Eve > Bob: <sm>No details, please.</sm>
Bob continued with barely a hesitation, "She's still stuck."
"Bob I never meant her any harm. I was just so desperate. But maybe, maybe I set her up." He looked into Bob's eyes and then away.
"We know, Dad. It came out in your debrief. And yes, you did set her up." DHS had investigated the Gu home and personal logs as much as they had anything at UCSD; they even had pictures of the bot Dad had used in the front bathroom. But we still don't know exactly what it did . India and Japan and Europe blamed Rabbit, and Rabbit had been reduced to rumors and unreadable chunks of stale cache.
Eve > Bob: <sm>Heh. We'll figure it out. A network attack on a bio-prepped victim that's a technology that's way too interesting to ignore. </sm>
Dad's head was bowed. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
Bob stood up abruptly. It was something of an achievement that his voice came out calm and steady. "You'll be out of here later today. Meantime, get something to wear and catch up with the outside world. For a while, you'll still live with us in Fallbrook. We want you to take up right where you left off. I'll tell Miri about Alice "
"Bob, it won't work. Miri could never forgive "
"That's probably true. But she's going to get the abbreviated version. After all, your part in the attack on Alice is circumstantial. And it's hidden behind security that even Miri Gu is unlikely to penetrate. I strongly suggest that you don't spell things out for her."
And so Lieutenant Colonel Robert Gu, Jr., had performed the duty that he'd been assigned here. And now he could get out. He walked across the room, reached for the door. Something made him turn and look back.
Robert Gu, Sr., was watching with anguish in his eyes. It was a look Bob had seen before, on other faces. There had been times over the years, when youngsters in his command had fucked totally up. Young people get desperate. Young people do terrible, foolish, selfish things sometimes with terrible consequences.
But this is my old man ! There was no desperation, no inexperience that could excuse him.
And yet Bob had watched the CDC team's video as they followed Sharif's direction down into the labs. He had seen his father and daughter lying on the floor, just beyond the UP/Ex crater. He had seen the way Robert's arm was extended, how it dammed the curdling stone just inches from Miri's face. And so, despite the old man's monstrous fuckup, there was still something left to say:
"Thanks for saving her, Dad."
"Take up just where you left off," Bob had said. At Fairmont High, that was almost feasible. Juan and Robert had already taken their written final exams, then been out of action through Christmas and New Year's. Now they were back, and just in time for what most students considered the scariest part of the semester: the Parents' Night demonstration of their team projects. Problems of life and death and horrid guilt devolved to worrying about making a fool of oneself in front of some children and their parents.
Amazingly, Juan Orozco was still talking to him. Juan didn't know quite what had happened at UCSD. His memories had been gutted even more systematically than Miri's. Now he was piecing things together from the news, trying his best to separate the truth from Friends of Privacy lies.
"I don't remember anything after Miri and I got to campus. And the police are still holding what I wore. I can't even see the last few minutes of my diary!" The kid waved his arms with the same desperation Robert had seen in him the first day they met.
Robert patted his shoulder. "They still have Miri's log, too."
"I know ! I asked her." Tears welled up in the boy's eyes. "She doesn't remember either. We were getting to be friends, Robert. We wouldn't have gone after you together if she couldn't trust me." Sure.
"Well, now she treats me like when we first met pushing me away. She thinks I must have chickened out and that's why she had to find you by herself. And maybe I was chicken. I don't remember !"
Lena > Juan, Xiu: <sm>Give her time, Juan. Miri's distracted by what's happened, especially to her mother. I think she blames herself for that, and maybe all of us. I know you wouldn't chicken out.</sm>
Lena > Xiu: <sm>But why he's asking the SOB for comfort is beyond me.</sm>
Juan looked away from Robert for a moment, gradually seemed to get himself back together.
Robert gave the boy an awkward pat on the back. Comforting others was definitely not part of his former resume. "She'll come around, Juan. She didn't call you a coward when we were underground. She was very worried about you. Just give her some time." He cast around for some distraction. "Meantime, do you want to waste all the work we put in this semester? What about the kids in Boston and down South? We have to catch up on our demo preparation."
Lena > Xiu: <sm>Can you believe this jerk? All he wants is to trick some more help out of the boy.</sm>
Robert's attempt at humor was feeble, but Juan looked up at Robert and gave a creditable smile. "Yes. Gotta keep track of the important things!"
Bob and Miri didn't come to Fairmont High for the vocational-track demos. At least they weren't physically visible and Robert could tell that Juan Orozco was searching hard.
"Miri's at Crick's Clinic tonight, Juan. Her mother should be coming home from the hospital." Bob had seemed just as happy that Robert had another commitment this evening.
The boy brightened. "But maybe she'll peek in here, right?"
In fact this was rather a big deal for Fairmont, but not for good reasons. The popular press had built an enormous pile of speculation around the events at UCSD, and Friends of Privacy lies surrounded and embedded those speculations in conspiracies unending. The rumors contaminated everything and everyone associated with that night. Robert had dredged the public record first to try to discover what had happened to him that night under UCSD, and then to see what people thought had happened. Robert and the cabal showed up in most of the theories, often as the picaresque heroes Bob had mentioned. But there were other theories. Robert had never heard of Timothy Huynh, but there were journalists who claimed that Huynh and Robert had engineered everything that happened in the riot and the underground!
Robert had become very good at blocking paparazzi mail, but the notoriety was blowing over; his ratings were declining with a half-life of about five days. Nevertheless, he spent a lot of time at Fairmont High, where the school rules banned the most intrusive visibles.
Tonight, at the demos, that ban was in force. The bleachers were jammed with ticketed visitors families of students and their guests, including virtual presences. Most of these people had no interest in Robert Gu. But if you looked at the network stats, a lot of people were invisibly watching.
The vocational program was not the gem of Fairmont High. Most of these kids could not master the latest, cutting-edge applications (and most of the retread students were even less competent). On the other hand, Chumlig had asserted in an unguarded moment that parents preferred the vocational demos, mainly because they made more sense to them than what other children were doing.
The teams were duos and trios, but they were allowed to use solutions dredged from all over the world. Demo night didn't begin until after sunset, so meshing overlays with reality would be relatively easy. Chumlig wouldn't have given the regular students such a crutch. Those demos lasted two days and would not begin until a week after the vocational-track students had done their best. That was a kindly interval, a week for the vocational students to bask in their achievements.