"Oh?" Winnie rocked back, then really seemed to notice Juan. He reached over to shake the boy's hand. "It was beautiful, son." And a sideways, still incredulous, glance at Robert. "Do you know, Robert, in its way, that was as good as what you did in the old days?"
Robert thought a second, listening to Juan's lyrics with his imagination the way he used to listen to his own poetry. No, I was better than that . Much better. But not better like being in a different world. If the old Robert could have seen these lyrics… well, the old Robert couldn't abide second-raters. Given half an excuse, he would have made sure that Juan's art died aborning. "You're right. Juan made a beautiful thing." He hesitated. "I don't know what… the years have done, Winston."
Juan looked back and forth between them. There was the beginning of shining pride on his face, though he seemed to guess that there were words unspoken going between Winnie and Robert.
Winnie nodded. "Yes. Lots of things have changed." The crowd was diminishing, but that just meant that some of the kids thought they could run around even faster. They were getting jostled by the flow of bodies and the ever louder shouting and laughter. "So if you didn't do the lyrics, what was your contribution, Robert?"
"Aha! I did the time-lag synchronization." As much as it could be done .
"Really?" Winnie was trying to be polite, but even after his own choir experience, he didn't seem especially impressed. Well, it had been a bit ragged.
Xiu — > Lena: <sm>For God's sake, say something to him, Lena!</sm>
Lena — > Xiu: <sm>Buzz off, you!</sm>
Xiu — > Lena: <sm>Then I will speak for you.</sm>
After a few more pleasantries, Winnie took off in the direction of the Schley family, Tommie and Xiu Xiang in tow. But Robert noticed a line of golden text drifting out behind Xiang.
Xiu — > Robert: <sm>That was great, Robert. </sm> Juan was oblivious of Xiang's silent message. "Dean Blount didn't understand your part in our project, did he?"
"No. But he liked what he did understand. It doesn't matter. You and I both did better than we thought we could."
"Yes, we really did."
Juan led him back along the bleachers. Even if Bob and Miri weren't here, Juan's own parents were. Greetings and congratulations all around, though the Orozcos still didn't know what to make of Robert Gu.
A clot OF family and friends remained on the soccer field for some time. More than anything else, the parents seemed faintly surprised by their children. They loved the little klutzes, but they thought they knew their limits. Somehow Chumlig had transformed them — not into supermen, but into clever creatures who could do things the parents themselves had never mastered. It was a time for pride and a little uneasiness.
Miri was still out of sight. Poor Juan. And I hope Alice got home okay . One-armed, he wasn't quite good enough to check that in mid-flight.
Robert pressed into the densest part of the crowd, the folks swirling close around Louise Chumlig. She looked happy and tired, and mostly she denied responsibility. "I just showed my students how to use what they have and what the world has."
He reached across, managed to catch her hand. "Thanks."
Chumlig looked up at him, a crooked smile on her face. She held on to his hand for a moment. "You! My very strangest child. You were almost the reverse of the problem I had with the others."
"How's that?"
"For everyone else, I had to make them reach out to learn what they were. But you… first you had give up what you had been." Her smile was fleetingly sad. "Be sorry for what you lost, Robert, but be happy with what you are."
All along, she knew ! But someone else had her attention, and she was gaily assuring them all that the rest of the school year would be even more exciting than what had gone before.
Robert left Juan and the others when speculation turned to what the regular demos would be like. The kids didn't want to believe that they could be outdone, not after tonight.
Robert spotted two familiar figures on his walk back to the traffic circle. "I thought you were with Winston," he said.
"We were," said Tommie, "but we came back. Wanted to congratulate you on your music-synch gimmick."
Xiu Xiang nodded agreement. Of the two, only she was wearing. A Congrats logo floated out from her. Poor Tommie was still lugging around his laptop, though whatever remained inside surely belonged to the secret police.
"Thanks. I'm proud of it, but emphasize the word 'gimmick.' No one really needs to synch manual music across thousands of miles of cheapnet. And basically, I just took advantage of routing predictabilities plus knowledge of the music being played."
"Plus some timing analysis of the individual performers. Right, right?" said Tommie.
"Yes."
"Plus some counter-jitter you inserted," said Xiu.
Robert hesitated. "You know, it was fun ."
Tommie laughed. "You should do some ego surfing. Your hack was noticed. Back when I was young, you could have got a patent off it. Nowadays — "
Xiu patted Tommie's shoulder. "Nowadays, it should be worth a decent grade in a high-school class. You and I — we have things to learn, Thomas."
Tommie made a grumbling noise. "She means I should be learning to wear." He glanced at the young-looking woman. "I never dreamed that X. Xiang would end up saving my life. But of course she did it by getting us all arrested!"
Lena — > Xiu: <sm>Parker is afraid to try new things, even when he brags about the future. </sm>
They walked in silence for a few steps. There were more golden words from Xiang; she was getting better and better at silent messaging.
Xiu — > Robert: <sm><sigh/>Tommie is old, and all the medicine hasn't helped him that much. He's afraid to try new things."</sm>
Robert stifled a startled glance at the woman. Since when had the geek become a parlor shrink?… But she could be right about Tommie.
Tommie was surely oblivious of all the sming, but a familiar crafty grin was spreading across his face.
"What?" Robert finally said.
"Just thinking. Our UCSD op was the biggest and most dangerous I've ever been part of. We got used, yeah. But you know, it was like of lot of these modern whatsits — these affiliances. We contributed, and in one way, we got what we were aiming for."
Robert thought of the Stranger's promises. "How is that?"
"We nailed the Huertas Librareome Project."
"But the library books are all consumed."
Tommie shrugged. "I kind of like the Library Militant vision. The point is, we terminally embarrassed Huertas."
"That's a triumph?"
They were walking along the traffic circle now, followed by a hopeful automobile.
"Yup. You can't stop progress, but we stopped Huertas long enough for other events to come to our rescue." He glanced at Robert. "You haven't heard? You wear all that fancy equipment and you can't keep up with news."
Tommie didn't wait for a reply: "Y'see, Huertas was in such an awful rush for a reason. It turns out, the Chinese were chewing up the British Museum and Library faster than we ever guessed. And the Chinese have years of experience in semi-nondestructive digitization. They're positively gentle compared to Huertas's shredder operation. They made the San Diego effort look foolish, and they even got haptic data off non-book exhibits. There's clear sky between them and everyone else, including the Google archives. Anyway, we stalled Huertas by a few days, long enough that he can't claim any sort of priority. And it was long enough so that the Chinese were able to frost the cake."