Wild Cards: Inside Straight

by George R. R. Martin

  “I can do other things.”

  “Yes, and if you never deliver, you’ll fail with them, too.”

  That was a point that occupied far too much of Mike Villas’ worry time. He glared back at the slitted yellow eyes, and suddenly it occurred to him that—unlike teachers—this guy was not being paid to be nasty. And it was wasting too much time for this to be some humiliating joke. It actually wants something, from me! Mike sharpened his glare. “And you have some suggestions, Oh Mighty Virtual Lizard?”

  “. . . Maybe. I have other projects besides Cret Ret. How would you like to take an affiliate status on one of them?”

  Except for local games, no one had ever asked Mike to affiliate on anything. His mouth twisted in bogus contempt. “Affiliate? A percent of a percent of . . . what? How far down the value chain are you?”

  The saurian shrugged and there was the sound of gingkos swaying to the thump of its shoulders. “My guess is I’m way, way down. On the other hand, this is not a dredge project. I can pay real money for each answer I pipe upwards.” The creature named a number; it was enough to play the Hill once a week for a year. A payoff certificate floated in the air between them.

  “I get twice that or no deal.”

  “Done!” said the creature, and somehow Mike was sure it was grinning.

  “. . . Okay, so what do you want?”

  “You go to Fairmont High, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s a strange place, isn’t it?” When Mike did not reply, the critter said, “Trust me, it is strange. Most schools don’t put Adult Education students in with the children.”

  “Yeah, Senior High. The old farts don’t like it. We don’t like it.”

  “Well, the affiliate task is to snoop around, mainly among the old people. Make friends with them.”

  Yecch. But Mike glanced at the payoff certificate again. It tested valid. The payoff adjudication was more complicated than he wanted to read, but it was backed by eBay. “Who in particular?”

  “So far, my upstream affiliate has only told me its broad interests: Basically, some of these senior citizens used to be bigshots.”

  “If they were so big, how come they’re in our classes now?” It was just the question the kids asked at school.

  “Lots of reasons, Miguel. Some of them are just lonely. Some of them are up to their ears in debt, and have to figure out how to make a living in the current economy. And some of them have lost half their marbles and aren’t good for much but a strong body and lots of old memories. . . . Ever hear of Pick’s Syndrome?”

  “Um . . .” Mike googled up the definition: . . . serious social dysfunction. “How do I make friends with someone like that?”

  “If you want the money, you figure out a way. Don’t worry. There’s only one on the list, and he’s in remission. Anyway, here are the search criteria.” The Big Lizard shipped him a document. Mike browsed through the top layer.

  “This covers a lot of ground.” Retired politicians, military officers, bioscientists, parents of persons currently in such job categories. “Um, this really could be deep water. We might be setting people up for blackmail.”

  “Heh. I wondered if you’d notice that.”

  “I’m not an idiot.”

  “If it gets too deep, you can always bail.”

  “I’ll take the job. I’ll go affiliate with you.”

  “I wouldn’t want you doing anything you feel un—”

  “I said, I’ll take the job!”

  “Okay! Well then, this should get you started. There’s contact information in the document.” The creature lumbered to its feet, and its voice came from high above. “Just as well we don’t meet on Pyramid Hill again.”

  “Suits me.” Mike made a point of slapping the creature’s mighty tail as he walked off down hill.

  Unfortunately, Mike’s first class was in the far wing. He ran across the lawn, keeping his vision tied to unimproved reality: The buildings were mostly three storeys today. Their gray walls were like playing cards balanced in a rickety array.

  Indoors, the choice of view was not entirely his own. Mornings, the school administration required that the Fairmont School News appear all over the interior walls. Three kids at Hoover High had won IBM Fellowships. Applause, applause, even if Hoover was Fairmont’s unfairly advantaged rival, a charter school run by the Math Department at SDSU. The three young geniuses would have their college education paid for, right through grad school, even if they never worked at IBM.

  Big deal, Mike thought. Somewhere down the line, some percentage of their fortunes would be siphoned sideways into IBM’s treasury.

