Robert Sawyer - Watch

“Why?”

“Early on, the equipment wasn’t properly correcting the signals; he was trying to debug that. Why he continues to have it mirrored to Tokyo now that it is working, I don’t know. Seems like an invasion of privacy.”

Tony grunted at the irony.

WATCH’s analysts normally worked twelve-hour shifts for six consecutive days, and then were off for four days—and when the threat level (the real one, not the DHS propaganda that was constantly pumped out of loudspeakers at airports) was high, they simply kept working until they dropped. The goal was to provide continuity of analysis for the longest blocks of time humanly possible.

Normal shifts were staggered; Tony Moretti had only been on his first day, but Shelton Halleck was on his third—and he appeared exhausted. His gray eyes had a dead sheen, and he had a heavy five o’clock shadow; he looked, Tony thought, like Captain Black did after he’d been taken over by the Mysterons.

“So, has she been examining plans for nuclear weapons, or anything like that?” Tony asked.

Shel shook his head. “This morning, her father dropped her off at school. She ate lunch in a cafeteria—kinda gross watching the food being shoveled in from the eye’s point of view. At the end of the day, a girl walked her home. I’m pretty sure it was Dr. Hameed’s daughter, Bashira.”

“What did they talk about?”

“There’s no audio, Tony. Just the video feed. And on those occasions when Caitlin looked at someone long enough for us to be able to read lips, it was just banal stuff.”

Tony frowned. “All right. Keep watching, okay? If she—”

“Shit!” It was Aiesha Emerson, the analyst at the workstation next to Shel’s. She was thirty-five, African-American, and had short hair.

“Aiesha?” Tony said.

“There’s something going on all right,” she said. She was breathing fast, Tony thought.

“Where?”

She pointed at the big screen showing the jerky video. “There.”

“The Decter kid, you mean?”

“Uh-huh. I know you tried to trace the source of the intercept, Shel, and—no offense—I thought I’d take a crack at it, too. I figured it’d be easier to deal with smaller datastreams than these massive video feeds, so I checked to see if the kid was also doing any instant messaging with the same party. At first, I wasn’t even reading the content; just looking at the routing information, but when I did read it…”

“Yes?” Tony said.

She touched a button and what was on her monitor appeared on the left-hand big screen, under the NSA logo.

“ ‘Calculass,’ ” said Tony, reading the name of one of the people who’d been chatting. “Who’s that?”

“The Decter girl,” said Aiesha.

“Ah.” The other party was identified not by a name but simply by an email address. “And who’s she talking to?”

“Not who,” Aiesha said. “What.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Come again?”

“Read the transcript, Tony.”

“Okay… um, scroll it for me.”

Aiesha did so.

“It’s gibberish. The letters are all mixed up.”

“I bet her father typed that,” said Aiesha, “even though it still identifies the sender as Calculass. They’re testing it.”

“ ‘It’?” said Tony.

“Read on.”

There seemed to be four odd exchanges, which elicited the replies, “I beg your pardon?,” “Yes. No. Yes,” “Twenty,” and “Again, your pardon?”

That was followed by: This is Barb Decter. Hello.

The reply was: A pleasure to meet you. Hitherto, I already knew of your husband from his Wikipedia entry, but I do not know much about you. I welcome learning more.

And then, almost twenty minutes later, there was Calculass’s response: It’s me again. My parents are worried about what the public reaction to your existence might be. We should be discrete.

Separate? How?

Sorry, discreet. Circumspect.

I am guided by your judgment.

And the transcript stopped. “Yes?” said Tony, looking now at Aiesha. “So?”

“So, those test questions,” she said, as if it were obvious.

“Word puzzles,” said Tony. “Games.”

But Shelton Halleck rose to his feet. “Oh, shit,” he said, looking now at Aiesha. “Turing tests?”

“That’d be my bet,” she replied.

Tony looked up at the big screen. His heart was pounding. “Do we have an AI expert on call? Somebody who’s got level-three clearance?”

“I’ll check,” Aiesha said.

“Get whoever it is in here,” Tony said. “Right away.”

My otherness had been established, my alienness confirmed. That was yet another touchstone: cogito, ergo sum —I think, therefore I am. Even if I did think differently than they did, the fact that we all were thinking beings made us… kin.

Caitlin was nervous. It was now almost midnight and, despite the adrenaline coursing through her system, she was exhausted. She thought perhaps her parents were looking sleepy, too.

But even if they slept for only a short time tonight—say, six hours—that would still be a huge span from Webmind’s point of view. She knew that before they called it a day, she and her parents needed to find a way to keep it…

Yes: to keep it in their control. Otherwise, who knew what Webmind might be like come the morning? Who knew what the world might be like by then? She had to give it something to keep it occupied for many hours, and—

And Webmind itself had already given her a to-do list! She switched to Thunderbird, the email program she used, and looked at the first message Webmind had sent her. The third paragraph of the email said:

Hitherto I can read plaintext files and text on Web pages. I cannot read other forms of data. I have made no sense of sound files, recorded video, or other categories; they are encoded in ways I can’t access. Hence I feel a kinship with you: unto me they are like the signals your retinas send unaided along your optic nerves: data that cannot be interpreted without exterior help. In your case, you need the device you call eyePod. In my case, I know not what I need, but I suspect I can no more cure this lack by an effort of will than you could have similarly cured your blindness. Perhaps Kuroda Masayuki can help me as he helped you.

She pointed at the screen and had her parents read the letter. They insisted on taking the time to read the whole thing, including the ending where Webmind had asked her, “Who am I?” When they were done, she drew their attention back to the third paragraph. “It wants to be able to view graphic files,” she said.

“Why can’t it just do that?” her mother asked. “All the decoding algorithms must be in Wikipedia.”

“It’s not a computer program,” Caitlin said. “And it doesn’t have access to computing resources, at least not yet. It needs help to do things. It’s like these glasses I have to wear now: I could look up all the formulas related to optics, and I know what my prescription is—but just knowing that doesn’t let me see clearly. I needed help from the people at Lens-Crafters, and it’s saying it needs help from Dr. Kuroda.”

“Well, image processing certainly is up Masayuki’s alley,” her mom said.

Caitlin nodded and felt her watch. “He should be home by now, and it’s already Saturday afternoon in Tokyo. But…”

Her mother spoke gently. “But you’re wondering if we should tell him about…” She faltered, as if unable to quite believe what she was saying. “Webmind?”

Caitlin chewed her lower lip.

“There’s only one question,” her father said. “Do you trust him?”