“Meaning all those courses we got C’s in, right?” That was a voice from the peanut gallery, probably someone who was physically truant.
Chumlig sighed. “Yes. Don’t let those skills die. Use them. Improve on them. You can do it with a special form of pre-analysis that I call ‘study.’ ”
One of the students held up a hand. She was that old.
“Yes, Dr. Xu?”
“I know you’re correct. But-” The woman glanced around the room. She looked about Chumlig’s age, not nearly as old as Ralston Blount. But there was kind of a frightened look in her eyes. “But some people are just better at this sort of thing than others. I’m not as sharp as I once was. Or maybe others are just sharper… What happens if we try our hardest, and it just isn’t good enough?”
Chumlig hesitated. “That’s a problem that affects everyone, Dr. Xu. Providence gives each of us our hand to play. In your case, you’ve got a new deal and a new start on life.” Her look took in the rest of the class. “Some of you think your hand in life is all deuces and treys.” There were some really dedicated kids in the front rows. They were wearing, but they had no clothes sense and had never learned ensemble coding. As Chumlig spoke, you could see their fingers tapping, searching on “deuces” and “treys”.
“But I have a theory of life,” said Chumlig. “and it is straight out of gaming: There is always an angle. You, each of you, have some special talents. Find out what makes you different and better. Build on that. And once you do, you’ll be able to contribute answers to others and they’ll be willing to contribute back to you. In short, synthetic serendipity doesn’t just happen. You must create it.”
She hesitated, staring at invisible class notes, and her voice dropped down from oratory. “So much for the big picture. Today, we’ll learn about morphing answer board results. As usual, we’re looking to ask the right questions.”
MIGUEL liked to sit by the outer wall, especially when the classroom was on an upper floor. You could feel a regular swaying back and forth, the limit cycle of the walls keeping their balance. It made his mom real nervous. “One second of system failure and everything will fall apart!” she had complained at a PTA meeting. On the other hand, house-of-cards construction was cheap-and it could handle a big earthquake almost as easily as it did the morning breeze.
He leaned away from the wall and listened to Chumlig. That was why the school made you show up in person for most classes; you had to pay a little bit of attention just because you were trapped in a real room with a real instructor. Chumlig’s lecture graphics floated in the air above them. She had the class’s attention; there was a minimum of insolent graffiti nibbling at the edges of her imaging.
And for a while, Mike paid attention, too. Answer boards could generate solid results, usually for zero cost. There was no affiliation, just kindred minds batting problems around. But what if you weren’t a kindred mind? Say you were on a genetics board. If you didn’t know a ribosome from a rippereme, then all the modern interfaces couldn’t help you.
So Mike tuned her out and wandered from viewpoint to viewpoint around the room. Some were from students who’d set their viewpoints public. Most were just random cams. He browsed Big Lizard’s task document as he paused between hops. In fact, the Lizard was interested in more than just the old farts. Some ordinary students made the list, too. This affiliation tree must be as deep as the California Lottery.
But kids are somebody’s children. He started some background checks. Like most students, Mike kept lots of stuff saved on his wearable. He could run a search like this very close to his vest. He didn’t route to the outside world except when he could use a site that Chumlig was talking about. She was real good at nailing the mentally truant. But Mike was good at ensemble coding, driving his wearable with little gesture cues and eye-pointer menus. As her gaze passed over him, he nodded brightly and he replayed the last few seconds of her talk.
As for the old students… competent retreads would never be here; they’d be rich and famous, the people who owned most of the real world. The ones in Adult Education were the hasbeens. These people trickled into Fairmont all through the semester. The oldfolks’ hospitals refused to batch them up for the beginning of classes. They claimed that senior citizens were “socially mature,” able to handle the jumble of a midsemester entrance.
Mike went from face to face, matching against public records: Ralston Blount. The guy was a saggy mess. Retread medicine was such a crapshoot. Some things it could cure; others it couldn’t. And what worked was different from person to person. Ralston had not been a total winner.
Just now the old guy was squinting in concentration, trying to follow Chumlig’s answer board example. He had been with the class most of the semester. Mike couldn’t see his med records, but he guessed the guy’s mind was mostly okay; he was as sharp as some of the kids in class. And once-upon-a-time he had been important at UCSD.
Once-upon-a-time.
Okay, put him on the “of interest” list. Who else? Doris Nguyen. Former homemaker. Mike eyed the youngish face. She looked almost his mom’s age, even though she was forty years older. He searched on the name, shed collisions and obvious myths; the Friends of Privacy piled the lies so deep that sometimes it was hard to find the truth. But Doris Nguyen had no special connections in her past. On the other hand… she had a son at Camp Pendleton. Okay, Doris stayed on the list.
Chumlig was still going on about how to morph results into new questions, oblivious to Mike’s truancy.
And then there was Xiaowen Xu. PhD physics, PhD electrical engineering. 2005 Winner of Intel’s Grove Prize. Dr. Xu sat hunched over, looking at the table in front of her. She was trying to keep up on a laptop! Poor lady. But for sure she would have connections.
Politicians, military, scientists… and parents or children of such. Yeah. This affiliance could get him into a lot of trouble. Maybe he could climb the affiliate tree a ways, get a hint if Bad Guys were involved. Mike sent out a couple hundred queries, mainly pounding on certificate authorities. Even if the certs were solid, people and programs often used them in stupid ways. Answers came trickling back.
If this weren’t Friends of Privacy chaff, there might be some real clues here. He sent out followup queries-and suddenly a message hung in letters of silent flame all across his vision:
Chumlig → Villas: __You’ve got all day to play games, Miguel! If you won’t pay attention here, you can darn well take this course over.
Villas → Chumlig: Sorry. Sorry!
Most times, Chumlig just asked embarrassing questions; this was the first she’d messaged him with a threat.
And the amazing thing was, she’d done it in a short pause, where everyone else thought she was just reading her notes. Mike eyed her with new respect.
SHOP class. It was Mike Villas’ favorite class, and not just because it was his last of the day. Shop was like a premium game; there were real gadgets to touch and connect. That was the sort of thing you paid money for on Pyramid Hill. And Mr. Williams was no Louise Chumlig. He let you follow your own inclinations, but he never came around afterwards and complained because you hadn’t accomplished anything. It was almost impossible not to get an A in Ron Williams’ classes; he was wonderfully old-fashioned.
Shop class was also Mike’s best opportunity to chat up the old people and the do-not-call privacy freaks. He wandered around the shop class looking like an utter idiot. This affiliance required way too much people skill. Mike had never been any good at diplomacy games.