Rainbows End

An Excellent Thesis Topic

Miri kept a low profile around the house, even though that bothered Alice — which was kind of contradictory, since Bob didn't want her talking with Robert anytime soon. Either way, they both seemed to think that given the chance, Robert would just hurt her again.

Okay. She let Robert have the living room whenever he pleased. She made sure she was outside when he was in. But she also snooped on him whenever she honorably could.

Halloween was just around the corner. She should be over at her friends' sites, deep into final planning. She and Annette and Paula had done so much prep with SpielbergRowling. Now it all seemed kind of dumb.

So Miri hung out with farther-away friends. Jin's parents were shrinks in the Provincial Medical Care Group in Hainan. Jin didn't speak very good English, but then Miri's Mandarin was worse. Actually, language wasn't a problem. They'd get together on his beach or hers — depending on which side of the world was daylight or had the nicest weather — and chatter away in Goodenuf English, the air around them filled with translation guesstimates and picture substitutions. Their little clique had contributed lots to the answerboards; it was the most "socially responsible" of Miri's hobbies.

Jin was full of theories about Robert: "Your grandfather was way gone-dead before the doctors bring him back. No surprise he feel bad now." He floated a couple of academic papers in support of his point. Today Jin was hosting several other kids who had senile or otherwise damaged old folks living at home. Mostly they just listened, as sand crabs or simply presence icons. A few presented human forms, maybe their real-world appearance. Now one of those — she looked about ten years old — spoke up. "My great-great-aunt is like that. Back in the twentieth, she was an account executive." Hmm, account executive didn't mean anything like the English words might make you think. "By the teens she was all crippled up. I've seen pictures. And she got drifty and depressed. My grandma said she lost her edge and then she lost her job."

One of the sand crabs reared back, a lurker drawn into the open. "So what's new in that? My brother is all unemployed and depressed, and he's only twenty. It's hard to keep up."

The ten-year-old ignored the interruption. "Gee-grantie was just old-fashioned. Grandma got her a job as a landscape artist — " The little girl slipped into pure picturing, showing old-time cellphone advertisements for background scenery you could rent for when people call and you're in the bathroom. "Grantie was good at that, but she never made as much money as before. And then video landscapes went fully irrelevant. Anyway, she lived with my grandma for twelve years. It sounds just like what you're talking about, Miri."

Twelve years! Vllgo bonkers after even a year of this . She glared at the little girl. "So what happened then?"

"Oh, everything turned out fine in the end. My mom found a treatment site. They specialize in upgraded specialties. Forty-eight hours at their clinic and Gee-grantie had the skills of an ad manager." Which was about the modern equivalent of "account executive."

Silence. Even some of the crabs looked a little shocked.

After a moment, Jin said, "That sound like JITT to me."

"Just-in-time training? What if it is?"

"JITT is illegal," said Miri. This is not something I want to talk about .

"It wasn't illegal back then. And this JITT wasn't so bad. Gee-grantie lives pretty well as long as she keeps taking her upgrades. She seems happy, 'cept that she cries a lot."

"Sound like mind control to me," said Jin.

The little girl laughed. "It is not. You should know that, Jin Li! You, Chinese, with two shrink parents." Her eyes danced about, searching on things the others could not see. "Your parents were in the army, weren't they? They must know all about mind control. That's what you Han tried in Myanmar!"

Jin came to his feet, and kicked sand through the little girl's image. "No! I mean, that is year and year ago. Nobody do anything like that now. We certainly don't!"

Miri decided she didn't like the little girl. What she said was more or less true, but… Bob had talked to her once about the Myanmar Restoration, back when she was doing a history project in the fifth grade. She had quoted him as "an unamed source high in the American military"; in fact, he said the same thing as most websites. You-Gotta-Believe-Me technology had been a Big Nightmare possibility for years. Myanmar was the only place where YGBM had been tried on a large scale. "It all comes down to the delivery problem," Bob had said. "The Chinese army had some new drugs, things that were very persuasive in a research lab. But in the field? The Chinese sank half their budget into YGBM and they didn't get as much payoff as a good propaganda campaign." Humans had a million years of evolution learning to resist the power of suggestion; there was no magic way to beat that!

Now Miri came to her feet, too. "Hey!" she said, in the tone Alice occasionally used. "I didn't come here to talk politics! I came for help with my grandfather."

The little girl stared at her for a moment, her face quirked in an odd smile. The air was full of support for Miri, unanimous minus one. After a moment, the little girl shrugged. "I was just trying to help. Hey, I'll be good. I'm all ears." And she demonstrated with a graphical exaggeration, growing wiggly rabbit ears.

