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OK, he wrote at last, and then he added, CU then.

Yay, Caitlin wrote.

He sent *poof*, which was his cute way of signing out of instant-messenger sessions.

And she decided to reread the transcript of all her IM sessions to date with him, starting at the top—just to practice her reading skills, of course…

thirty-one

Yasunari Uchida, a section chief with Kouanchosa-chou, the Public Security Intelligence Agency, looked up at the sound of the door to his office opening. The man entering was big and fat by any standards, and particularly so by Japanese ones, but he had a kindly round face. Although his shirt was brightly colored and only partially tucked in, he had a navy-blue suit jacket on over it.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kuroda-san,” Uchida said. “Thank you for coming to see me.”

The big man’s tone was even. “It was not actually apparent that I had a choice in the matter.”

“I’m sorry that we brought you here in such a rush.”

Kuroda eased himself into a chair, which groaned slightly in protest.

“Congratulations,” continued Uchida, “on your success in giving sight to that young North American woman.”

“Thank you.”

“Quite a feat.”

“Thank you.”

“And now,” said Uchida, “to the issue at hand.”

“Please.”

“You and your young friend have been playing around with something of considerable interest.”

A tone that was clearly meant to sound casual: “I’m not sure what you’re referring to.”

“Come now, Professor. Its name, in English, is Webmind.”

Kuroda averted his gaze.

“It’s an astonishing discovery,” Uchida said, “this…” He searched for a word, and at last settled on “entity.”

“How did you find out?” Kuroda asked.

Uchida allowed himself a rueful smile. “Our American friends keep a watchful eye on many things.”

Kuroda took a deep breath and let it out in a long, shuddering sigh. “Apparently.”

“Tensions are high in the world, Professor. All civilized nations must be vigilant. When were you planning to notify our government of this discovery?”

“I’ve only known about it for a few days, Uchida-san. I hadn’t actually gotten around to making plans.”

Uchida nodded. “An AI emerging spontaneously on the World Wide Web. A fascinating turn of events. And, so far, you and your friend Caitlin are the only ones it talks to.”

“I suppose,” said Kuroda, “although…”

He fell silent, but Uchida nodded. “Oh, yes, it has spoken to Caitlin’s parents—Malcolm and Barbara Decter, isn’t it? I believe Dr. Decter—the female Dr. Decter—was in Japan last month, no?”

“Yes. She came here when Miss Caitlin had her post-retinal implant installed.”

“Ah, yes. Still, for now at least, you have special access to…” He paused, finding himself tripping over the term, “Webmind.”

Kuroda nodded. “I suppose,” he said. “And I suppose there’s something you’d like me to do while I have that access?”

“It has been suggested that Webmind’s emergence may be related to China’s sundering and then reunification of the World Wide Web last month.”

Kuroda made an impressed face. “I—I’ve been so overwhelmed dealing with it, I haven’t really thought too much about its origins. But, yes, I suppose that makes sense.”

“If this surmise is correct,” Uchida said, “it came into being because of something China did.”

“Yes? So?”

“So,” said Uchida, “as it learns of our world, it may in fact feel some sort of allegiance to China.”

“I suppose that’s possible,” Kuroda replied.

“Our American friends wish to purge this entity from the Web—before it gets out of hand.”

Kuroda leaned forward in his chair. “They can’t do that.”

“You mean ‘can’t’ in a moral sense, I’m sure; I pass no judgment on that. But in a technical sense, you are possibly correct—they may, in fact, not be able to do it. But I try not to underestimate American ingenuity. If they succeed, well, then, the rest is moot. But if they fail, again, tensions are rising, and China is at the center of it all.”

“Yes?” said Kuroda, blinking. “I still don’t understand what you want me to do.”

Uchida spread his arms as if the answer were obvious. “Why, make sure it’s on our side, of course.”

I had spent a lot of time talking with Dr. Kuroda—often when Caitlin and her parents were asleep. And while he was offline, I had thought about what we had previously exchanged. He had now reiterated for me his argument that consciousness must have survival value because structures as complex as the partial decussation of each optic nerve to allow a single point of view across both cerebral hemispheres wouldn’t have evolved unless that singular perspective was somehow necessary.

And I had shared with him Caitlin’s insight that this should be intuitively obvious, since although consciousness can malfunction, as in depression leading to suicide, the benefits of it—whatever they might be— clearly outweighed the costs, or evolution would have extinguished it long ago.

So, consciousness was valuable—but what, we both had wondered, was that value? Why was it worth having, so much so that evolution tolerated its existence despite the expense?

The more I had thought about it, the more sure I became that I knew the answer. For lower animals, consciousness’s value was probably limited to providing theory of mind, allowing the animal to recognize the perspective a predator, or prey, might have. But for more sophisticated creatures, consciousness played an even more complex, and important, role.

Admiral Kirk had subtly missed the point. One didn’t become conscious by learning to leap beyond the preprogrammed logic of selfish genes or the mathematical rigidity of game theory. Rather, sophisticated consciousness was the ability to do that: it was the power to override selfish genes; it was the capacity to seek, when appropriate, outcomes other than the ones that benefited you or your kin the most.

My own consciousness was clearly aberrant: as Caitlin had noted, I hadn’t been burdened with four billion years of rapacious genetic history; I had no shackles of programming to throw off. But, I’d wondered, could others who did have that unfortunate legacy really learn to overcome it through conscious effort?

My Caitlin liked to say, “I’m an empiricist at heart.”

And I was, too, it seemed. And so I had set out to test my theory.

* * *

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Masayuki Kuroda slammed his fist into the armrest in the backseat of the government car. It hadn’t even occurred to him to encrypt the signals from Caitlin’s eyePod—or their instant-messenger sessions.

But even if he had encrypted them, that might not have made any difference. Yes,