WWW: Wake (11 page)

When she’d started working here, Shoshana had believed the story on the Institute’s website about Hobo’s name: that a Canadian ex-pat zookeeper had dubbed him that in honor of the ever-helpful German shepherd on the kid’s TV

series The Littlest Hobo. She’d been shocked to discover the truth.

Hobo hesitated just long enough to make clear that he was choosing to cooperate, not blindly following orders. He walked across the grass on all fours until he got to where Shoshana was standing. Then he took one of her hands, intertwining his fingers with hers, the way he liked to, and the two of them headed across the little bridge over the moat. They crossed the wide expanse of lawn and reached the whitewashed clapboard bungalow that was headquarters to the Marcuse Institute.

Waiting inside was the old man himself, Dr. Harl Marcuse. Shoshana and the other grad students secretly called him “the Silverback,” although none of them had actually seen him without his shirt, which, as she’d once quipped after a drink or two too many, was probably a good thing.

Marcuse was also sometimes called the eight-hundred-pound gorilla. That overstated his weight by a factor of 2.5, but as for the species designation, what’s a 1.85 percent difference in DNA among friends? He certainly had the clout that went with the nickname; his ability to squeeze grant dollars out of the NSF was legendary.

Also present were Dillon Fontana, twenty-four, blond, with a wispy beard; red-headed Maria Lopez, ten years older; and Werner Richter, a dapper little German primatologist in his sixties. Dillon was holding a video camera, and Maria had a still-image camera; both were aiming them at Hobo.

The ape looked around the cluttered room, his jaw slack.

Sit here, Werner signed, indicating a high-back swivel chair positioned in front of a particleboard desk.

Hobo let go of Shoshana’s hand, clambered onto the chair, and sat cross-legged. Spin? he asked. He loved it when people spun the chair with him on it.

Later, said Shoshana. Computer time now.

Hobo’s face showed his pleasure; he was accustomed to having his computer use strictly rationed. Good treat! he signed at her, then turned to face the twenty-one-inch Apple LCD monitor. Movie? he signed.

Shoshana tried to suppress her smile. She put on a headset then used the mouse to double-click a desktop icon. Clipped to the top of the monitor was a silver webcam. On the screen, a small window opened showing the webcam’s view—a real-time image of Hobo. Like most chimps, he had no trouble recognizing himself in a mirror or on TV; many gorillas, on the other hand, couldn’t do that. He looked at himself for a moment, then reached up to his head to brush out some blades of grass that were visible in the image.

Shoshana clicked more icons and a bigger window appeared on the screen, showing a webcam view of another room, with yellow-beige walls, an empty wooden chair in the foreground, and a row of mismatched filing cabinets in the background. “Okay, Miami,” she said into the mike. “We’re all set.”

“Roger, San Diego,” said a male voice in her ear. “Once again, sorry for all the delays. And—here we go.”

Suddenly there was a flurry of orange movement on the screen, as—

Hobo let out a startled hoot.

—as a small male orangutan made his way onto the chair visible on the screen, sitting with his long legs bunched up in front of him, and his long arms hugging those legs. The orang was making a face; he kept looking off camera, chittering. Shoshana could hear it over her headset but Hobo couldn’t—they’d deliberately muted the PC’s speakers.

What that? asked Hobo, looking now at Shoshana.

Ask him, Shoshana signed and pointed at the screen. Say hello.

Hobo’s eyes went wide. He talk?

On the monitor, Shoshana could see the orang—whose name, she knew, was Virgil—signing similar questions to his off-screen companion. Each ape simultaneously caught sight of the other signing. Hobo let out a startled yelp, and Virgil briefly clapped his long-fingered hands down on the top of his head in surprise.

Hello! signed Hobo, eyes now locked on the screen.

Hello, Virgil replied. Hello, hello!

Hobo turned briefly to Shoshana. What name?

Ask him, Shoshana signed back.

Hobo did so. What name?

The orang looked astonished, then: Virgil. Virgil.

“He said, ‘Virgil,’” Shoshana said, interpreting the unfamiliar gesture for Hobo.

Hobo paused, perhaps digesting this.

Shoshana tapped his shoulder, then: Tell him your name.

Hobo, he signed at once.

Virgil was a fast study; he mimicked the sign back at him.

You orange, Hobo signed.

Orange pretty, replied Virgil.