So they all sat down again and had a quiet moment. Miri looked out along the beach. She knew this was the true view even though she had never been to Hainan in person. It was beautiful, a lot like the Cove in La Jolla, but this beach was much bigger, with correspondingly more real people. Out near the horizon there were three white peaks, icebergs on their way to coastal cities farther north. Just like in California.

"Okay, then," said Jin. "How we help Miri Gu? But no JITT. That's a dead end. Is your grandpa good at anything now day?"

"Well, he's always been great with words, better than anyone I know. He has poor clothes sense, but he's become very quick with numbers and mechanical things." That brought a wave of interest; some of the crabs opened up with little stories about numeracy. "But that just seems to send him into a rage." She showed them the story of the disemboweled automobile. If Louise Chumlig hadn't stood up for him, that would have gotten him expelled.

The little girl's big ears had shrunk back to normal size. Of course, she had more opinions: "Heh. I'm reading about him, what he was like before. He had a track record back in the twentieth century. 'Famous Poet,' blah blah blah. But he was only beloved by people who never met him."

"That's not true! Robert never suffered fools gladly, b-but — " She ran out of steam, remembering Lena and the stories about Graunty Cara. And remembering the Ezra Pound Incident.

Jin dug his toes into the sand. "Let's get back to track. Does he have any friends in school?"

"N-No. He's been matched up with Juan Orozco. That kid is like most in those classes, a dumbhead."

"What about friends from before?" said the little girl.

Miri shook her head. All the people Robert had known and helped when he was a great poet, none of them had made contact. Was being a friend such a temporary thing? "There are other old people in the class, but they're on different projects. They hardly talk at all."

"Go for a personality match. There must be hundreds of people with complementary problems." The little girl smiled. "Then arrange for an accidental collision? See, if your grandpa doesn't know you're working behind the scenes, he can't be resentful." She looked up, as if surprised by insight: "Better yet — once upon a time your grandpa stirred up a lotta critical interest. I bet there are still graduate students who would love to fawn on him. Sell one of them a truly excellent thesis topic!"

Afterward, Miri did a number of character searches. One of the guys in Robert's Fairmont classes had known him for years! She should have noticed that before. The two had so much in common! If she could just get them together. Hmm. Too bad that dummy Orozco was teaming with Robert… But Winston Blount was into something outside of school, and that involved at least one other person who had been in grad school with Robert way back in the 1970s.

How to set up something to bring them all together?

She also searched for graduate students who might want to talk with Robert. She was confident that no grandparent of Miri Gu would be susceptible to false flattery, but it would be nice for Robert to meet an outsider who obviously respected him. If it was somebody with weak data skills… well, that might be good, too; she might be able to help out directly.

She did a world search, the kind of thing that drags in yak herders desirous of learning English. But this time — hey, she got a near perfect match in less than five minutes. And this Sharif fellow was in Oregon, just far enough away that most contact would be virtual and tweakable. For all her snottiness, the little girl had made some really good suggestions.

Miri hesitated. In fact, all the really successful suggestions had been due to the little girl. Maybe the "little girl" persona was covering something. Miri started a query replicating out through everyone and everything that might provide identity clues. But even if the kid were really ten years old, it wouldn't prove anything. Some fifth graders were scary.

The woman was tall, and dressed in black. "I understand you're looking for some help," she said.

Huh ? Zulfikar Sharif looked up from his beef taco. He hadn't heard her approach. Then he realized that he was still alone at his table in the back of the OSU caf. He frowned at the apparition, "I'm not accepting fantasies." God protect me. I've been perverted still again .

The woman looked at him severely. She wasn't more than thirty, but he couldn't imagine her on a date. "Young man, I am not your fantasy. You are looking for help with a thesis topic, are you not?"

"Oh!" Zulfi Sharif was no lover of high technology, but now in his second year in the OSU Literature Department, he'd become a bit desperate. His thesis advisor was no help; Professor Blandings seemed most interested in having a permanent, unpaid research assistant. So way back in January, Sharif had put out feelers for help. That had provoked endless adverts for plagiarized and custom-writ material. Annie Blandings was so obnoxious that Sharif was almost tempted by some of the early offers — till his geekier friends pointed out how badly that could go wrong.

Sharif had filtered out the plagiarists and the sarcastic jerkoffs. That left very little. So much for high technology. He had spent the last two semesters propping up Blandings's career in Deconstructive Revisionism. In the remaining time, he worked at a 411 job for the American Poetry Association and did his best to craft a thesis out of vapor. He had come to America hoping for old-world insight into the literature that he loved. Lately, he was beginning to wonder if he should have stayed home in Kolkata.

And now, suddenly, this woman. The answer to my prayers. Yes, sure . He waved her to be seated; at least that would embarrass her.

