“I want to thank you,” he said. “You’ve been so hospitable.”
Barbara Decter was seated on the opposite side of the square pine table, holding a cup of coffee in two hands. She looked over its brim at him. She was, Masayuki thought, quite lovely: probably closer to fifty than forty, but with large, sparkling blue eyes and a cute upturned nose that almost made her look like an anime character. “It’s my pleasure,” she said. “To tell the truth, I’ve enjoyed having you here. It’s nice to, you know, have someone talkative around. Back in Austin…”
She trailed off, but her voice had become a bit wistful before doing so.
“Yes?” he said gently.
“I just miss Texas, is all. Don’t get me wrong; this place is nice, although I am not looking forward to winter, and…”
Masayuki thought she looked sad. After a time he again said, “Yes?”
She held up a hand. “I’m sorry. It’s just … been particularly difficult coming here. I had friends back in Austin, and I had things to do: I worked every weekday as a volunteer at Caitlin’s old school, the Texas School for the Blind.”
He looked down at the place mat. It was a large laminated photo of a city skyline at night; a caption identified it as Austin. “So why did you move here?”
“Well, Caitlin was pushing to go to a regular school, anyway — she said she’d need to be able to function in normal classes if she were going to go on to MIT, which has been her goal for years. And then Malcolm got this job offer that was too good to pass up: the Perimeter Institute is a dream come true for him. He doesn’t have to teach, doesn’t have to work with students. He can just think all day.”
“How long have you been married, if I may ask?”
Again, the slightly wistful tone. “It’ll be eighteen years in December.”
“Ah.”
But then she gave him an appraising look. “You’re being polite, Masayuki. You want to know why I married him.”
He shifted in his chair and looked out the window. The leaves had started to change color. “It’s not my place to wonder,” he said. “But…”
She raised her shoulders a bit. “He’s brilliant. And he’s a great listener. And he’s very kind, in his way — which my first husband was not.”
He took another bite of his sandwich. “You were married before?”
“For two years, starting when I was twenty-one. The only good thing that came out of that was it taught me which things really matter.” A pause. “How long have you been married?”
“Twenty years.”
“And you have a daughter?”
“Akiko, yes. She’s sixteen, going on thirty.”
Barb laughed. “I know what you mean. What does your wife do?”
“Esumi is in — what do you say in English? Not ‘manpower’ anymore, is it?”
“Human resources.”
“Right. She’s in human resources at the same university I work at.”
The corners of her mouth were turned down. “I miss the university environment. I’m going to try to get back in next year.”
He felt his eyebrows going up. “As … as a student?”
“No, no. To teach.”
“Oh! I, ah—”
“You thought I was June Cleaver?”
“Pardon?”
“A stay-at-home mom?”
“Well, I…”
“I’ve got a Ph.D., Masayuki. I used to be an associate professor of economics.” She set down her coffee cup. “Don’t look so surprised. Actually, my specialty is — was — game theory.”
“You taught in Austin?”
“No. In Houston; that’s where Caitlin was born. We moved to Austin when she was six so she could go to the TSB. The first five years, I did stay at home with her — and believe me, looking after a blind daughter is work. And I spent the next decade volunteering at her school, helping her and other kids learn Braille, or reading them things that were only available in print, and so on.”
She paused and looked through the opening to the large, empty living room.
“But now, I’m going to talk to UW and Laurier — that’s the other university in town — about picking up some sessional work, at least. I couldn’t do any this term because my Canadian work permit hasn’t come through yet.” She smiled a bit ruefully. “I’m a bit rusty, but you know what they say: old game theorists never die, we just lose our equilibrium.”
He smiled back at her. “Are you sure you don’t want to come to Toronto for the show?”
“No, thanks. I’ve seen Mamma Mia. We all went back in August. It’s great, though. You’ll love it.”
He nodded. “I’ve always wanted to see it. I’m glad I was able to get a ticket on such short notice, and—” Yes, yes — of course!
“Masayuki?”
His heart was pounding. “I am an idiot.”
“No, no, lots of people like ABBA.”
“I mean Miss Caitlin’s software. I think I know why she was able to see the lightning, but not anything else in the real world. It’s related to the delta modulation: the Jagster feed is already digital, but the real-world input from her retina starts out as analog and is converted to digital for processing by the eyePod — and that must be where I screwed up. Because when she saw the lightning, that was a real-world signal that already had only two components: bright light and a black background. It was essentially digital to begin with, and she could see that.” He was thinking furiously in Japanese and trying to talk in English at the same time. “Anyway, yes, yes, I think I can fix it.” He took a sip of coffee. “Okay, look, I’m not going to be back from Toronto until after midnight tonight. And Caitlin will be in bed by then, won’t she?”
“Yes, of course. It’s a school night.”
“Well, I don’t want to wait until tomorrow after school to test this; I mean, it probably won’t work right the first time, anyway, but, um, could you do a favor for me?”
“Of course.”
“It should just be a small patch — nothing as elaborate as downloading a complete software update to her implant, like we did before. So I’m going to queue up the patch code to be sent automatically to her eyePod next time she switches to duplex mode. That’ll mean taking the Jagster feed offline, but I’ll leave instructions for Caitlin on how to reinstate it if she wants it later tonight. Anyway, when she gets home, ask her to switch to duplex, and have her tell you what difference, if any, it makes.”
Barb nodded. “Sure, I can do that.”
“Thanks. I’ll leave instructions for rolling back to the old version of software, too, in case something goes wrong. As I say, the patch probably won’t work the first time, but my server will still record her eyePod’s output based on the patched code, so tomorrow while she’s at school, I’ll be able to go back and examine the datastream from tonight, see if the encoding has been improved at all, and then I can make any further tweaks that are required. But if we don’t get the first test done tonight, I’ll lose a whole day before I can refine it.”
“Sure, no problem.”
He gobbled the last bite of his sandwich. “Thank you.” He glanced at the clock on the microwave — he’d never get used to digital clocks that showed a.m. and p.m. instead of twenty-four-hour time. “I want to get an early start into Toronto this afternoon; I’m taking you at your word that it would be crazy to try to drive into downtown there in rush hour. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get that patch set up.”