Robert Sawyer - Wake

Kuroda had no way to filter out just the cellular automata from the Jagster feed, but Caitlin could do it with ease, simply by focusing on only a portion of the background.

“And,” he said, “speaking of Mathematica, Malcolm, do you have it?”

“Of course,” he said. “It should be accessible here. Let me…”

Caitlin heard them moving around, then, after a bit, Kuroda said, “Ah, thanks,” to her dad, and then, generally, to everyone, “Okay, let’s run the Zipf-plotting function.” Key clicks. “Of course, we’ll have to try a lot of different ways of parsing the datastream,” he continued, “to make sure we are isolating individual informational units. First, we’ll—”

“There!” interrupted her dad, actually sounding excited.

“What?” said Caitlin.

“Well, that’s it, isn’t it?” said Kuroda.

“What?” she repeated more firmly.

“You’re sure you’re concentrating on just the cellular automata?” Kuroda asked.

“Yes, yes.”

“Well,” he said, “what we’re getting as we plot them flipping from black to white is a lovely diagonal line — from the upper left to the lower right. A negative-one slope all the way.”

Caitlin lifted her eyebrows. “So there is information — real content — in the background of the Web?”

“I’d say so, yes,” said Kuroda. “Malcolm?”

“There’s no random process that can generate a negative-one slope,” he said.

“Le’azazel!” exclaimed Anna; it sounded like a curse word to Caitlin.

“What?” said Kuroda.

“Don’t you see?” Anna said. “A negative-one slope: it’s intelligent content on the Web in a place it’s not supposed to be — intelligence disguised to look like random noise.” She paused as if waiting for one of the men to supply the answer and, when they didn’t, she said, “It’s got to be the NSA.” She paused, letting that sink in. “Or maybe it’s comparable spooks elsewhere — Shin Bet, perhaps — but I’d bet it’s the NSA. We already know, from Hepting, that they muck around with the traffic on the net; it looks like they’ve found a way to package clandestine communications that move in the apparent noise.”

“What sort of content could it be, though?” asked Caitlin.

“Who knows?” said Anna. “Secret communiqués? Like I said, people have tried to use cellular automata before for data encryption, but nobody — at least not anyone who’s gone public — has ever worked out a system. But the NSA scoops up a lot of the top math grads in the US.”

“Really?” said Caitlin, surprised.

“Oh, yes,” said Anna. “It’s a real problem in the field of math academically, actually. Most of the best US grads in math and computer science either go to the NSA, where they work on classified projects, or to private-sector places like Google or Electronic Arts, where they do stuff that’s covered by nondisclosure agreements. God knows what they’ve come up with; it’s never published in journals.”

Kuroda said something that might have been a swearword of his own in Japanese, then: “She may be right. We should tread very, very carefully here, my friends. If this stuff in the background of the Web is supposed to be secret, those in power may take … steps … to ensure that it remains that way. Miss Caitlin, far be it from me to tell you what to do, but perhaps you could be circumspect about this topic in your blog?”

“Oh, no one pays attention to my LiveJournal. Besides, I flock — friends-lock — anything that I don’t want strangers to read.”

“Do what he says,” her dad said, startling her by the sharpness of his voice.

“The authorities could seize your implant and eyePod as threats to national security.”

Caitlin got down off the table. “They wouldn’t do that,” she replied.

“Besides, we’re in Canada now.”

“Don’t think for one second that the Canadian authorities won’t do whatever Washington asks,” her father said.

She wasn’t sure what to make of all this. “Um, okay,” she said at last. “But you guys are going to keep studying it, right?”

“Of course,” Dr. Kuroda said. “But carefully, and without tipping our hand.”

He paused. “It’s a good thing we’re doing a video conference with Anna; if this were text-based IM the authorities would already know what we’ve found. At least for now, video is a lot harder for them to automatically monitor.”

The full impact of what he and Anna were saying was coming to her. She turned her head toward Kuroda. “But what about our paper?”

“Eventually, Miss Caitlin, perhaps. But for now, the better part of valor is discretion.”

Masayuki Kuroda had spent the rest of Saturday, and all day Sunday, working with Miss Caitlin, studying the cellular automata. But it was now Monday, the first day of October. Masayuki had been in Canada a week now. He missed his wife and his own daughter, and felt guilty that Hiroshi was having to cover his classes for him. But, still, he was entitled to a little time off while he was here, no? Besides, there was only so much he could do while Miss Caitlin was at school.

He took another bite of his roast-beef sandwich and looked around the kitchen. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to North American houses. A home this size would be almost impossible to find in Tokyo, and yet there were streets full of them here. Of course, the Decters obviously weren’t hurting for cash, but, still, with only Malcolm working, and with all the expensive equipment Caitlin had, they certainly couldn’t have a lot of disposable income left.

“I want to thank you,” he said. “You’ve been so hospitable.”

Barbara Decter was seated on the opposite side of the square pine table, holding a cup of coffee in two hands. She looked over its brim at him. She was, Masayuki thought, quite lovely: probably closer to fifty than forty, but with large, sparkling blue eyes and a cute upturned nose that almost made her look like an anime character. “It’s my pleasure,” she said. “To tell the truth, I’ve enjoyed having you here. It’s nice to, you know, have someone talkative around. Back in Austin…”

She trailed off, but her voice had become a bit wistful before doing so.

“Yes?” he said gently.

“I just miss Texas, is all. Don’t get me wrong; this place is nice, although I am not looking forward to winter, and…”

Masayuki thought she looked sad. After a time he again said, “Yes?”

She held up a hand. “I’m sorry. It’s just … been particularly difficult coming here. I had friends back in Austin, and I had things to do: I worked every weekday as a volunteer at Caitlin’s old school, the Texas School for the Blind.”

He looked down at the place mat. It was a large laminated photo of a city skyline at night; a caption identified it as Austin. “So why did you move here?”

“Well, Caitlin was pushing to go to a regular school, anyway — she said she’d need to be able to function in normal classes if she were going to go on to MIT, which has been her goal for years. And then Malcolm got this job offer that was too good to pass up: the Perimeter Institute is a dream come true for him. He doesn’t have to teach, doesn’t have to work with students. He can just think all day.”

“How long have you been married, if I may ask?”

Again, the slightly wistful tone. “It’ll be eighteen years in December.”

“Ah.”

But then she gave him an appraising look. “You’re being polite, Masayuki. You want to know why I married him.”

He shifted in his chair and looked out the window. The leaves had started to change color. “It’s not my place to wonder,” he said. “But…”