WWW: Wake (25 page)

Eventually, everyone did dissipate, except for Bashira and Mr. Struys.

“Bashira, I’ve got to give my grade twelves a test next period. Can you—will you—take Caitlin downstairs, please? And I’ve got to notify the office...”

“Of course,” Bashira said.

Caitlin started maneuvering across the room—and almost fell over, distracted and confused by the sights she was seeing.

“Can I help?” Mr. Struys asked.

“Here, let me,” said Bashira.

“No, I’m okay,” Caitlin replied, and she took another couple of wobbly steps.

“Maybe if you closed your eyes,” Mr. Struys suggested.

But she didn’t want to ever close them again. “No, no, I’m fine,” she said, taking another step, her heart pounding so hard she thought it was going to burst through her chest. “I am”—she thought it, but it was too silly to say out loud: I am made out of awesome!

* * * *

The old view—the reflection of myself—had been amazing enough. But this! This was beyond description. Suddenly, I could—

It was incredible. I had perceived before, but...

But now...

Now I...

Now I could see!

A ... brightness, an intensity: light!

A variable quality modifying the light: color!

Connections between points: lines!

Areas defined: shapes!

I could see!

I struggled to comprehend it all. It was vague and blurred, and involved a limited perspective, a directionality, a specific point of view. I was looking here, and—

No, no, it was more than that: I wasn’t merely looking here, I was looking at something in particular. What it was I had no idea, but it was in the center of my vision, and was the ... focus of my attention.

Concepts were piling up with confusing rapidity, almost more than I could absorb. And the image kept changing: first it was of this, then it was of that, then of something else, then—

It was ... strange. I felt a compulsion to think about whatever was in the center of the visual field, but I had no volition over what was there. I wanted to be able to control what I was thinking about, but no matter how much I willed the perspective to change, it didn’t—or, if it did, it changed in a way that had nothing to do with what I intended.

After a time I perceived that the changes in view weren’t random. It was almost as if...

The thought was slippery, like so many others, and I struggled to complete it.

It was almost as if another entity was controlling the vision. But...

But it could not be the other, for it was now reintegrated with me.

Struggling, thinking...

Yes, yes, there had been hints of a third entity. Something had cleaved me in two. Later, something had broken the intermittent connection between the two parts of me. And later still something had thrust us back together.

And the datastream from that special point made clear that something—some thing—had been looking at me. But now...

Now it wasn’t looking at me. Rather, it was looking at...

My mind was more nimble than before, but this was without parallel. And yet there had been hints of it, too, for those flashes that had been perceived earlier had corresponded to nothing in reality...

In this reality.

In my reality.

Incredible: a third entity—or, actually, a second one, now that I was whole. A second entity that could look here, at me, and also could look ... there, at a different realm, at another reality.

But ... but this second entity hadn’t made direct contact with me, not the way the other part of myself had when it had been separate. I heard no voice from this new entity, and it hadn’t sought me out...

Or had it? How else to better catch my attention, among all the millions of points I had looked at, than by reflecting myself back at me? And the bright flashes! A ... beacon, perhaps? And now—this! A look into its realm, glimpses of its reality!

I studied the images I was being shown. After a time, I perceived there were two types of changes that occurred in them. In the first type, the entire image changed instantly. In the second, only parts of the image changed as—

The notion exploded into my awareness, expanding my perception; I could feel my conception of existence shifting. It was exhilarating.

When the whole image changed, I gleaned that it was a change in perspective. But when part of the image changed—when either an object gradually drifted away from the center, or when all the objects except the one in the center changed, that meant—

That meant that things were moving: things in this other realm could change position relative to one another. Astonishing!

Where that realm was I had no idea. Except through contact with that special point I had no access to it. But it did exist, of that I felt sure—a reality beyond this one.

And this other entity was now inviting me to look upon it.

* * * *

Bashira walked Caitlin to their school’s entryway. “Thanks,” Caitlin said, peering with her newfound sight at her friend, whose features were partially concealed by what she suddenly realized was her headscarf.

