Robert Sawyer - Watch

And Matt thought about all the things movies and TV shows said about situations like this. You’re supposed to stand up to the bully, you’re supposed to hit him in the face, and then he’ll run away scared, or he’ll respect you, or something. You were supposed to become him to defeat him.

But Matt couldn’t do that. First, because if Trevor didn’t run off, he’d pound the living shit out of him; there was simply no way Matt could win. And, second, because, damn it, the TV shows and movies were wrong. Responding to violence with violence didn’t defuse things; it caused them to escalate.

“Stay away from her,” Trevor said.

Matt had been tormented by Trevor for three years now; he’d endured the horrors of gym class with Trevor, and the utter indifference to his agony demonstrated by the Phys.Ed. teachers. Matt knew the joke that those who can, do; those who can’t, teach—and those who can’t teach, teach Phys.Ed. God, why was it considered pedagogically sound to ask someone to shoot ten baskets and give them a score based on how many they got while others were calling them a spaz? He wondered how Trevor would fare if he were asked to solve ten quadratic equations while people were shouting that he was a moron?

“She’s going to be home-schooled,” Matt said. “You’ll never see her again, and—”

And then it hit him—and so did Trevor, pounding him once more on the opposite side of his chest. Trevor wasn’t afraid that he wouldn’t ever see Caitlin again; rather, he was afraid of exactly the opposite. Miller had dances the last Friday of every month; the next one was only two weeks away. And if Caitlin Doreen Decter—if the girl he had brought to the dance last month—showed up in the company of someone like Matt, that would be humiliating for Trevor.

“Just stay the fuck away from her,” Trevor said. “You hear me?”

Matt kept his voice low—not out of fear, although he was mightily afraid, but because that helped keep it from cracking. “You don’t have to be this way, Trevor,” he said.

Trevor slammed the flat of his hand into Matt’s solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him and knocking him to the cement sidewalk.

“Just remember what I said,” Trevor snarled, and stormed off.

An hour later, Nick’s mother sent him an email message that said:

Hey, Nick.

Did you send me an email earlier? I thought I saw one in my inbox but I must have accidentally deleted it—sorry. You doing OK?

Forty-four minutes later, I finally detected activity from Nick’s computer, and soon he replied to his mother:

Mom,

All’s well. Thanx.

And eleven minutes after that he resumed the IM session with me, sending that same word: Thanx.

I replied, You’re welcome. If you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here.

I’d hoped he’d write something more, but he didn’t. Still, he continued to do things on his computer, reading email, checking blogs, following people on Twitter, downloading songs from iTunes, looking at MySpace and Facebook pages.

Life went on.

As she was getting ready for bed, I told Caitlin what I had done, sending text to her post-retinal implant.

“That’s wonderful!” she said. “You saved a life!”

It is gratifying.

“But, um, Webmind?”

Yes?

“You shouldn’t have revealed what that girl—what was her name?”

Ashley Ann Jones.

“Her. You shouldn’t have revealed what she said.”

I could think of no other way to accomplish my goal.

“I know, but, see, if she finds out and starts telling people you invaded her privacy, well, the public might turn against you.”

But you had me tell you what Matt had said about you in his instant messages.

“Yes, but…”

I waited five seconds, then: But?

“Damn, you’re right.”

I have not asserted a position.

“I mean, I shouldn’t have done that.”

Why not?

“Because it’s one thing for people to be aware that something not human is reading their email. It’s quite another to know—forgive me!—that that thing is releasing the contents of those emails to other people. If this Nick person tells Ashley what you did, and she goes public—we’re screwed.”

Oh. What should I do?

“My mom always says let sleeping dogs lie.”

You mean, I should do nothing?

“Yes, just leave it be.”

Thank you for the advice. I shall do that.

The view of Caitlin’s room jostled up and down as she nodded. “But the important thing right now is what you did for that boy. You’ve become a force for good in the world, Webmind! How does it feel?”

I contemplated this. Malcolm Decter had told me he didn’t think I had real feelings although he hoped I could learn to ape them.

But he was wrong.

How does it feel? I repeated. It feels wonderful.

LiveJournal:The Calculass Zone

Title:1+1=2 (in all numeral systems except binary)

Date:Thursday 11 October, 11:55 EST

Mood:Happy happy joy joy

Location:Waterloo

Music:Colbie Caillat, “Bubbly”

So, could things get any better? I ask you, friends: could they?

I think NOT. Just look at the life-goals to-do list:

1. Memorize 1,000 digits of pi: check.

2. Be able to see: check.

3. Make it to sixteen without doing anything really stupid: check.

4. Watch the Stars win the Stanley Cup: not so much up to me.

5. Get a boyfriend: check.

6. Take a trip into space: still working on that.

Pretty good progress, eh? (Yes, I’m in Canada, and I say “eh” now—sue me!) I mean, four out of six ain’t bad, and—

What’s that, my friends? You want to hear more about #5? Hee hee!

Yes, indeed, Calculass has found herself a man! And, no, it is not the Hoser, who figured in previous posts. He was so when-I-was-15… ;)

No, the new boy is shiny and kind and clever at math. Methinks I shall call him… hmm. Not “Boy Toy,” because that’s degrading. He’s sweet, but if I called him my “Maple Sugar,” even I would puke. But he does like math and we were talking recently about our plans for university, so I think I’ll call him MathU—yes, that will do nicely. :)

[And seekrit message to BG4: you WILL like him once you get to know him—honest!]

MathU and I met, appropriately enough, in math class, and he lives nearby. And he’s already met the parents and Lived to Tell the Tale. :) So: all is good. Which, unfortunately, knowing my luck, means things are about to get royally frakked!

So far, I had received over 2.7 million emails. Most of them made requests of me, but the vast majority failed to pass the nonzero-sum test—they would make one person happy at the expense of somebody else—and so I could not do what was asked. I replied with the same form letter, or, if appropriate, a slightly modified version of it, and I often appended some helpful links.

Lots of people wrote my name with a capital M in the middle: WebMind. That was called camel-case, and was popular in computing circles. One of the emails that addressed me that way asked this question:

Hi, WebMind:

Okay, I understand you can’t tell me what any one individual thinks of me, but you must have an aggregate impression of what the world thinks of me. That is, you know what people say behind my back—at least when they say it electronically.

So, what’s the scoop? What do they think? If I’m rubbing people the wrong way, if I piss them off, or if they just plain don’t like me, I want to know.