Robert Sawyer - Wonder

More voices now as others joined in: “Fight… fight… fight…” The chant was low, rhythmic, almost tribal. Caitlin looked from face to face, unable to identify anyone. She could recognize voices when people were speaking normally, but this chanting was guttural and low.

“Fight… fight… fight…”

Trevor’s posture changed. He hunched over a bit, and his hands balled into fists. The light, coming mostly from a lamppost set into the concrete, was harsh, and it made his features look sharp.

“Fight… fight… fight…”

Caitlin had read about women who got excited when men fought over them, as if their own self-worth was tied up in such a battle. But she didn’t want this—not at all. She didn’t want Matt hurt; she didn’t want anyone hurt.

“Fight… fight… fight…”

Not everyone was chanting. Sunshine wasn’t; several other boys and girls weren’t, either.

Caitlin pulled out her red BlackBerry and activated the video function. She aimed it at Matt and Trevor as they slowly circled each other.

The chanting of “fight” continued, but Caitlin spoke overtop of it, clearly and firmly, holding her BlackBerry out like a small shield: “Sight!” She began to pan it left and right, taking in the whole chanting crowd.

She looked over at Sunshine, partway around the circle to her left. The tall girl seemed baffled for a moment, but then Caitlin saw her open her purse and fish out her own cell phone. She swung it left and right, too.

“Sight!” Caitlin said again, and Sunshine echoed it: “Sight!”

Next to Sunshine, a boy Caitlin didn’t recognize pulled out his phone and held it in front of him. “Sight!” he said, and the three of them repeated it. “Sight! Sight! Sight!” It wasn’t guttural; their voices were clear and strong.

But others were still chanting, “Fight… fight… fight…”

Two girls on Caitlin’s right pulled out their phones, and a boy had something bulkier in his hand that Caitlin guessed must be a video camera, which he slowly panned over the tableau. They added their voices to Caitlin’s chorus: “Sight! Sight! Sight!”

“Fight… fight… fight…”

More phones and cameras came out. “Sight!” “Fight…” “Sight!” “Fight…”

A few flashes went off, one after the other. They reminded Caitlin of the lightning bolts from that night when everything had changed, and—

And the chanting of “Fight…” began to fade away. Caitlin let “Sight!” be repeated five more times, then she spoke loudly to Trevor, indicating all the cell phones being held out—all the little rectangles glowing in the gathering darkness. “Three-hundred-and-sixty-degree coverage,” she said. “The police could reconstruct the scene in 3-D if they wanted to.”

Trevor looked at Caitlin, then back at Matt.

“So,” said Matt, his voice holding steady, “what’s it going to be, Trevor? Who are you—for the record?”

Trevor looked around the circle, and it reminded Caitlin of that moment in 2001: A Space Odyssey in which the lead australopithecine had first encountered the monolith; he’d stared at it, and slowly, ponderously, worked out in his dim fashion that the world had changed.

Trevor’s head nodded up and down a little. Caitlin was still learning to gauge these things, but it seemed to her that it wasn’t meant as a signal to others; rather, it was a sign that he was thinking.

And, at last, Trevor unclenched his fists. He glared at Caitlin and then at Matt, and then he turned, and slowly started walking. The crowd parted. Caitlin wondered if they hadn’t opened quite so large a hole whether Trevor would have made a show of bumping into someone—an assault he could dismiss as accidental. But they didn’t give him that opportunity, and he continued on. At first Caitlin thought he was heading for the door to the gymnasium, but he walked right past it, heading out into the chilly night.

Caitlin surged forward and gathered Matt in a hug. His body was shaking, and she could feel his heart beating as they pressed together. After a moment, she released him enough so that she could kiss him on the lips—and she didn’t care one whit how many records of that were being made.

When they separated, Sunshine loomed in, and she squeezed Caitlin’s upper arm affectionately. “That was awesome,” she said.

Caitlin found herself grinning. “Yeah, I guess it was.”

She took Matt’s hand, and they opened the heavy red door and walked back inside. A new song was playing, and—

And, no, no, it wasn’t a new song. It must have been somebody’s request—maybe one of the teachers, because it was an old song, one her mother sometimes listened to. But Caitlin liked it, too.

And yes, as she draped her arms around Matt’s neck again and they started to dance, she supposed you could say she was a dreamer—but she was sure she wasn’t the only one.

The President of China stood looking out the window behind his desk. The glass was bulletproof, and covered by a special film to prevent those outside from seeing in. Spread before him was the Forbidden City, the vast area that housed the palaces of former Emperors. It had been closed to the public—hence the name—until 1912, but now tens of thousands of ordinary Chinese, and comparable numbers of foreign tourists, visited it each day.

The president’s computer bleeped, signaling a priority email; he stood at the window a moment longer, then turned and lowered himself painfully onto his red leather chair. Neither acupuncture nor Enbrel had helped his arthritis.

The president disliked his computer monitor. In an office in which everything else was historic, ornate, and beautiful, the monitor was merely functional. He clicked on his inbox and read the message, which was from Zhang Bo, the Minister of Communications: “Just a reminder, Excellency. Your presence is requested in the auditorium at 11:00 A.M.” The president glanced at the lacquered wall clock, which read 10:45. It would be an interesting meeting, to say the least: in his earlier email, Zhang had promised a full accounting of why the Changcheng Strategy had failed.

The president got up again, stepped into his private bathroom, looked at himself in the gold-framed mirror mounted above the jade sink—and scowled. His jet-black hair was showing a millimeter of white at its roots. He sighed. No matter what appearances one tried to put forth, the reality of who you were always pushed out into the light of day.

Peyton Hume considered his options. He was in a car, although the motor was off. He could call the bald thug’s bluff and try to speed away, hoping that he wasn’t really going to fire the Glock. He could try to throw the car door open, as he’d seen on so many cop shows, smashing it into the man’s torso—but the door was locked and if he moved rapidly to unlock it, Baldy would still have time to react. Or he could try to get his own sidearm, which was in the glove compartment, but, again, the other man could easily take him out before he did so.

Hume shrugged as philosophically as he could under the circumstances, moved slowly to unlock and then open the car door, exited the vehicle, and stood at attention on the side of the road. The man had a Bluetooth cellular earpiece in his left ear—no doubt feeding him instructions directly from Webmind.

“Wise,” said the goon. It was dark out, and he was making no particular attempt to hide the fact that he was pointing a gun at Hume. “Your cell phone, please?”

Hume gave it to him.