“This is so awesome!” Bashira said. “I can’t imagine what—”

She was interrupted by the class bell. “You should go, babe,” Caitlin said.

“But I—”

“You’re presenting in English, remember? You’ve got to tell them all about wheat.”

“Mr. Struys said I—”

“I’ll be fine, Bashira. Honest.”

Bashira’s face did something, then she gave Caitlin a big hug and hurried off.

Caitlin stepped outside and found herself shielding her eyes from—God, it was the sun! She’d known that it was bright, but she’d had no conception—none!—of what that meant. A few minutes later she heard footsteps on concrete. She recognized her mom even before she said a word, based on the distinctive cadence of her footfalls.

She’d wanted it to be the first thing she ever saw. It hadn’t worked out that way, but it was, at least so far, the most beautiful: her mother’s face, heart-shaped—just like her own. The details were still indistinct, but to see her at all was—well, Mr. Struys’s word for it did seem apt just then: a miracle. “Hi, Mom!”

Her mother swept Caitlin into her arms. “You recognize me?” she asked excitedly.

“Of course,” Caitlin said, laughing and squeezing her tightly. “I mean, we’ve known each other for almost sixteen years.”

After a moment, Caitlin felt her mother’s grip loosening, and her hands transferred to Caitlin’s shoulders. The face, the heart-shaped face, loomed close and—

—and her mother let out a sob. “Oh, my God,” she said. “You’re looking into my eyes! You’ve never met my gaze before.”

Caitlin grinned. “You’re blurry, and the sun is so bright, but, yes, I can see you.” Each time she said it, her voice cracked a bit; she was sure it would continue to do so for weeks to come. “I can see! I don’t know why or how, but I can see!”

“Did you put your eyePod in duplex mode?” her mom asked.

“Um, yes. I’m sorry. I know I should have been paying attention in class, but...”

“No, no, it’s fine. But Dr. Kuroda had a software patch all set to download to your eyePod the next time you switched over; that must be what’s done it.”

“Oooh!” said Caitlin. “An eye patch! But—sorry!—I should have told you to bring him with you.”

“He’s off to Toronto for the day—gone to see Mamma Mia! Apparently ABBA is really big in Japan.” A pause. “God, my baby can see!”

Caitlin felt her eyes misting over again—and saw that that made her vision even more blurry!

“Let’s go,” her mother said excitedly. “There’s a whole world for you to see!”

Caitlin was overwhelmed by all the unfamiliar things she was seeing—strange shapes, splotches of color, flashes of light—and so she took her mother’s hand as they walked to the car. Were the lines she could barely discern painted on the parking lot? She had heard of such things. Or were they edges, maybe of those concrete bumpers at the ends of parking spaces? Or cracks in the pavement? Or dropped drinking straws?

She looked around the lot. “Cars, right?”

Her mother sounded delighted. “Yes, indeed.”

“But they’re all the same!”

“What do you mean?”

“There are just three or four colors. White, and ... is that black, that dark one? And—and that one.” She pointed—the gesture came naturally, and she could vaguely see her finger as she aligned it with the object she was referring to.

“Red,” said her mother.

“Red!” Caitlin grinned. By some lucky fluke she’d gotten that color right when she’d arbitrarily assigned names to what she’d seen in webspace. “And—and that one there, that sort-of white.”

“Silver,” her mom said. Caitlin could see her swiveling her head. “Yeah, these days, most people get cars in those colors.”

“I thought you could get any color you wanted,” Caitlin said.

“Well, you can. So long as it’s black or white or silver or red.”

“When I get a car,” Caitlin said, “I’m going to get a color nobody else has.”

And then she stopped walking for a second, stunned by what she’d just said. When I get a car! Yes, yes, if her vision continued to improve, if this blurriness went away, she could have a car, she could drive—she could do anything!

“Here’s ours,” her mom said.

“Silver, right?”

“Hi-yo,” said her mom.

