Robert Sawyer - Wonder

Shoshana smiled at Hobo and moved her hands in complex ways. Caitlin had felt the hands of people doing American Sign Language before; there were a few deaf-blind people at her old school. But she’d never seen it spoken in real life, and it was fascinating to watch.

Hobo signed something back at Shoshana. Caitlin found it interesting that she couldn’t easily tell where Hobo was looking from this distance; he seemed to have no whites in his eyes.

Shoshana turned now to face Caitlin. “I’ve shown him the video of you on This Week,” she said. “Like most apes, Hobo is uncomfortable with strangers, and I wanted him to get used to your appearance.” She looked at Caitlin’s mother. “I’m sorry I didn’t have any video of you, Barb—I should have recorded that webcam call—but I told Hobo you are Caitlin’s mom. Hobo likes mothers; he very fondly remembers his own.”

Sho’s hands moved again, but this time she spoke, too, presumably saying the same thing in English. “Hobo, remember I told you these people were friends of your special friend?”

Hobo’s right hand fluttered.

“And remember I told you they were going to bring you a present, so you could talk to him again?”

Both hands moved this time, and it seemed to Caitlin that the gestures were enthusiastic.

“Well, now’s the time,” Sho said.

Caitlin’s mother was holding the neoprene laptop sleeve containing Dr. Theopolis—that name seemed to have stuck for the disk.

“Caitlin,” said Shoshana, “would you like to do the honors?”

Caitlin took the disk from her mother. It was quite light since it was mostly hollow, and it now had a long black leather strap attached at either side above the speaker “ears.” The strap was held on magnetically, so that if it got entangled in anything, it would pop free rather than strangle Hobo. Caitlin held the disk out toward the ape.

Shoshana signed at him, presumably telling him to tilt his head, because he did just that. Caitlin slipped the strap over his head and let the disk dangle from his neck; it sat in the middle of his long torso. He straightened up and looked at her with what might have been an apish smile. Caitlin wondered what the ASL for bidi-bidi-bidi was.

Hobo then tilted it so he could see its face. He seemed happy with it, and he let it rest against his chest again. His hands moved, and Shoshana laughed.

“What’s he saying?” Caitlin asked.

“ ‘Good treat,’ ” said Shoshana.

“That it is,” said Caitlin, smiling.

“Hello, hello, is this thing on?”

Hobo jumped at the sound of Webmind’s voice. Tipping his head down, he could see both the little viewscreen on the disk’s upper edge, and the half circle on the front that flashed red with each of Webmind’s syllables.

“Your voice is different,” said Shoshana, sounding surprised.

“Yes,” said Webmind, the words coming from the speakers at either side of the disk. “I decided it was time I had an official voice. I have now listened to all the audiobooks at Audible.com, and I selected the voice of Marc Vietor, a well-known audiobook narrator. By downloading the highest-bit-rate versions of several audiobooks he’d narrated, and using ebook versions of the same works to guide me in extracting all the individual phonemes, I created a database of speech fragments that will let me say anything I wish. Software programmed into the disk smoothes the transition from one fragment to the next as they’re strung together.”

“It’s a nice voice,” said Caitlin’s mom.

“Thanks,” said Webmind.

Hobo had moved closer to Dr. Marcuse and was showing off the disk around his neck; Caitlin had never seen an Olympic athlete wearing a gold medal, but she doubted one could look any prouder than Hobo did just now.

Suddenly, Hobo was on the move again, coming toward them. He gave Caitlin’s mom a big hug, and then moved over and hugged Caitlin, too; it made her laugh out loud. “What’s that for?” she said.

“He’s thanking you for bringing him the disk,” Shoshana said. He let Caitlin go, and his hands flew again. “And now he’s saying ‘Friend, friend.’ ” He made a happy hooting sound.

Caitlin was way too new at seeing to be able to copy a complex hand gesture by sight; she’d have to feel Hobo’s or Shoshana’s hands while they were doing it to learn the word. But she did make a passable imitation of Hobo’s hoot, and, to her delight, that earned her another hug. And then Hobo scooted across the room, and, with no difficulty at all, he opened one of the dresser drawers.

“Hobo!” said Shoshana in a scolding voice, but the ape ignored her, and he rooted around for a moment more, then came bounding back, and—

Caitlin had no idea what it was by sight, but as soon as it was in her hand, she recognized it. Hobo had just handed her a Hershey’s kiss, and he was now giving one to her mom.

“Thank you!” said Caitlin.

Hobo chittered happily and went back to looking at his disk.

“So, now what?” said Barb, unwrapping her kiss.

“I’ve never been to New York before,” said Shoshana. “I was hoping to see a Broadway show—um, if you don’t mind looking after Hobo tonight, Dr. Marcuse?”

“Sure,” said Marcuse, gesturing at the far wall, which Caitlin belatedly realized had a large monitor mounted on it. “Hobo and I could both use some downtime, before the big event tomorrow. We’ll watch some TV.”

“A girl’s night out, then,” said Caitlin’s mom, decisively. “What shall we see?”

“I can tell you which shows still have good seats available,” Webmind said.

Caitlin said, “I know there’s a new production of The Miracle Worker —they were talking about it on the Blindmath list. Any seats for that?”

“Three together, sixth row,” said Webmind. “I can order them for you.”

“Oh, Webmind,” said Shoshana, smiling, “how did we ever get along without you?”

Colonel Hume moved toward the long workbench with the row of monitors and the quartet of keyboards. The blood was obvious once he got there. The keyboards were all the same bone white ergonomic model, with a split between the left-hand and right-hand keys. On the third keyboard from the left, that split was mostly coated with dried blood. There was also a spray of it on the bench’s dark brown surface, and constellations of dried drops on the faces of two of the monitors. One of those drops was eerily illuminated from behind by the power LED set into the bottom-right corner of the monitor’s silver bezel.

You couldn’t spend as much time in the power circles of Washington without seeing the odd cocaine nosebleed, but—

But there was no glass sheet, no razor blade, no rolled-up hundred-dollar bill, and—

“Chase?” Hume called out. “Chase, are you here?”

He glanced in the kitchen and the dining room, then checked the other rooms, including the basement, which contained dozens of servers mounted on metal racks. There was no sign of Chase, but now that Hume was looking, he saw blood splatters on the living-room hardwood floor, leading toward the front door.

Of course, he immediately thought the worst. But there were benign alternatives: guy got a massive nosebleed—maybe coke, maybe just fell asleep at the keyboard and banged his face—and headed to the hospital to get it fixed, or something…

In which case his car would be gone! Hume went out the front door and tried the handle for the garage door; it was locked. He went around the side of the house and found a door to the garage with a small window in it. There was a car inside, a silver Toyota. The garage was big enough for two cars, but the extra space was filled with Dell, Gateway, and HP cartons. And when Hume had come by the first time, late at night, there had been no car in the driveway, so this was presumably Chase’s only vehicle.