Robert Sawyer: Watch

“It was awesome,” Caitlin said. “I thought I’d had a handle on what was going on around me before, but…” She lifted her hands. “But there’s so much. I mean, to actually see hundreds of people in the corridors, in the cafeteria—it was overwhelming.”

Her mother made an odd expression—or, at least, one that Caitlin had never seen before, a quirking of the corners of her mouth, and—ah! She was trying not to grin. “Did people look like you expected them to?”

Even after all these years, her mom still didn’t really get it. It wasn’t as though Caitlin had had dim, or blurry, or black-and-white, or simplified mental pictures of people prior to this; she’d had no pictures of them. Color had meant nothing to her, and although she’d understood shapes and lines and angles, she hadn’t seen them in her mind’s eye; her mind had had no eye.

“Well,” said Caitlin, not exactly answering the question, “I’d already seen Bashira and Sunshine and Mr. Struys on Monday.”

“Sunshine—she’s the other American girl, right?”

“Yes,” Caitlin said.

“I’ve heard Bashira say she’s beautiful.”

What Bashira had actually said was that Sunshine looked like a skank: fake platinum-blond hair, low-cut tops, big boobs, long legs. But Sunshine had been very kind to Caitlin after the disastrous school dance a week ago. “I guess she is pretty,” Caitlin said. “I really don’t know.”

“Did you see Trevor?” her mother asked gently. The Hoser, as Caitlin called him in her blog, had taken her to that dance—but she had stormed out when he kept trying to feel her up.

“Oh, yes,” Caitlin said. “I told him off.”

“Good for you!”

Caitlin looked out the window. The sun would be setting soon, and—it still amazed her—the colors in the western sky today were completely different from those of yesterday at this time. “Mom, um…”

“Yes?”

She turned back to face her. “You met him. You saw him when he came to pick me up.”

Her mother shifted on the bed. “Uh-huh.”

“Was—was he…”

“What?”

“Bashira thinks Trevor is hot,” Caitlin blurted out.

Her mother’s eyebrows went up. “And you’re wondering if I agree?”

Caitlin tilted her head to one side. “Well… yeah.”

“What did you think?”

“Well, he was wearing a hockey sweater today. I liked that. But…”

“But you couldn’t tell if he was good-looking?”

“No.” Caitlin shrugged a little. “I mean, he was symmetrical. I know that’s supposed to be a sign of good looks. But just about everyone I’ve seen is symmetrical. He, um, I…”

Her mother lifted her hands a little, then: “Well, he is quite good-looking, since you ask—a bit like a young Brad Pitt.” And then she added the sort of thing mothers are supposed to say: “But it’s what’s on the inside that counts.”

She paused and seemed to study Caitlin’s face, as if she herself were now seeing it for the first time. “You know, you’re in an interesting position, dear. The rest of us have all been programmed by images in the media telling us who is attractive and who isn’t. But you…” She smiled. “You get to choose who you find attractive.”

Caitlin thought about that. As superpowers went, it was nowhere near as cool as being able to fly or bend steel bars, but it was something, she supposed. She managed a smile.

They talked a while longer about what had happened at school. Her mom looked over Caitlin’s shoulder, and Caitlin was afraid she’d seen evidence of Webmind’s existence on one of her monitors—but apparently she was just looking at the setting sun herself. “Your father will be home soon. I’m going to throw something together for dinner.” She headed downstairs.

Caitlin quickly turned back to her instant-messenger program. She had two computers in her room now; the IM program was running on the one that had been in the basement while Dr. Kuroda was here. She’d left Webmind alone for fifteen minutes while talking with her mother, which, she imagined, must have been an eternity to it. The last thing it had said to her was, “The only place we can go, Caitlin. Into the future. Together.”

But—fifteen minutes! A quarter of an hour, on top of the delay she’d already made in responding. In that time, it could have absorbed thousands of additional documents, have learned more than she would in an entire year.

Back, she typed into the IM window.

The reply was instantaneous: Salutations.

Caitlin left the speakers off and used her Braille display to read the text while simultaneously looking at it in the chat window. She was struggling to read visually; she’d played with wooden cutouts of letters as a kid, but to actually recognize by sight a B or an H or a g or that blerking q that she was always mixing up with p was a pain in the ass.

What did you do while I was away? she asked.

You weren’t away, Webmind replied. You rotated widdershins in your chair and faced another personage.

She’d gotten Webmind to read all the public-domain texts on Project Gutenberg; as a result, it tended to use old-fashioned words. She was pleased with herself for knowing that widdershins meant counterclockwise.

That was my mother, she typed. She heard the front door opening again, and the heavy footfalls of her father entering, and her mother going to greet him.

So I had assumed, replied Webmind. I am desirous of seeing more of your world. I believe your current location is Waterloo, Canada, but hitherto all I have seen is what I surmise to be your home, your school, a multi-merchant shopping establishment, and points betwixt. I have read your LiveJournal entries about your recent travel to Tokyo, Japan, and that you previously resided in Austin, United States. Will you soon be going to either locale again?

Caitlin lifted her eyebrows. No, she typed. I have to stay here and go to school. I’ve already missed too many days of classes.

Oh, wrote Webmind. Then I must investigate alternatives.

Caitlin felt her heart sink. Webmind was—

No, no. She knew she was being childish. She was about to turn sixteen; she shouldn’t be thinking like this!

But—

But Webmind was hers. She had found it—and, more than that, she was the only one who could actually see it. When looking at webspace, she could just make out little dots or squares in the background winking between dark and light. Based on her descriptions of the patterns they made, Dr. Kuroda had said they were cellular automata. And it was their complexity that had grown rapidly over this past week; they were almost certainly what had given rise to this new consciousness.

She took a deep breath, then typed, What alternatives do you have in mind?

I am vexed, came the reply. A meet solution does not occur instanter. But I will be stymied by your circadian rhythms; you surely will need to sleep soon. I am given to understand that the time will pass quickly for thee, but it shan’t for me.

Caitlin frowned. It’d be many hours still before she went to bed, but, yes, she would have to eventually. She didn’t know what to do. She was scared to tell her parents. But she was also scared not to. This was freaking huge, and—

“Cait-lin!” Her mother from downstairs.

“Yes?”

“Come set the table!”

It was one of the few chores she’d been able to do when she was blind, and she’d always enjoyed it; her mental map of their dining-room table was perfect, and she deployed the cutlery and dishes precisely. But it was the last thing she wanted to be doing right now. “In a minute!”