  He followed the little green nav arrows with half his attention . . . and abruptly realized he had climbed two flights of stairs. School admin had rearranged everything since yesterday. Of course, they had updated his nav arrows, too. It was a good thing he hadn’t been paying attention.

  He slipped into his classroom and sat down.

  Search and Analysis was Chumlig’s thing. She used to teach a fast-track version of this at Hoover High, but well-documented rumor held that she just couldn’t keep up. So the Department of Education had moved her to the same-named course here at Fairmont. Actually, Mike kind of liked her. She was a failure, too.

  “There are many different skills,” she was saying. “Sometimes it’s best to coordinate with lots of other people.” The students nodded. Be a coordinator. That’s where the fame and money were. But they also knew where Chumlig was going with this. She looked around the classroom, nodding that she knew they knew. “Alas, you all intend to be top agents, don’t you?”

  “It’s what some of us will be.” That was one of the Adult Ed students. Ralston Blount was old enough to be Mike’s great grandfather. When Blount had a bad day he liked to liven things up by harassing Ms. Chumlig.

  The Search and Analysis instructor smiled back. “The pure ‘coordinating agent’ is a rare type, Professor Blount.”

  “Some of us must be the administrators.”

  “Yes.” Chumlig looked kind of sad for a moment, like she was figuring out how to pass on bad news. “Administration has changed a lot, Professor Blount.”

  Ralston Blount shrugged. “Okay. So we have to learn some new tricks.”

  “Yes.” Ms. Chumlig looked out over the class. “That’s my point. In this class, we study search and analysis. Searching may seem simple, but the analysis involves understanding results. In the end, you’ve got to know something about something.”

  “Meaning all those courses we got C’s in, right?” That was a voice from the peanut gallery, probably someone who was physically truant.

  Chumlig sighed. “Yes. Don’t let those skills die. Use them. Improve on them. You can do it with a special form of pre-analysis that I call ‘study.’ ”

  One of the students held up a hand. She was that old.

  “Yes, Dr. Xu?”

  “I know you’re correct. But—” The woman glanced around the room. She looked about Chumlig’s age, not nearly as old as Ralston Blount. But there was kind of a frightened look in her eyes. “But some people are just better at this sort of thing than others. I’m not as sharp as I once was. Or maybe others are just sharper. . . . What happens if we try our hardest, and it just isn’t good enough?”

  Chumlig hesitated. “That’s a problem that affects everyone, Dr. Xu. Providence gives each of us our hand to play. In your case, you’ve got a new deal and a new start on life.” Her look took in the rest of the class. “Some of you think your hand in life is all deuces and treys.” There were some really dedicated kids in the front rows. They were wearing, but they had no clothes sense and had never learned ensemble coding. As Chumlig spoke, you could see their fingers tapping, searching on “deuces” and “treys”.

  “But I have a theory of life,” said Chumlig. “and it is straight out of gaming: There is always an angle. You, each of you, have some special talents. Find out what makes you different and better. Build on that. And on
ce you do, you’ll be able to contribute answers to others and they’ll be willing to contribute back to you. In short, synthetic serendipity doesn’t just happen. You must create it.”

  She hesitated, staring at invisible class notes, and her voice dropped down from oratory. “So much for the big picture. Today, we’ll learn about morphing answer board results. As usual, we’re looking to ask the right questions.”

  He leaned away from the wall and listened to Chumlig. That was why the school made you show up in person for most classes; you had to pay a little bit of attention just because you were trapped in a real room with a real instructor. Chumlig’s lecture graphics floated in the air above them. She had the class’s attention; there was a minimum of insolent graffiti nibbling at the edges of her imaging.

  And for a while, Mike paid attention, too. Answer boards could generate solid results, usually for zero cost. There was no affiliation, just kindred minds batting problems around. But what if you weren’t a kindred mind? Say you were on a genetics board. If you didn’t know a ribosome from a rippereme, then all the modern interfaces couldn’t help you.

