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apparently in her teenage years, talking directly into a Web camera.

I followed some links, found her Facebook page. Her name was Hannah Stark; she lived in Perth, Australia; and she was sixteen, just like Caitlin.

She was sitting cross-legged on a bed. The walls behind her were lime green, and the bed had a yellow and white blanket on it. She had a black cordless keyboard, which was intermittently visible, but she also had an open microphone, and was uploading sound as well as video.

As I watched and listened, Hannah spoke aloud sometimes, and sometimes she sent out text. Others were sending text back to her, which I easily intercepted. You don’t have the balls, said one.

This seemed an obvious statement, so I was surprised when she typed back, Do too.

Then do it, wrote another.

I will, she replied, and she spoke the same words, “I will.”

I don’t got all day do it now, said a different commenter.

Yeh now bitch now, added another.

The girl had dark eyebrows, thicker than Caitlin’s. She scrunched her forehead, and they moved together and touched.

all talk, wrote someone else. wastin everyones time

Hannah typed with just her index fingers. Im gonna do it.

I was getting better at reading improperly formed text and had no trouble following along.

when? said someone. just jerkin us around

dont rush me, Hannah replied.

lame, said the same person who’d made the previous comment. Im outta here

I want you to understand some things, Hannah wrote, bout why Im doing this.

You aint doin’ shit, said someone.

Hannah went on. It’s just so pontless

But then she corrected herself, sending pointless.

Someone who hadn’t posted yet while I’d been watching said, It’s not that bad. Don’t do it.

Shut the fuck up jerkoff, someone else replied. Stay outta it.

Ok, Hannah wrote. She reached out of view of the camera and when her hand was visible again, it was holding something gray.

Here I go, she typed with just one hand, and—oh!—the thing in her other hand wasn’t gray; now that it caught the light, I saw it was silver.

She manipulated the object in her right hand and brought it near to her left arm. She then rotated that arm so that the inside of her wrist faced up. She brought the object close, and—

do it do it do it

Ah! It was a knife. She drew it across her wrist, but—

ripoff!

Tease!

—nothing happened.

Like I said, no guts…

harder!

Noooooooooooooooo dont …

She closed her eyes tightly, took a deep breath, and then—

Go fer it!

—she drew the blade across her wrist again, and she jerked her head slightly as she did so. A small bead of blood appeared on the skin when she pulled the knife away.

that all?

Do it again!

“Give me a chance,” Hannah said. She reached for her keyboard with the hand that wasn’t holding the knife and pecked out with her index finger, Dont feel bad mum.

And then she pulled her hand back and faced her wrist up again, and she turned her head away and looked at the lime-green wall, and she made a quick deep slice into her skin.

more like it!

eeeeeew!

holy fuck!

A red line appeared on her wrist, and as she pulled the knife away, I could see that its blade was now slick and dark.

thought she was kidding

finish it! finish it!

She rotated her wrist slowly and large drops of blood spilled out.

just a flesh wound

Chicken! Buck-buck-buckaw!

She looked into the webcam, and, while doing so, slashed her wrist once more. Her face changed in an odd way, and blood surged from the wound, splurting presumably in time with her heartbeat. omg omg omg

Hannah Stark slumped forward. She must have been putting weight on her keyboard because her computer —which, obviously, was there although out of my view—made a shrill sound that I believe indicated a keyboard- buffer overflow, but nothing was sent, since she hadn’t hit the enter key. The sound continued, a uniform wailing. She didn’t move again, and soon it was impossible to tell this streaming video from a still image.

nineteen

Caitlin’s dad had gotten hold of Tawanda late on Saturday night, and she’d agreed to come into work on Sunday to make the modifications to the eyePod; she was quite eager, Caitlin’s dad had said, to see the device’s insides.

As Caitlin and her father drove into the RIM campus, the roads were mostly empty. Once they arrived at the appropriate building, and Tawanda got them through security, they took an elevator up to an engineering lab. The walls were covered with big, framed photos of various BlackBerry models, and there were three worktables, each crammed with complex-looking equipment.

Tawanda was a slim black woman. Caitlin was still no good at guessing ages, but her skin seemed smooth. She was wearing blue jeans and a loose-fitting white garment that Caitlin belatedly realized must be a lab coat.

Caitlin had indeed met her before—she had immediately recognized the lovely Jamaican accent. But she honestly didn’t recognize her: her brain was rewiring its vision centers at a furious pace, she knew, and she was seeing things differently today than she had at the press conference last Wednesday. Then, she’d been able to do little more than tell when something was a face; now, she was starting to get good at identifying specific faces.

“Thank you so much,” Caitlin said, “for giving up your Sunday for me.”

“Not at all, not at all,” Tawanda said. “But let’s get to work.” She held out her hand, and Caitlin took the eyePod out of her hip pocket. RIM employed top-notch industrial designers, and their devices looked—well, the word people used was “sexy,” although Caitlin was still struggling with how that could apply to an inanimate object. But