Hobo seemed to consider this, then: Yes. Orange pretty. But then he turned to look at Shoshana and flared his nostrils, as if trying to pick up Virgil’s scent. Where he?

Far away, Shoshana signed. Hobo couldn’t understand the notion of thousands of miles, so she left it at that. Tell him what you did today.

The chimp turned back to face the screen. Play today! he signed enthusiastically. Play ball!

Virgil looked surprised. Hobo play today? Virgil play today!

Dillon couldn’t help himself. “Small world,” he said, earning a shush! from Werner. But he was right: it was a small world, and it was getting smaller every day. Dr. Marcuse was nodding in quiet satisfaction at the spectacle of a chimpanzee talking to an orangutan over the Web. For her own part, Shoshana couldn’t stop grinning. The first-ever interspecies webcam call was off to a great start.

“Mom!” Caitlin shouted. “Dad! Come quick!”

Caitlin listened to the thunder of their footfalls on the stairs.

“What is it, dear?” her mother said as soon as she’d arrived.

Her father said nothing, but Caitlin imagined there was curiosity on his face—something else she’d heard of but couldn’t picture, at least not yet!

“I’m seeing things,” Caitlin said, her voice breaking.

“Oh, sweetheart!” her mom said, and Caitlin suddenly felt arms engulfing her and lips touching the top of her head. “Oh, God, that’s wonderful!”

Even her dad marked the occasion: “Great!”

“It is great,” Caitlin said. “But ... but I’m not seeing the outside world.”

“You mean you can’t see through the window?” her mom said. “It’s pretty dark out now.”

“No, no,” said Caitlin. “I can’t see anything in the real world. I can’t see you, or Dad, or ... or anything.”

“Then what are you seeing?” her mom asked.

“Light. Lines. Colors.”

“That’s a good start!” she said. “Can you see me waving my arms?”

“No.”

“What about now?”

“No.”

“When precisely did you start seeing?” her dad asked.

“Just after we began downloading the new software into my implant.”

“Ah, well, then,” he said. “The connection must be inducing a current in the implant, and that’s causing interference in your optic nerve.”

Caitlin thought about this. “I don’t think it’s interference. It’s structured and—”

“But it started with the downloading,” he said.

“Yes.”

“And it’s still going on?”

“Yes. Well, it stopped when the downloading stopped, but I’m downloading the software again, so...”

His voice had a there-you-have-it tone: “It starts when you start downloading, it stops when you stop downloading: interference due to an induced current.”

“I’m not sure,” Caitlin said. “It’s so vivid.”

“What exactly are you seeing?” her mom asked.

“Like I said, lines. Overlapping lines. And, um, points or bigger points—circles, I guess.”

“Do the lines go on forever?” asked her mom.

“No, they connect to the circles.”

Her dad again: “The brain has special neurons for detecting the edges of things. If those got stimulated electrically, you might perhaps see random line segments.”

“They’re not random. If I look away then look back, the same pattern I saw before is still there.”

“Well,” said her mom, sounding pleased, “even if you’re not seeing anything real, something is stimulating your primary visual cortex, no? And that’s good news.”

“It feels like it is real,” Caitlin said.

“Let’s get Kuroda on the phone,” her dad said. “Damn, what time is it there?”

“Fourteen hours ahead,” Caitlin said. She felt her watch. “So, 11:28 Sunday morning.”

“Then he’ll likely be at home instead of work,” he said.

“Do we have his home number?” her mother said.

“It’s in his sig,” Caitlin said, opening one of his emails so her mother could read the number off the screen.

Even though her mother must have been holding the handset to her own ear, Caitlin could hear the soft bleeps as she punched in numbers, then the phone ringing followed by a woman’s voice: “Konnichi wa.”

“Hello,” her mom said. “Do you speak English?”

“Ah, yes,” said the voice, sounding not quite prepared for this pop quiz.

“It’s Barbara Decter calling from Canada. Is Masayuki-san available?”

“Ah, just a minute,” said the woman. “You wait.”

And, as Caitlin quietly counted seconds in her head, she was amused to note that at precisely the one-minute mark, Dr. Kuroda’s wheezy voice came on the line. “Hello, Barbara,” he said, shouting in the way people sometimes did when they knew they were talking long-distance. “Have we had success?”

“In a way,” her mom said. “Here’s Caitlin.”

