Robert Sawyer - Wonder

She hit enter, but there was no immediate reply. That was unusual. After several seconds, she went on. She found it strange typing something like this. If she were saying it aloud, she’d be pausing and inserting ums and ahs. But as simple text, it seemed so naked: I’m thinking of killing myself.

She hit enter again, and this time the response was immediate: These sites explain good ways of doing that. Those words were followed by four hyperlinks.

Jo-Li felt her jaw go slack. She sat stunned for a few seconds, then selected the first link with her mouse—an old mechanical unit with a ball and a cord, another hand-me-down good enough for a girl.

A page opened with a photograph of a Western man dangling from a noose. There was lots of text beneath it, neatly summarizing the pros and cons of hanging oneself. None of the cons, she was shocked to see, were that you’d be dead after doing so.

The picture was more disturbing than she’d expected it to be. She’d seen The Lovely Bones recently, dubbed into Mandarin. Wasn’t death supposed to be beautiful?

She tried the second link. Her family had long put its faith in Chinese medicine rather than modern pharmaceuticals, but she hadn’t been aware there were traditional extracts and potions that could quickly kill.

The first two links Webmind had offered were to Chinese sites, but the third was in Germany—the domain ended in.de—and clicking on it produced a “Server not found” message.

The fourth link was another Chinese one. This one came up without a hitch, but it was gross: diagrams showing precisely how to slit one’s wrists. Apparently, if you really wanted to succeed, you had to—

Her instant-messaging client chirped.

Follow the instructions precisely.

She stared at Webmind’s words, which were displayed in red; of course, he knew which page she had up on her screen, but…

Have you done it yet?

Her pulse quickened. Using just her right index finger, she tapped out, Not yet. And then, after a moment, she added, Why are you urging me on?

Instantly: It is wrong to simply watch. Are you doing it?

No.

What’s taking so long?

She had a knife on her desk—a box cutter she’d stolen from her father’s battered old tool chest. She stared at its silver blade, wondering what it would look like slick and crimson.

Another message popped up: Do it.

She looked at the knife, then at the mouse, then back and forth, again and again: knife, mouse, knife, mouse. And then, with a shudder, she clicked on the “X” to close the IM window. Just then, the house’s front door creaked opened; it was her mother coming home from her night shift at the factory. Jo-Li ran out of her small room and straight into her astonished mother’s arms.

Tony Moretti came through the door at the back of the WATCH monitoring room just as Shelton Halleck shouted, “Holy shit!”

“What?” said Tony, sidling along the third row of workstations to stand behind the younger man.

“The Chinese! They’ve strengthened their Great Firewall again. The mainland’s almost completely cut off from the rest of the Internet.”

“Just like last month?” said Tony.

Shel nodded. “Some pipes have been left open for ecommerce and a few other things, but basically, they’ve sealed themselves off.”

Tony turned to one of the analysts in the back row. “Donna, is there something they’re trying to cover up in the PRC? More bird flu?”

Donna Levine shook her head. “No—not as far as I can tell.” She pushed some buttons, and as Tony turned, the three big monitor screens filled with threat summaries from China, none of which were color-coded red.

He started at them, baffled. “What the hell are they up to?”

In the living room of her house, Caitlin was telling Matt and Bashira about her ability to visualize the structure of the World Wide Web. Throughout it all, Matt had been making his deer-caught-in-the-headlights face. “And there you have it,” she said, in conclusion. She looked first at Matt, then at Bashira, then back at Matt.

He shook his head slowly in wonder. “So… so you’re a cyberpunk cowboy?”

“Well… more of a cowgirl, I should think,” Caitlin said, grinning. “I am from Texas, after all. Yee-haw!”

“That is so cool,” Bashira said. “Babe, you never cease to amaze me.”

“Thanks. Anyway, I don’t know when I might need help from y’all, but I can’t really walk around when I’m in webspace—I get vertigo if I do that. I gotta be sitting or lying down, and it’s…” Caitlin trailed off.

“Babe?” said Bashira.

“Just a moment. Just a moment.”

She focused on the black box in her vision, and Matt and Bash became indistinct as she tried to read the white Braille characters, which seemed to be flying by faster than usual. “Oh, my God…”

“What?” said Bashira and “What is it?” asked Matt.

“Looks like I’ll need my pit crew sooner than I thought,” Caitlin said. And then she turned, and shouted, “Mom!”

Her mother appeared at the top of the stairs. “Yes, dear?”

“Webmind needs me! I’m going to have to go in again.”

Her mother came bounding down the staircase. “What’s wrong?”

“The Chinese have beefed up their Great Firewall once more. A huge hunk of Webmind has been carved away.”

Her mom made a face not unlike Matt’s deer-in-the-headlights one. “What do you need?”

“I’ll go in from down here—more room for all of us than up in my room. But I need a swivel chair.”

Her mom nodded and headed over to the staircase leading to the basement.

“Matt,” said Caitlin, “there’s bottled water in the fridge—can you get me one? And Bash, I’ll need my Bluetooth headset. It’s on my desk upstairs. Could you go get it, please? And—damn it, but I’ve got to pee.”

Caitlin headed to the main-floor two-piece washroom; by the time she’d returned, her mother was back. She’d brought up one of the two black swivel executive office chairs her father had borrowed from the Perimeter Institute; it was perched on five casters. The swivel chair was now between the white leather couch and the matching white leather chair that faced it; the glass-topped coffee table had been carried over to near the dining room, making a large space for the swivel chair.

“Mom, the TV?” Caitlin said. Her mother scooped up the remote, which had been on the white couch, and she turned the set on. Caitlin, meanwhile, went over to the netbook on the bookcase and woke it up. “Webmind,” she said into the air, “can you show them what I’m seeing on the big screen?”

“Set the TV’s input to AUX,” Webmind replied from the netbook’s speakers. Caitlin saw her mother peering at the remote, but, after a second, she figured out how to do it.

The video feed from Caitlin’s left eye filled the sixty-inch screen. The image jumped about several times a second as Caitlin’s eye performed saccades.

“So cool!” said Bashira, her voice full of wonder. And then Bash’s eyes went wide as she saw herself in profile as Caitlin turned to look at her. After a moment, Bashira composed herself and handed the Bluetooth headset to Caitlin, who slipped it over her left ear. “Webmind, are you there?”

“I’m here, Caitlin,” he said, both through the netbook’s speakers and through the earpiece.

“All right,” Caitlin said, looking at Matt and Bashira. “When I go in, I see webspace all around me, and my vision in there follows where my eye looks out here—get it?” Bashira and Matt nodded. Caitlin reached out and took Matt’s hand, and she gave it a squeeze. “Okay, here I go.” She sat on the swivel chair, brought her eyePod out of her pocket, and pressed the button, switching the unit to duplex mode.