Robert looked at the torn paper he had brought from downstairs: shredda that had escaped its final resting place? He held up the forlorn slip of paper. "Honestly, I don't know what's going on. What was this? What madness explains destroying the book this was part of?"
Winnie didn't answer immediately; he waved at Rivera to pass him the fragment. He set it on the table and stared for a second. His bitter smile grew a little wider. "What pleasant irony. They're starting in the PZ's, aren't they, Carlos?"
"Duì ," the young man replied, hesitantly.
"This," Winnie waved the paper in the air, "is from a science-fiction book!" A grim chuckle. "Those sci-fi bastards are just getting what they deserve. For thirty years they had literature education hijacked — and this is what all their reductionism has gotten them. Good riddance." He crumpled the paper and tossed it back at Robert.
Tommie grabbed the little ball of paper and tried to resuscitate it. "It's just an accident that science fiction came first, Dean."
"Actually," said Rivera, "there are rumors the shredders started with science fiction because there would be fewer complainers among the geeks."
"It doesn't matter," said Tommie. "They were scheduled to be well into other stuff by the end of today."
Winnie leaned forward. "What do you mean 'were scheduled'?"
"You didn't know?" Parker patted his laptop again; was he in love with the ancient device or what? "The shredding ran into a minor technical problem. They've shut down for the day." He grinned. "The popular press says the 'minor technical problem' is the sudden appearance of Robert in the middle of their operation."
Rivera hesitated, and light glinted in the depths of his thick eyeglasses. "Yes," he said. So the crowd outside had something to celebrate after all. Winnie got up, looked out the window again, and sat down. "Very good, we've earned our first victory! Relay our congratulations to the troops, Tommie."
Robert raised his hands, "Will somebody please explain this madness to me? There may be nothing burning, but this does seem like Fahrenheit 451 . That's another science-fiction story, Winston."
Rivera waved vaguely. "Search on keyword Librareome, Professor Gu."
Robert gestured and tapped. How does Juan manage to do this without looking like an idiot ?
"Here, use my laptop. You'll never figure out how to drag news out of Epiphany."
Winston Blount slapped the table. "He can do that on his own time, Tommie. We have serious work to do."
"Okay, Dean. But Robert has changed things. We can use his reputation."
Rivera nodded. "Yes. He's won practically every literary prize there is."
"Stuff it," said Blount. "We already have five Nobelists on board. Compared to them, Gu is nothing special." Blount's glance flickered across Robert's face. The putdown he directed at Robert was accompanied by a minute hesitation, probably too short for the others to notice.
The most important things about Winston Blount were not in his Google bio. Once upon a time, Winnie had thought himself a poet. But he wasn't; he was merely articulate and the owner of a large ego. By the time they both arrived as junior faculty at Stanford, Robert had lost patience with the poseur. Besides, committee meetings would have been deadly dull if not for his hobby of needling Winnie Blount. The guy had been an unending source of amusement because he seemed to think he could outwit Robert. Semester after semester, their verbal duels became more pointed, Winnie's failure more obvious. It hadn't helped the other's cause that Blount had no talent for what he wanted most, to create significant literature. Robert's lighthearted campaign had been devastating. By the late 1970s, Poor Winnie was the laughingstock — quietly the laughingstock — of the department. All that was left of his claims to significance was his pomposity. He had departed Stanford, and Robert remembered feeling the satisfaction of having done the world a good deed when Blount found his proper place in the scheme of things, becoming an administrator…
But he was probably just as good a poet as the new Robert Gu. I wonder if Winnie really knows that ?
Of course, Tommie Parker was oblivious of such undercurrents. He responded to Blount's comment as though it were a neutral statement of fact. "Someone thinks he's important, Dean. Someone who had the power to slip him past some fairly good commercial security." He turned to Gu. "Think back, Robert. I know you're new to the information scene — and Epiphany obscures an awful lot — but did you notice anything strange today? I mean, before you got to the library?"
"Well — " He looked into the air above them. His web search was just beginning to show results, text and pics about the "Librareome Project: rescuing prehistory for the students of today." That was certainly strange stuff. Otherwise… there were the floating lights that meant various things. He tried to remember Juan's explanations. Ah . Sharif was back, a ruby icon that hovered just around the corner of the stacks. "I've had some help, a grad student named Zulfikar Sharif."
"Were you in contact with him as you came down toward the library?"
"Yes. Sharif thought I could get in easier if I didn't try to walk through the crowd at the main entrance."
Rivera and Parker exchanged glances. "You didn't see the security ribbons? They should have guided you to the south side of building."
"Professor, I think you were hijacked."
Parker nodded. "Don't feel bad about it, Robert. That sort of thing happens a lot with wearables. We should track down this 'Zulfikar Sharif character."
Robert pointed to the ruby light. "I think he's still here."
The gesture must have been taken as a cue by his Epiphany — somehow making the light a public thing: Rivera looked in the direction he was pointing. "Yes! See that, Professor Parker?"
Tommie looked down at his laptop and massaged the touchpad. "Of course I see him. I'll bet he's been listening via Robert. What say we invite him out for a chat?"
Blount was squinting around, hopelessly. Evidently, he couldn't see the ruby glow. Nevertheless he took the question as directed at him. "Yes. Do it."
Robert tapped a release. A second passed. The ruby tinkerbell floated down to the edge of the table — and abruptly became a full-sized human being, dark-skinned, with earnest eyes. Sharif smiled apologetically, and shuffled through the edge of the table to "sit" on a chair on the other side. "Thank you so much for invoking me, Professor Gu. And yes," nodding to the others, "I have been listening. Apologies for my various communication problems."
"I call that taking advantage of a beginner's ignorance," said Parker.
Blount nodded emphatically. "I would say so! I — " He hesitated, seemed to think it over. "Ah, hell. What does it matter, Tommie? Everything we're doing today is perfectly open."
Tommie grinned. "True! But one thing I've learned is you always look a gift horse in the mouth. Sometimes they turn out to be the Trojan variety." He looked at the image in his laptop. "So, Mr. Sharif, I don't care if you've been eavesdropping or not. Just tell us what you've been doing with Robert Gu. Someone led him down to the service entrance and through all sorts of security."
Sharif smiled hesitantly. "In all honesty, I was as surprised as you about that. Professor Gu and I were talking freely when he arrived on campus. He got rather quiet as we came down the slope from your Warschawski Hall. And then for no apparent reason, he turned left and we went around the north side of the library. The next thing I knew he was walking into the freight entrance — and I lost contact. I don't know what more I can say. My own wearable security is of the highest order, of course. um." He hestitated a moment and then changed topic. "Aren't you taking this whole thing in the wrong way? I mean, the Librareome Project will open up all past literature to everyone — and faster than any other project could do it. What is wrong with that?"