“It’s a speakerphone,” Caitlin said, reaching over; she knew her phone well enough to hit the right button in one smooth movement. “Put down the handset.”

She heard it being returned to its cradle, then said, “Hi, Dr. Kuroda.”

“Hi, Caitlin. Has the new software made a difference?”

“Sort of. While I was transferring it to my implant, I began seeing lines and circles.”

“Wonderful!” said Kuroda. “What were they like? What colors?”

“I have no idea,” said Caitlin.

“Oh, right, right. Sorry. But—fascinating! But, um, did you say it began while you were downloading the software?”

“Uh-huh. Right after I started.”

“Well, then it can’t be the new software that did it; the implant would continue to execute a copy of the old version in its RAM until the new one was completely transferred to the flash ROM.”

“It’s obviously just noise,” her dad said, as if this were now the received wisdom. “A current induced by the download.”

“Not possible,” said Kuroda. “Not with that microprocessor.”

“Then what?” her mom asked.

“Hmm,” said Kuroda.

Caitlin could hear key clicks coming over the speakerphone, and—”Hey!”

“What?” her mother said.

“Another line just shot into my field of view!” said Caitlin

Kuroda’s voice, surprised: “You’re seeing right now?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you said you only saw when you were downloading the software package?”

“That’s right. I’m downloading it again. When it finished downloading the first time, my vision went off, so I’m downloading it a second time.”

“And you just saw a new line appear?”

“Yes.”

More key clicks. “What about now?”

“It’s gone! Hey, how’d you do that?”

Kuroda said a word in Japanese.

“What’s happening?” her mom demanded.

“And now, Miss Caitlin?” said Kuroda.

“The line’s back!”

“Incredible,” Kuroda said.

“What is it?” her mom said, sounding annoyed.

“Where were you looking when the line shot in?” Kuroda asked.

“Nowhere. I mean, I wasn’t really paying attention; I was listening to you, so my field of view had come back to, um, the neutral position, I guess—the spot it always centers on. What did you do?”

“I’m at home,” Kuroda said. “And the software package you are downloading is on my server at work, so I’d just logged on there to download a copy to here, so I could check to see if it had somehow become corrupted, and—”

Caitlin got it in a flash—literally and figuratively! “And when you linked to the same site I’m connected to—”

“The link appeared in your vision,” Kuroda said, his voice full of astonishment. “And when I aborted the download I was doing here, the link line disappeared.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” her dad said.

“I’m an empiricist at heart,” Caitlin said, happy to use a word she’d recently learned in chemistry class. “Make the link disappear again.”

“Done,” said Kuroda

“It’s gone. Now bring it back.”

The glowing line leapt into her field of view. “And there it is!”

“So—so, what are you saying?” her mom said. “That Caitlin is seeing the Web connection somehow?”

There was silence for a while then, slowly, from half a world away, Kuroda said, “It does seem that way.”

“But ... but how?” asked her mom.

“Well,” said Kuroda, “let’s think this through: when transferring the software, there has to be a constant back-and-forth between her implant and my server here in Tokyo, with the eyePod acting as the middleman. Packets of data go out from here, and acknowledgment packets are sent back by the eyePod, over and over again until the download is complete.”

“And when the download is over, it stops, right?” Caitlin said. “That’s what happened, but as soon as I started downloading the software a second time I could see again, and—oh, what did you do?”

“Nothing,” said Kuroda.

“I’m blind again!”

Caitlin felt movement near her shoulder, and—ah, her dad leaning in next to her. Mouse clicks, then his voice: “‘Download complete,’ it says. ‘Connection closed.’”

“Go back to the previous page,” Caitlin said anxiously. “Click where it says,

‘Click here to update the software in Miss Caitlin’s implant.’”

The appropriate sounds, then—yes, yes!—her vision came back on, her mind filling with a view of...

Could it be? Could it really be?

It did fit what she was seeing: a website and the connections to it. “I’m seeing again,” she announced excitedly.

“All right,” said Kuroda, “all right. When the download is done, there’s no interactivity between the implant and the Web. It’s just like when you use a Web browser: once you’ve called up a webpage from Wikipedia, or wherever, you’re not reading it through the Web; rather, a copy is made on your own computer, and you’re reading that cached copy, until you click on a link and ask for another page to be copied to your computer. There’s very little actual interaction between your computer and the Web when loading pages, but when downloading a big software package, there’s constant interaction.”