Vernor Vinge - Rainbows End

" 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. OF 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

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: He's talking to someone again.

Xiu — > Juan, Miri: What is he saying?

Miri — > Juan, Xiu: I don't know. Local audio has gone private. Juan! Get out there.

Juan — > Miri, Xiu: You're not the boss of me. I was going to talk to Robert now anyway.

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: It's really important not to collaborate outside of the rules.