The virtuals and almost all the night crew continued on through the forest. Huynh stayed behind a few seconds, making sure that no queep or chirp was stuck in the leaves, making sure that the forklifts had enough space between the trees. And then they were all pounding along again.
"We want our floor space!"
"We want our library!"
"And most of all, we want our REAL books!"
Huynh did not expect that the spider bots would be caught by surprise. What did Sheila have up her shima-ping sleeve?
21
When Belief Circles Collide
Alfred Vaz watched the departing crazies. Beside him, Rabbit swayed in time to their battle cries. For once, the critter seemed impressed by someone other than itself. Or maybe not. "Heh," it said, giving a little carroty salute. "I can't wait to see their faces when they discover who's fighting for the other side."
Vaz looked down at the furry ears. "Turn off your public presence." The goal was to not attract attention.
"You worry too much." But the rabbit took a last chomp and tossed the carrot green aside. This one vanished before it hit the ground. "Okay, Doc. I'm for your eyes only. What next?"
Vaz grunted and started off toward the south. In fact, he was more irritated than worried by Rabbit's impudence. If things went properly tonight, the Americans would not connect the operation with Rabbit, much less with the Indo-European Alliance. If the Americans started seriously looking, they would quickly pick out Alfred's role here — whether or not he and Rabbit were actually seen together. Keiko's people had worked out an elaborate decision program — a "contingency tree" — that described just what could still be denied and what could still be achieved in the face of various glitches. Twenty years ago, Alfred would have laughed at such automated planning, but no more. His secret analyst teams had developed his own contingency tree. It grew out from Keiko's, reaching all the way to ultimate worst cases — such as the unmasking of his YGBM project.
Alfred emerged from the densest part of the eucalyptus grove. All around him, his tiny bots unobtrusively kept pace. Every one was in violation of local law, containing not a single chip in thrall to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. While Vaz continued to play Bollywood exec through the public net, these devices provided him with his own network and countermeasures. There were places in the contingency tree where they could be very useful.
Meantime, a tiny stealthed aerobot followed along above, accepting his local network's traffic and flickering it at a thousand points in the westward sky. The energy in any pulse would be undetectable except to someone very alert and very close by, but the ensemble — correlated with the right time synch — should be visible to Keiko's antenna array out over the Pacific. It was their very own military net. That was the theory. In fact, Alfred had been out of touch for nearly three minutes. He knew Alice Gong was on watch tonight, probably as an analyst. He had launched his attack on her just before he lost milnet access. Very soon her surveillance duties would bring her to a lab file containing an innocuous moire pattern — only the pattern would not be innocuous for her. Has that happened yet ? Maybe he should snoop it out via the public net.
"Come on, Doc, come ona come on." Rabbit danced a little jig. Its voice had a mocking lilt that Alfred had first heard some eighty years earlier. "Is there some kinda problem?"
"No problem," said Vaz. "Are your agents in place?"
"Never fear. All but Rivera and Gu are at the start point. I'm guiding them around the riot even as we speak. But if you want to snoop the fiber, you better hurry up."
The ground was firm and level. There was a surfaced path. Now their speed was limited by how fast his mechs could make their stealthy way.
There were crowds here, but almost everyone was walking toward the library. He caught a glimpse of Rivera and Gu. And, once, he saw two children on bicycles. Where did that fit with Hacekeans and Scoochis? He would have put the question to his analyst pool — if only he had his milnet link.
The Mysterious Stranger hustled Robert off the surface path, down past where administration bungalows used to be. Robert kept a virtual light on the rough ground. The view was up-to-the-second and clearer than a flashlight might have given him, but keeping up with the Stranger didn't leave time to ghost around the library. "Those are real lights back there," he said. "Even more than before. What — ?"
"The Hacek people got a little too enthusiastic. They've destroyed some camera infrastructure. They need real light." He was chuckling. "Don't worry. No one will be hurt, and it's a diversion that will be… useful."
The Stranger slowed. Robert looked away from the ground for a moment. Over the hill, he got a look — from a point high in the trees — at the people on the ground. In true view, they were students shouting at each other, a few involved in real scuffles. But shift a little away from strict reality, and the imagery became what one group or another wanted you to see. There were Hacek Knights and Librarians tussling with fluffy, colorful critters that might have been big-eyed mammals or — "Ah! So it's the Scooch-a-mout fans going after the Hacekeans?"
"Mostly." The Stranger seemed to be listening for something. Somebody was coming down the hill on an intercept course. A Librarian Militant. Carlos Rivera. The chubby librarian nodded at Stranger-Sharif and Robert. "What a mess."
"But a useful mess," said the Stranger.
"Yeah." Carlos dropped his costume: the Librarian's hat reverted to an everyday baseball cap worn backwards, and now his plate armor was just Bermuda shorts and the Rivera standard T-shirt. "I just hope this fighting doesn't become a tradition."
The Mysterious Stranger waved them on through the brush. "A tradition?" he said. "But that would be a plus. Like panty raids and putting automobiles on top of administration buildings. The sort of thing that made American universities great."
Rivera puffed along. "Maybe. We've had a lot more business since the library went virtual, but — "
Robert was still watching the mobs beyond the hill. "I thought the whole point of belief circles was that they can coexist in the same space."
"In principle," said Rivera. They took a big detour around a space that was dark even in the virtual. Sharif's image seemed to flicker and jerk. So few people walked through this area that the random network was sparse and your wearable had to make way too many guesses.
"But," Rivera continued, "the library is a tight fit. In principle we can morph to support the multiple beliefs, like on Pyramid Hill. In fact, our environment is often too close for conflicting haptics. So the administration tried to satisfy the Scoochis by giving them some space underground." Rivera paused, and Robert almost ran him over. "You knew that wouldn't work, didn't you?" Carlos was looking at Stranger-Sharif, or what Robert saw as Stranger-Sharif.
The Stranger turned and smiled. "I gave you the best advice I had, dear boy."
"Yeah." Rivera sounded close to surly. He looked over his shoulder at Robert. "What does he have on you, Professor?"
"I — — "
"Ah, ah, ah!" interrupted the Stranger. "I think we'd all be more comfortable without such revelations."
"Okay," said both victims.
"In any case," said the Stranger, "I'm rather proud of how I've morphed the Librareome controversy into this conflict between belief circles. This riot will distract people who would otherwise be paying attention to other things — such as what we're doing."