Vernor Vinge - Rainbows End

The young-old man continued to stare at Juan. "A clock." Then he reached into a parts box and dropped three silver balls into the top of the tallest tower.

"Oh!" The balls bounced down connecting stairways. The first tower was directly in front of Juan. Going to the right, each tower was a bit shorter and more complex than the last. Mr. Gu had used most of the "classic parts" that Ron Williams kept in stock. This was a clock? Juan tried to match it against old-time clock patterns. There were no perfect fits, though the thing did have levers that clicked back and forth against a whatchama-google… an escape wheel. Maybe the balls tipping down the stairways were like the hands on a clock.

Gu continued to stare at him. "But it's running fast," he said.

Juan leaned forward and tried to ignore that stare. He captured about three seconds of the contraption's motion, enough to identify stationary points and dimensions. There was an old mechanics program that came in handy for medieval gadget games; he fed the description into it. The results were easy to interpret. "You just gotta make that lever a quarter-inch longer." He poked a finger at a tiny spar.

"I know."

Juan looked back at him. "But you're not wearing. How did you figure that out?"

Gu shrugged. "A medical gift."

"That's pretty neat," Juan said uncertainly.

"For what? To do what any child can do already?"

Juan didn't have any answer for that. "But you're also a poet."

"And now I'm good with gadgets." Gu's hand twitched out, smashing through the levers and wheels. Parts sprayed in all directions, some of them breaking under the force of his blow.

That got everyone's attention. The class was suddenly quiet — and blazing with sming.

It was time to back off. But Juan really really needed help with Creative Composition. And so he said, "You still know about words, though, right?"

"Yes, I still know about words. I still know about grammar. I can parse sentences. I can even spell — hallelujah, without mechanical aid. What's your name?"

"Juan Orozco."

"Yes, I remember. What are you good for, Mr. Orozco?"

Juan tucked his chin in. "I'm learning how to ask the right questions."

"Do so, then."

"um." Juan looked at the other parts Gu had collected, things he hadn't used in his clock. There were rotary motors, there were wireless synchs, there were programmable gear trains. There was even a transport tray like the one Dr. Xiang had messed up. "So how come you don't use any of these gadgets? That would be lots easier."

He expected Gu to spout some Chumliggy thing about solving a problem within constraints. Instead, the other poked angrily at the components. "Because I can't see inside them. Look." He nipped a rotary motor across the table." 'No user-serviceable parts within.' It's stamped right in the plastic. Everything is a black box. Everything is inscrutable magic."

"You could look at the manuals," said Juan. "They show internals."

Gu hesitated. His hands were gathered into fists. Juan edged back a few inches. "You can see internals? You can change them?"

Juan watched the fists. He's flipping crazy . "You can see them easy. Almost everything serves up its own manual. If it doesn't, just Google on the part number." The look on Gu's face sent Juan into fast mode: "As for changing the internals… often they're programmable. But otherwise, the only changes you can make are when you order, back at the design and fab stage. I mean, these are just components . Who'd want to change them once they're made? Just trash 'em if they're not working like you want."

"Just components?" Gu looked out from under the fringes of the shop-class tent. An automobile was tooling up Pala Avenue, heading for the school's traffic circle. "What about the fucking cars?"

"Unh." The whole class was staring. Almost the whole class: Mr. Williams was on break and out of contact.

Mr. Gu twitched for a few seconds. Then suddenly he was standing. He grabbed Juan by the collar. "By God I'm going to have a look."

Juan bounced along just ahead of Robert Gu's angry, pushing hands. "Break open a car? Why would you want to do that?"

"That's the wrong question, kid." At least they were walking away from the traffic circle. Even if he went after an automobile, what damage could he do? The car bodies were a trashy composite, easy to recycle, but strong enough to take a fifty-mile-per-hour crash. Visions of battle lasers and monster sledgehammers came to mind. But this was the real world.

Jerry — > Juan: What is the goofball up to?

Juan — > Radners: I dunno!

Robert Gu marched him across the tent to where Xiu Xiang was sitting. By the time he arrived, the only evidence of madness was the faint twitchiness in his face. "Dr. Xiang?"

The crazy man actually sounded relaxed and friendly, but Xiang hesitated a long moment. "Yes," she said.

"I've been admiring your project. Some kind of mass mover?"

Xiang tilted the warped surface up toward him. "Yes. It's just a toy, but I thought I could get a leverage effect by warping the surface." Talking about the gadget seemed to distract her from Gu's weirdness.

"Very nice!" There was nothing but charm in Gu's voice. "May I?" He picked up the panel and studied the ragged edge.

"I had to cut out gores so the microgrooves wouldn't bind," she said, standing up to point at her work.

Transport trays were for shedding dirt or sliding small containers. For most things, they were better than robot hands, even if they didn't look as impressive. Juan's mother had remodeled their kitchen with fake-marble transports; afterward, everything she wanted was where it should be, in the fridge or oven or on the cutting board, just when she needed it. Usually, the microgrooves couldn't slide anything faster than a couple of inches a second.

What Xiang was saying gave Juan an idea. Maybe the warped board was not broken. He started to put the dimensions into a mechanics program —

But Robert Gu already seemed to know what the thing could do. "You could triple the delivered force if you adjusted it, here." He twisted the tray. It creaked the way ceramics do when you've bent them almost to the breaking point.

"Wait — " She reached for her project.

"I didn't break it. This is even better. Come on over and I'll show you." His words were all so open and friendly. But he was already walking away.

Xiang chased after him, but she didn't act like a kid would when someone grabs their property. She walked along beside Gu, her head tilted to get a look at the wrecked transport tray. "But there's no way to use that mechanical advantage with just the batteries it's rated for — " The rest of what she said was mathematical; Juan just saved it.

As Gu swept by the Radner twins, his right arm flicked out, grabbing a jar of metal beads that Fred and Jerry were using for their orrery.

"Hey!" The Radners jumped to their feet and followed him, not saying much out loud. The Adult Ed students were like untouchables. You didn't mess with them and vice versa.

Jerry — > Juan: What did we miss, Juan?

Fred — > Juan: Yeah. What did you say to him?

Juan danced backwards, lifting his hands to say that he was an innocent bystander.

Almost an innocent bystander. As Gu walked past his workbench, he jerked his chin toward the tent entrance. "Make yourself useful, Orozco. Get me some line current."

Juan scooted ahead. There were 110VAC sources on campus, though most were indoors. He looked up public utilities and saw a big arrow pointing down into the lawn. This outlet was used to power building reconfiguration when they needed an extra auditorium. It had a thirty-foot extension reel. He ran to the spot and pulled the line up from the fresh-cut grass.