But the apparition knew exactly where it stood. It slid into the chair across the table with scarcely an overlap of body and furniture.

"I was really expecting an email," he said.

The woman in black just shrugged. Her imperious glance did not wa-ver. After a moment, Sharif continued, "In fact, I am looking for a thesis topic. But I'll have you know, I'm not interested in fraud, or plagiarism, or collaboration. If you're selling that, then please shove off. I simply want the sort of pointers" — and support — "that a good thesis advisor would give a student."

The lady smiled a cruel smile, and it suddenly occurred to Sharif that she might be connected to Annie Blandings. The old fart didn't even wear — but maybe she had friends who did.

"Nothing whatsoever illegal, Mr. Sharif. I simply saw your ad. I have a tremendous opportunity for you."

"And I don't have much money!"

"I'm sure we can come to an arrangement. Interested?"

"Well… possibly."

The lady in black leaned forward. Even her shadow matched the cafeteria lighting. Sharif hadn't realized that such precision was possible. "I don't suppose you know that Robert Gu is alive and well and living in Southern California?"

"Huh? Bullshit! He died some years ago. There hasn't been…" His words dribbled off before her silent stare. He tapped briefly at his phantom keypad, calling up a standard search. Since he started working 411, he'd become rather good at this kind of ultra-fast research. Results streamed across the tabletop. "Okay. He just stopped writing. Alzheimer's… and he's come back !"

"Indeed. Does this suggest possibilities?"

"um." Sharif continued his guppy imitation for a second or two. If I had just looked for the right facts, I would have known this a month ago . "It does suggest possibilities." Interviewing Robert Gu would run a close second to chatting up William Shakespeare.

"Good." The lady in black tented her fingers. "There are complications, however."

"Like what?" An opportunity this good must be a scam.

"Robert — " The woman's image seem to freeze for an instant, maybe a communications jitter. " — Professor Gu has never suffered fools gladly. And never less so than now. I can give you access capability in his private enum. It will be up to you to intrigue him."

Without the enum, getting through to the great man could be very difficult.

"How much?" he said. He had twenty thousand dollars in the student credit union. Perhaps his brother in Kolkata could be hit up for one more loan.

"Ah, my price is not in dollars. I simply ask to tag along, occasionally to make a suggestion or ask a question."

"But I'll have first use?"

"Of course."

"I, well — — " Sharif wavered. Robert Gu ! "Okay, you've got a deal."

"Very good." The lady gestured for his hand. "Give me a moment of full access."

Epiphany Rule Number One, what they pound on in all the instructions: Full access is only for parents and spouses — and then only if you like to take chances . Whether it was her tone or his need Sharif was never sure, but he reached out and touched the empty air. He matched the pointing gesture with a lowering of security. The tingle in his fingers was surely his imagination, but now the air between them was full of binding certificates.

Then the paperwork was done. What remained in the air was a single enum. Sharif stared at the identifier with sudden apprehension. "So I just call him?"

She nodded. "Now you have that capability. But remember what I said about his… his intolerance for fools. Do you know his works?" Or course.

"Do you admire them?"

"Yes! I honestly and intelligently admire the hell out of them." It was a claim that worked with all the profs Sharif knew. In this case, it was also the truth.

The lady nodded. "That may be enough. Keep in mind that Professor Gu is not feeling well. He is still recovering from his illness. You may have to be directly useful to him."

"I'll empty the man's chamber pot if that will help."

Again a brief freeze of expression. "Ah! I don't think that will be necessary. But he misses things from the past. He misses the way books used to be. You know, those clunky things you have to carry around."

Who is this creature ? But he nodded. "I know all about, um, physical books. I can show him plenty, and in person." He was already looking up taxi services.

"Very good." The apparition smiled. "Good luck, Mr. Sharif." And it was gone.

Sharif sat for almost a minute, staring blankly into the space lately occupied by the woman in black. And then he was consumed by the desire to share this news with others. Fortunately, the caf was nearly empty this late at night, and Sharif was not one of those who could message as quickly as they were overcome by the whim. No, after a moment he realized that this was likely something he should keep under his hat, at least until he'd established a connection with Robert Gu.

Besides… second thoughts were percolating up. How could I be so stupid as to let her into my wearable ? He ran the Epiphany integrity check a couple of times. Widgets of purity floated in the air above his taco. Epiphany said he was clean; of course, if he'd been totally perverted that's exactly what it would say. Damnation. I don't want to fry-clean my clothes. Not again !

Especially in this case. He looked at the golden enum: Robert Gu's own direct identifier. If he took the right approach, he would finally have his thesis. Not just any ordinary thesis. Sharif considered Robert Gu to be from the highest rank of modern literature, up there with Williams and Cho.

And Annie Blandings thought Gu was God.

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