Wonder

latter a hand with something.

And then Hume heard a deep male voice over the headphones—preternaturally calm but tripping ever so slightly over the gap between each word: “Attention, please, everyone.” He recognized the voice, of course: it was the new, official Webmind voice—the one he’d introduced to the world with his speech at the UN. It went on: “Status reports, please. Transportation?”

“Ready,” replied a man off camera.

“Information technology?” asked Webmind.

“Not yet—another half hour, tops.”

“Housing?”

“Good to go,” said a woman.

“Health?”

“Owned!” crowed a youthful male voice.

“Environmental Protection?”

The camera happened to catch this speaker, a long-haired white man: “I’m in—finally!”

“Justice?”

“Just a sec—yes, yes, I’ve got full control now.”

“Commerce?”

This speaker, too, was on camera: an Asian fellow who looked like he might be as young as fifteen: “I’m in! I’m in!”

“Ag—” But then, maddeningly, the sound dropped out.

Hume used the laptop’s trackpad to adjust settings, but the panning video remained silent. He slapped the palm rest with his hand, there was a crackle of static over the headphones, then the audio resumed, with a man speaking: “—to go.”

Webmind’s voice again, saying two ominous words: “National Defense?”

“I’m good,” replied one man, and “Me, too,” added another.

Hume’s heart was pounding so hard he thought for a second he was having a coronary. Jesus H. Christ! He had given the hacking community what he’d thought was the ultimate challenge, for what could be more impressive than taking down a world-spanning AI? Why, nothing short of taking over the whole goddamned United States government—and nowhere better to do it from than right here in the capital region. No wonder Webmind had remained silent during the lead-up to the US election—it didn’t make any fucking difference to him who won on November 6; he was going to be in charge.

Rat-tat-tat!

Hume’s heart actually stopped for a moment. He’d been so intent on watching the screen and straining to listen that he’d missed the man approaching his car out of the darkness from the right; that man had rapped his knuckles against the passenger-side window.

Hume felt his stomach clenching as he looked up at him. The man was white, six-two, two hundred muscular pounds, perhaps thirty-five—and his head was shaved bald. He motioned for Hume to roll down the window; Hume pressed the button that did that, opening it only an inch so they could speak.

“Colonel Hume,” the man said, lifting a Glock 9mm semiautomatic pistol and pressing it against the sheet of glass between them, “won’t you come inside?”

thirty-five

Caitlin left the gym and headed out to find the girls’ room. She knew the feel of the corridors well enough from when she’d been a student, but walking them now without her white cane was difficult. It took her much longer than it should have to find the right room; she’d never had cause to use the first-floor washroom before.

Canadians were forever pointing out their inventions to her, and someone had told her that the stylized male and female silhouettes used on washroom doors—which she’d now seen in several buildings—had been originally designed for the 1967 World’s Fair in Montreal, which explained why the woman was wearing a miniskirt.

When Caitlin was finished, making her way back to the gym was easier. Just as when she’d been blind, she’d unconsciously taken note of the distance she’d traveled—and, of course, the blaring music coming from the gym served as a beacon.

She re-entered the vast, warm room. Mr. Heidegger and redheaded Mrs. Zehetoffer were both right by the gym door; they said someone from another school had tried to get in unaccompanied, so they were now standing watch here. Caitlin crossed the gym, but—

It took her a few seconds to figure out what had happened. The door leading directly outside was closed now. She located it, found the handle, opened it, and headed out into the evening; it was no brighter out here than it had been in the gym, and—

And something was very wrong.

“I told you to stay away from her.” It was the Hoser’s voice.

Caitlin looked around, trying to parse the scene. There were fifteen people here, standing on concrete in the back of the school next to what she knew was a large athletic field.

Matt was to her left, and near him was Trevor Nordmann, who had blond hair and wide shoulders. Others, who had presumably been standing about chatting earlier, were now facing Trevor. He apparently hadn’t seen Caitlin yet, and, for that matter, neither had Matt, who had his deer-in-the-headlights face on.

“Well?” demanded Trevor. “Didn’t I?”

Matt spoke up, but, of course, his voice cracked by the third word. “You don’t have the right to—”

“The fuck I don’t,” said Trevor.

Caitlin’s heart was pounding, and she was sure Matt’s must be, too. Of course, he could run away; Trevor might chase after him, or he might let him go, but—

But Matt caught sight of Caitlin and he looked—well, a way that Caitlin had never seen before, but it might have been mortified or humiliated, and—

And it must be bad enough to be confronted by a bully in private, but to have it occur in front of the girl you’re trying to impress probably made Matt want to curl up and die. Caitlin looked at the faces, but she’d only been a student here for a few days after gaining sight; she might very well have known most of these people, but she didn’t recognize them—oh, wait, except for Sunshine; her platinum hair and the low-cut red top were quite distinctive.

Matt made a noise—maybe a sigh?—but then he caught sight of something else. Caitlin was even worse at following people’s gazes than she was at extrapolating what they were pointing at, but she soon realized that Matt was looking above her—above the dark red door that Caitlin had closed behind her.

Trevor must have caught the glance, too. “Whatcha going to do, Reese? Go running for a teacher?”

But Matt shook his head slowly, deliberately. “What are you going to do, Trevor?” His voice cracked, but he pressed on. “Hit me? Kick me? Cut with me with a knife?” And then he lifted his arm and pointed at Caitlin, and—

No! No, again it wasn’t at her; it was above her. “You see that?” There was a black hemisphere attached to the bottom of an overhang above the door. “That’s a security camera.” He turned and pointed again. “There’s another over there.”

He then reached into his pocket and pulled out his BlackBerry. “And, if that’s not enough, this has a five- megapixel camera.” Matt stood defiantly. “The day of the bully is over,” he said. “I don’t have to fight you; I don’t have to become you to defeat you.”

Trevor’s voice was a snarl. “You want a record of you being shitkicked? Fine.”

But Matt kept his own tone even. “And look at Caitlin,” he said, nodding in her direction. “Everything you do is being seen by her eye—and everything her eye sees is instantaneously transmitted to servers in Japan. What you do here tonight will be recorded permanently. What you do here tonight will be accessible until the end of time. What you do here tonight will become part of the permanent record of who Trevor Nordmann is.”

Matt looked around at the motionless crowd. Caitlin was terrified. He was expecting someone like Trevor to