broms, without much fuss, but when I began outlining why I was calling he hung up immediately.
"I'm not cut out to be a detective!” I shouted in frustration.
"Not so loud, Dad,” Tai called back from the living room. “We're studying in here.” Pause. “And Mom's trying to rest."
Ingrate.
Why would Maddie's grandparents name their ranch Bar Celona, anyway? A pun? Was the family name Barcelo or some variant? Maybe I was getting too fancy. I returned to the Westlake Hills directory and checked the name Celona. Sure enough, I found four listings. I doubted any were the particular Celonas I wanted, but relatives tend to clump. I called the first name on the list. Ten minutes later I was talking with Corinne Celona, Maddie's mother.
The conversation seemed to have a mind of its own.
"I'm Doctor William Phillips, Ms. Celona, a teacher at Last Chance High School. Your daughter Madeline is one of my students and I'm looking for information that might help me understand her condition."
A moment of silence. “I know exactly who you are, Dr. Phillips. But I'm afraid I can't help you."
I couldn't hide my disappointment. “That's a real shame. Sorry to bother you then."
"Wait! Don't go ‘way!” Her Texas accent was more noticeable. “I'm not supposed to talk to anyone about Maddie, but don't you think I'm not watchin’ over her."
"Of course you are."
"I hear you're runnin’ a—a virtual classroom?” She said “virtual” the
way Dori would say “Ku Klux Klan."
"We don't use normal VR gear, so I wouldn't call it—"
"No helmets?” she asked, her voice strained.
"None. The class operates strictly on ViewNet."
"And Maddie's right with that?"
A weird question considering the girl's condition. “It doesn't seem to bother her,” I said dryly.
"Wish I could tell you everything, Doctor. Breaks my heart seein’ her the way she is. You should've known her ... before."
Corinne Celona had told me more than she seemed to realize; perhaps she'd done it deliberately. But I needed confirmation. I knew what to ask, but I didn't feel happy about asking it.
"According to her records, Mr. Celona, Madeline was something of a computer prodigy. I was wondering—"
"I've just got to go. Sorry.” Click.
She'd sounded so devastated. I felt sick to have dredged up that much misery.
* * * *
Next morning, Dori “called in dead” and I plied her with everything from Echinacea to chicken soup. She didn't exactly applaud the soup-for-breakfast motif, but my wife is rarely ill and the novelty of being waited on while horizontal made her amenable. Plus, she wasn't feeling well enough to argue. Much.
I kept her company while she slurped. She made the mistake of asking how my class was going and I let it all out. When I finished, she hadn't bought my theory.
"Why so much secrecy about a case of cyber-stalking, Bill?"
I tried to sound as if I knew what I was talking about. “The guy must still be on the loose and probably some kind of serial abuser. The way these things usually work is that the stalker meets his victim in a chat room, gains the victim's trust, and eventually arranges a physical meeting."
"Could a stalker—” cough, cough, “assault his victim in VR?"
I nodded admiringly. “An excellent question! I've been considering that myself, but I don't see how. VR is mostly controlled on the user's end and has hundreds of safeguards. But I'm thinking she's been traumatized by everything connected to her experience, including VR."