Robert Sawyer - Watch

Who you? asked Virgil.

Friend of Hobo, Sho replied.

Hobo! Good ape, good ape! Where Hobo?

Sho gestured at the dusky evening behind her. He’s outside. Maybe he’ll come talk to you.

Good, said Virgil, his orange arms moving rapidly. Good, good, good. Hobo nice ape!

Shoshana didn’t reply in ASL, but she did find herself making a sign: she crossed her fingers and looked over at Dr. Marcuse. “If this works,” she said to him, “maybe he’ll be a nice ape again.”

I enjoyed looking at the YouTube video Caitlin had directed me to of the apes Hobo and Virgil communicating via webcam. I immediately began searching for more information on them, and discovered that Hobo seemed to be in trouble: a news story from the San Diego Union-Tribune about his plight had just been uploaded. There was probably more to know than what was in the newspaper article, so I found the Marcuse Institute website, found the email addresses of its staff, and started to dig.

Caitlin said I should choose to value the net happiness of the human race. But I wondered if, perhaps, a slightly wider perspective was in order…

Caitlin found herself feeling trepidation as she sat down in front of her computer Wednesday morning; who knew how much Webmind had changed overnight? She had echoes going through her head of the old SF story about an engineer who had built an advanced computer and asked it, “Is there a God?,” to which the machine had ominously replied, “There is now.” She was relieved that Webmind seemed no different from the way he’d been Tuesday night.

After breakfast, her mother drove her to Howard Miller Secondary School. As had become her habit, her mom had CBC Radio One on in the car. Caitlin was half-listening, but mostly looking out at the world: other cars, houses, trees, and, and, and—

“What’s that? ” she asked, pointing at a rectangular blue thing.

Her mother sounded amused. “It’s a porta-potty.”

She decided to risk a joke. “I guess I really don’t know shit, do I?”

To her relief, her mother laughed.

They came to a red traffic light and stopped. Caitlin looked around, and—

And there! Walking toward them on the perpendicular street! It was—yes, yes! It was Matt!

The light changed, and her mother drove through the intersection. Caitlin turned her head around to look back at him.

“What’s caught your eye now?” her mom asked.

“Oh, nothing,” she said. “It’s just that everything is so beautiful.”

Her mother dropped her at the school’s main entrance, then drove off once Caitlin was inside.

“Hey, Cait!” It was Bashira. She had on a red headscarf today. Bashira put her hand on Caitlin’s elbow, the way she used to when guiding blind Caitlin—but then she pulled the hand away. “Oh, sorry,” she said. “Force of habit.”

“No worries,” said Caitlin, and they headed off to the second floor. Caitlin was surprised to see three men standing outside their classroom door, watching as the students entered. Two were white, and the third was Asian.

“Caitlin?” said one of the white men.

She’d never seen him before, but she knew the voice. Principal Auerbach.

“Yes, sir?” Bashira found it funny that Caitlin called men “sir,” but it was what people from the South did.

Auerbach waved his hand and—ah, he was motioning for her to follow. She exchanged a look with Bashira, then did so.

“These men would like to have a word with you,” he said, once they were several paces farther down the corridor.

“Yes?”

“My name is LaFontaine,” said the other white man. He had a French Canadian accent and dark brown hair. “Mr. Park here and I are with CSIS.”

Caitlin thought of the primers she’d been working with as she learned to read printed characters. See Sis. See Sis run. Run, Sis, run. “The who in the what now?”

“The Canadian Security Intelligence Service,” LaFontaine replied—but Webmind had beat him to it, sending the same five words to her eye as Braille dots.

“Is that like a spy agency?” Caitlin asked.

“In point of fact, it is a spy agency,” replied LaFontaine. “There’s nothing metaphoric about it.”

Caitlin’s view of the world shifted, and she realized after a moment that that must be what rolling one’s eyes did. LaFontaine clearly thought he was brighter than she was; in her experience, people who thought that were usually wrong.

“Let’s go somewhere private,” Mr. Auerbach said. He led them farther down the corridor, and, just as “O Canada” was starting, they came to a door labeled “History Office.” He opened it, and they all stepped into the empty room. It contained a few large desks pushed against the walls, a long central worktable, and a window half-covered by brown curtains.

“Thank you, Mr. Auerbach,” Park said over the music. “We’ll let you know when we’re done.”

“I’m really not sure I should leave,” the principal said.

“As I said in your office,” Park replied, “this is a national-security matter, on a need-to-know basis—and you, with all due respect, sir, do not need to know.” He pulled a device out of his pocket. “We are recording everything—for Ms. Decter’s protection, and our own. Now, if you’ll excuse us?”

Caitlin thought Mr. Auerbach didn’t look happy about being dismissed, but after a moment he nodded and left.

They waited for the anthem to come to an end, although Caitlin noted that these Federal agents weren’t above sitting down while it was playing. Once it was over, and the morning announcements had begun, LaFontaine said, “Now, Ms. Decter, we’d like to ask you some questions about Webmind.”

Caitlin’s heart practically leapt through her chest, and Webmind sent the quite-apt phrase Holy shit to her eye. But she tried to sound nonchalant. “Who?”

“Come now, Ms. Decter,” LaFontaine said. “Mr. Park and I have already had a long day—we got the very first flight from Ottawa to Toronto this morning, and then had to drive the hour-plus to get here from Pearson. Let’s not play games, shall we? We are aware of Webmind’s existence, and your involvement with it, and we’d like to ask you some questions about it.”

Find out what they know first, Webmind sent.

Caitlin nodded. “Well, sure,” she said. “But—I’m confused. You think Webmind is… who? Me?”

“Don’t play dumb, Ms. Decter,” said LaFontaine. “We know it’s an emergent intelligence on the World Wide Web, and we know you know that much. We’d like to hear what else you know about it. About how it’s physically embodied, for instance. About what part of the Web’s hardware it exists on, and—”

“I have no idea,” said Caitlin.

Park spoke up. “Ms. Decter, I spent the flight from Ottawa reading a dossier on you. I know about your interest in math and computers. There’s simply no way we’re going to believe that you haven’t already explored this question to your satisfaction. Indeed, you presumably had to have some sense of what was going on to become involved with Webmind in the first place.”

Caitlin narrowed her eyes. “Why do you want to know?”

“I know you’re registered for SETI@home, Ms. Decter, isn’t that right?” said LaFontaine.

“Yes.”

“Well,” he asked, “do you know what the international protocols for events following the detection of an alien radio signal call for?”

“Not offhand.”

“They call for the radio frequencies that alien signals are being detected on to be isolated, and cleared from human use, so that the signals won’t be drowned out.” He lifted the corners of his mouth. “Our directive is to do the same thing for Webmind: make sure that whatever resources it requires for its continued existence are protected. We want to ensure that nothing interferes with it.”