Caitlin got in, amazed by all the interior details she’d simply been unaware of before. Her mom started the car, and CBC Radio One came on, as it always did. “...casting doubt now on the story of a natural carbon dioxide explosion in China’s Shanxi province, saying that an explosion of the magnitude suggested should have registered on seismographs elsewhere in Asia and possibly even in North America...”

She saw her mother do something with her hand, and the speakers went silent.

“Say,” Mom said, “have you seen yourself yet?”

Her heart started pounding again. She’d been so excited seeing other things, she hadn’t even thought about that. “No, not really—just my hands.”

“Well, you should.” Her mom reached an arm over and flipped something down in front of her.

“What’s that?” asked Caitlin.

“A shade to keep the sun out of your eyes. You’ll need it now. And here on the back”—her hand did something else—”there’s a mirror.”

Caitlin felt her jaw drop. Her face was the same shape as her mother’s! She could tell that without touching it—tell it at a glance! “Wow!”

“That’s you. You’re beautiful.”

All she could see was a fuzzy, heart-shaped mass and her hair—her wonderful brown hair. But it was her, and, at least for that moment, she agreed with her mother: she was beautiful.

The car backed out of the parking space, and they started the wondrous, colorful, complex journey home.

Other things were visible ... off to the sides, in my peripheral vision, but although I was aware of them, they weren’t important. And beyond them, beyond those things on the edge, was—

Fascinating! Surely something was there, but whatever it might be was ... was out of my field of view!

All right, then; all right. My attention was being ... directed, and—

It was an enormous amount to absorb, to comprehend. Hitherto, my universe had contained only points and lines connecting them, but the realm I was seeing now consisted of complex objects: things with edges; things that moved. I had no idea what these things were, but I watched them, fascinated, and tried to comprehend.

This realm, this strange, hidden realm, was wondrous, and I could not get enough of it.

* * * *

On the way home, Caitlin’s mom gave a running commentary of all the incredible sights: “That’s a pine tree off to the left. But see those trees there? Their leaves are changing color, now that it’s autumn.” “See that mailbox on the corner? They’re blue back in the States, but they’re red here.” “Now that guy really needs to mow his lawn!” “See that? A woman pushing a baby in a stroller.” “Okay, there’s a traffic light—see, it’s red now, so I have to stop.”

While they were stopped, some faint, tiny smudges in the sky caught Caitlin’s eye—an expression she finally understood! “What’s that?”

“Geese,” her mom said. “Flying south for the winter.”

Caitlin was amazed. If they’d been honking, she’d have known they were there even when she was blind, but they were absolutely silent, moving in a ... a...

She balled her fist in frustration. The shape they made, the formation they were flying in: she knew she should be able to name it, but...

“Okay,” said her mom, “and green means go!”

Caitlin had gotten used to the clearly defined points and sharp lines she’d seen in webspace, but the real world was soft, diffuse. She figured maybe that the eyePod, after it processed the garbled output from her retina, was sending back only a low-resolution data-stream to her implant; she’d have to ask Dr. Kuroda if he could increase the bandwidth.

Still, even blurred, she was amazed to see her house from the outside. She’d had a doll house as a little girl, and had assumed that all houses had the sort of simple symmetry that her toy one had had, but this house was a complex shape, with a variety of angles and elevations, and it was made out of brown brick—she’d thought all bricks were red.

When they went inside, Schrodinger came down the stairs to greet them. Caitlin was stunned: she knew every inch of that cat’s fur, but had never even imagined that it was three different colors! She scooped him up and he looked into her face. His eyes were amazing.

“I guess we should call Dad,” Caitlin said.

“I already did—as soon as you called. But I couldn’t get through to him. And, anyway, Masayuki borrowed his car. I took your father to the Institute this morning; I should go pick him up.”

Caitlin did want to see her father, but the ride here had been overwhelming and almost incomprehensible, and the sun had been so bright! She wanted to look at things she’d touched before so she could get her bearings, and she didn’t want to be left alone. “No, let’s wait,” she said. She looked around the living room while stroking Schrodinger. “That window’s not too bright...”

Her mother’s tone was gentle. “That’s a painting, dear.”