  So Mike tuned her out and wandered from viewpoint to viewpoint around the room. Some were from students who’d set their viewpoints public. Most were just random cams. He browsed Big Lizard’s task document as he paused between hops. In fact, the Lizard was interested in more than just the old farts. Some ordinary students made the list, too. This affiliation tree must be as deep as the California Lottery.

  But kids are somebody’s children. He started some background checks. Like most students, Mike kept lots of stuff saved on his wearable. He could run a search like this very close to his vest. He didn’t route to the outside world except when he could use a site that Chumlig was talking about. She was real good at nailing the mentally truant. But Mike was good at ensemble coding, driving his wearable with little gesture cues and eye-pointer menus. As her gaze passed over him, he nodded brightly and he replayed the last few seconds of her talk.

  As for the old students . . . competent retreads would never be here; they’d be rich and famous, the people who owned most of the real world. The ones in Adult Education were the hasbeens. These people trickled into Fairmont all through the semester. The oldfolks’ hospitals refused to batch them up for the beginning of classes. They claimed that senior citizens were “socially mature,” able to handle the jumble of a midsemester entrance.

  Mike went from face to face, matching against public records: Ralston Blount. The guy was a saggy mess. Retread medicine was such a crapshoot. Some things it could cure; others it couldn’t. And what worked was different from person to person. Ralston had not been a total winner.

  Just now the old guy was squinting in concentration, trying to follow Chumlig’s answer board example. He had been with the class most of the semester. Mike couldn’t see his med records, but he guessed the guy’s mind was mostly okay; he was as sharp as some of the kids in class. And once-upon-a-time he had been important at UCSD.

  Once-upon-a-time.

  Okay, put him on the “of interest” list. Who else? Doris Nguyen. Former homemaker. Mike eyed the youngish face. She looked almost his mom’s age, even though she was forty years older. He searched on the name, shed collisions and obvious myths; the Friends of Privacy piled the lies so deep that sometimes it was hard to find the truth. But Doris Nguyen had no special connections in her past. On the other hand . . . she had a son at Camp Pendleton. Okay, Doris stayed on the list.

  Chumlig was still going on about how to morph results into new questions, oblivious to Mike’s truancy.

  And then there was Xiaowen Xu. PhD physics, PhD electrical engineering. 2005 Winner of Intel’s Grove Prize. Dr. Xu sat hunched over, looking at the table in front of her. She was trying to keep up on a laptop! Poor lady. But for sure she would have connections.

  Politicians, military, scientists . . . and parents or children of such. Yeah. This affiliance could get him into a lot of trouble. Maybe he could climb the affiliate tree a ways, get a hint if Bad Guys were involved. Mike sent out a couple hundred queries, mainly pounding on certificate authorities. Even if the certs were solid, people and programs often used them in stupid ways. Answers came trickling back.

  If this weren’t Friends of Privacy chaff, there might be some real clues here. He sent out followup queries—and suddenly a message hung in letters of silent flame all across his vision:

  Villas → Chumlig: Sorry. Sorry!

  Most times, Chumlig just asked embarrassing questions; this was the first she’d messaged him with a threat.

  And the amazing thing was, she’d done it in a short pause, where everyone else thought she was just reading her notes. Mike eyed her with new respect.

  Shop class was also Mike’s best opportunity to chat up the old people and the do-not-call privacy freaks. He wandered around the shop class looking like an utter idiot. This affiliance required way too much people skill. Mike had never been any good at diplomacy games.

  And now he was schmoozing the oldsters. Trying to.

  Ralston Blount just sat staring off into the space above his table. The guy was wearing, but he didn’t respond to messages. Mike waited until Williams went off for one of his coffee breaks. Then he sidled over and sat beside Blount. Jeez, the guy might be healthy but he really looked old. Mike spent a few moments trying to tune in on the man’s perceptions. Mike had noticed that when Blount didn’t like a class, he just blew it off. He didn’t care about grades. After a few moments, Mike realized that he didn’t care about socializing either.

  So talk to him! It’s just another kind of monster whacking .

