Lena — > Juan, Miri, Xiu: <sm>The monster's eyes are glazing over. I think you've distracted him, Juan.</sm>
Xiu said, "Okay, let's start with the easiest, Juan."
"That would be moving attention from face front." The boy talked them through some simple exercises. Robert had no idea how this looked to Xiu Xiang. After all, she was already remote. For himself, looking directly backwards was easy, especially if he took the view off his own shirt. But Juan didn't want him to use mirror orientation; he said that would just be confusing once he moved on to other angles.
Without the defaults, things got very tedious. "I'll spend my whole life just tapping in commands, Juan."
"Maybe if we use the eye menus," Xiang said. Robert gave her an irritated look. "I am, I am!"
Lena — > Xiu: <sm>Never criticize him. He'll get back at you when it hurts the most.</sm>
Xiang's gaze dropped from his. He looked at Juan. "I never see you tapping your fingers."
"I'm a kid; I grew up with ensemble coding. Hey, even my mom mostly uses phantom typing."
"Well, Xiu and I are retreads, Juan. We have learning plasticity and all that. Teach us the command gestures or eyeblinks or whatever."
"Okay! But this is not like the standard gestures you've already learned. For the good stuff, everything is custom between you and your wearable. The skin sensors pick muscle twinges that other people can't even see. You teach your Epiphany and it teaches you."
Robert had read about this. It turned out to be just as weird as it sounded, a cross between learning to juggle and teaching some dumb animal to help you juggle! He and Xiu Xiang had about twenty minutes to make fools of themselves before the soccer teams came out to play. But that was long enough that now Robert could look all around himself with just a subtle shrug.
Juan was smiling. "You guys are really good, for — "
" — for oldfolks?" said Xiu.
Juan's smile broadened. "Yeah." He looked at Robert. "If you can do this maybe I can learn to put words together… Look, I gotta go help my ma. She's running a tour this afternoon. See you all tomorrow, okay?"
"Okay," said Xiang. "I should leave too. How is that most gracefully accomplished?"
"Ha! Most graceful takes practice — but I want it to look cool to anyone watching." He pointed at the teams rowdying about on the soccer field. "For them, I mean. So how about if I iconify-and-guide you, Dr. Xiang?"
"Very good."
Xiang's image collapsed into a ruby point of light.
The boy stood and grinned at Robert. "I think I have the geometry good enough that no one has to cooperate on the receiving side." His image climbed down the bleachers. His shadow matching was much better than Sharif normally managed. Xiang's icon tagged along right above his shoulder. He reached the grass and walked away along the edge of the bleachers, his figure shortening in perspective.
And then abruptly, golden letters hung across Robert's vision.
Xiang — > Gu: <sm>See you tomorrow!</sm>
Huh. So that's what silent messaging looked like. Robert watched the two till they were out of sight.
Lena — > Miri, Xiu: <sm>Wow! I can't tell Juan's image from the real people. That boy is clever.</sm>
Miri — > Lena, Xiu: <sm>He did okay.</sm>
Robert had no more classes. He could go home now, too. There were plenty of rides available; the cars flocked to the traffic circle when the children were going home. But just now, Robert wasn't keen on getting back to Fallbrook. He saw that Miri would be arriving home in a few minutes. Bob was on watch duty tonight — whatever that meant. Any run-in with Miri would bring Alice Gu into action. Robert was amazed that he'd ever thought his daughter-in-law was smooth and diplomatic. In a subtle way, she was scary. Or maybe it was simply that Robert realized that if Alice ever became determined, he would be exiled to "Rainbows End." (He'd never been able to decide if that spelling was the work of an everyday illiterate or someone who really understood the place.)
Okay, so hang around school and watch. There were dynamics here that were unchanged since his childhood, perhaps unchanged since the beginning of human history. He would rebuild his sense of superiority. He climbed to the south corner of the bleachers, far above the kids forming up soccer teams, and even clear of the secretive children who sat at the other end making barely veiled jokes about everyone else.
Miri — > Lena, Xiu: <sm>He should be going home now.</sm>
Lena — > Miri, Xiu: <sm>Not my monster. See the far look in his eyes? He's thinking about everything that's happened, figuring out just how to cause Xiu grief. </sm>
Xiu — > Lena, Miri: <sm>He has seemed pretty normal since he went crazy in shop class. </sm>
Xiu — > Lena, Miri: <sm>No, Lena, please use silent messaging. I know I just sat down by you at the kitchen table. But I want to get some practice. </sm>
Lena — > Miri: <sm>Sigh. Xiu's a dear, but she can be so obsessive. </sm>
Xiu — > Lena: <sm>Yoo-hoo, Lena! What are you typing to Miri? </sm>
The sun was lowering behind him, and the shadow of the bleachers extended partway onto the field. He had a naked-eye view of most of the campus. In fact, the buildings looked like junk, the sort of thing you used to buy mail-order if you needed some extra storage in your backyard. But it wasn't all new junk. The school's main auditorium was wood, rebuilt here and there with plastic. According to the labels he called up on overlay, it had originally been a pavilion for showing horses!
Xiu — > Lena, Miri: <sm>I think he's just training his Epiphany.</sm>
Focus on the soccer field. That looked like something from Bobby's school years — if you didn't mind the fact that there were no line marks or goals. Robert brought up the sports view, and now he could see the usual field layout. The soccer kids moved out onto the field. They wore crash equipment, real helmets, quite unlike what he remembered. The kids' high-pitched voices wafted direct to him without any magic of modern electronics. They circled around midfield, seemed to be listening to someone.
With a whoop, the teams rushed toward each other, chasing — what?
An unseen ball? Robert searched frantically through his options, saw a flickering parade of possible overlays. Aha ! Now the teams had spectacular uniforms, and there were umpires. In the bleachers, there was a scattering of adults — teachers? parents? — what you'd expect for a contest that was more a class event than varsity sport.
Xiu — > Lena, Miri: <sm>What is that game?</sm>
Miri — > Lena, Xiu: <sm>Egan soccer.</sm>
Xiu — > Lena, Miri: <sm>He's just watching the game, Lena.</sm>
Lena — > Miri, Xiu: <sm>Maybe.</sm>
Xiu — > Lena, Miri: <sm>I think Juan is right about him, Lena. Let me talk to him. You'd still be covered.</sm>
Xiu — > Lena: <sm>Don't be that way.</sm>
Robert still couldn't see the soccer ball. Instead, the field was now covered by a golden fog. In places it came almost to the players' waists. Tiny numbers floated within the mist, changing with the thickness and brightness of the glow. When the players of opposing teams rushed into close contact, the glow flared brightly, and the children would angle around each other as if trying to line up a kick. And then the light would erupt like an arc of wildfire across the field.