  Mike morphed a buffoon image onto the guy, and suddenly it wasn’t so hard to cold start the encounter. “So, Professor Blount, how do you like shop class?”

  Ancient eyes turned to look at him. “I couldn’t care less, Mr. Villas.”

  O-kay! Hmm. There was lots about Ralston Blount that was public record, even some legacy newsgroup correspondence. That was always good for shaking up your parents and other grownups. . . .

  But the old man continued talking on his own. “I’m not like some people here. I’ve never been senile. By rights, my career should be on track with the best of my generation.”

  “By rights?”

  “I was Provost of Eighth College in 2006. I should have been UCSD Chancellor in the years following. Instead I was pushed into academic retirement.”

  Mike knew all that. “But you never learned to wear.”

  Blount’s eyes narrowed. “I made it a point never to wear. I thought wearing was demeaning, like an executive doing his own typing.” He shrugged. “I was wrong. I paid a heavy price for that. But things have changed.” His eyes glittered with deliberate iridescence.

  “I’ve taken four semesters of this ‘Adult Education.’ Now my resumé is out there in the ether.”

  “You must know a lot of important people.”

  “Indeed. It’s just a matter of time.”

  “Y-you know, Professor, I may be able to help. No wait—I don’t mean by myself. I have an affiliance.”

  “. . . Oh?”

  At least he knew what affiliance was. Mike explained Big Lizard’s deal. “So there could be some real money in this.”

  Blount squinted his eyes, trying to parse the certificates. “Money isn’t everything, especially in my situation.”

  “But anybody with these certs is important. Maybe you could get help-in-kind.”

  “True.”

  The old man wasn’t ready to bite, but he said he’d talk to some of the others on Mike’s list. Helping them with their projects counted as a small plus in the affiliance. Maybe the Lizard thought that would flush out more connections.

  Meantime, it was getting noisy. Marie Dorsey’s team had designed some kind of crawler. Their prototypes were flopping around everywhere.

  They got so close you couldn’t really talk out loud.

  “Of course I can,” replied the old man.


  So despite Blount’s claims of withittude, maybe he couldn’t manage silent messaging, not even the finger-tapping most grownups used.

  She seemed so sad and still. She had the parts list formatted like a hardcopy catalog. “Once I knew about these things,” she said. “See that.” She pointed at a picture in the museum section. “I designed that chip.”

  “You’re world class, Dr. Xu.”

  She didn’t look up. “That was a long time ago. I retired from Intel in 2005. And during the war, I couldn’t even get consulting jobs. My skills have just rusted away.”

  “Alzheimer’s?” He knew she was much older than she looked, even older than Ralston Blount.

  Xu hesitated, and for a moment Mike was afraid she was really angry. But then she gave a sad little laugh. “No Alzheimer’s. You—people nowadays don’t know what it was like to be old.”

  “I do so! I have a great grandpa in Phoenix. G’granma, she does have dementia—you know, a kind they still can’t fix. And the others are all dead.” Which was about as old as you can get.

  Dr. Xu shook her head. “Even in my day, not everyone over eighty was senile. I just got behind in my skills. My girlfriend died. After a while I just didn’t care very much. I didn’t have the energy to care.” She looked at her laptop. “Now, I have the energy I had when I was sixty. Maybe I have the same native intelligence.” She slapped the table softly. “But I can’t even understand a current tech paper.” It looked like she was going to start crying, right in the middle of shop class. Mike scanned around; no one seemed to be watching. He reached out to touch Xu’s hand. He didn’t have the answer. Ms. Chumlig would say he didn’t have the right question.

  He thought a moment. “What’s your shop project going to be?”

  “I don’t know.” She hesitated. “I don’t even understand this parts catalog.”

  Mike waved at her laptop, but the images sat still as carved stone. “Can I show you what I see?”

  “Please.”

  He saved her display to his vision of the parts list. The view weaved and dived, a bad approximation to what Mike could see when he looked around with his headup view. Nevertheless, Xu leaned forward and nodded as Mike tried to explain the list.