waited for him to answer, then, after several seconds, voice desperate, her mom said: “Malcolm—the cat’s out of the bag.”
Zhang Bo, China’s Minister of Communications, didn’t often think about the irony of his job—but that irony had haunted him for the last few weeks.
The Communist Party said they did not want outside influences, but he looked at what he was wearing: a blue Western-style business suit, and, today, a gray tie. He was forty-five but remembered the days of Mao suits—the plain, high-collared, shirtlike jackets customarily worn during the reign of Mao Zedong. Actually, given his own stocky frame, a Mao jacket might have been better for him, but at least under the current rules he was allowed a small mustache. That, too, was a Western influence ; his favorite American actor sported a similar one.
The mandate of the Ministry of Communications was to keep out information from the rest of the world—which meant, of course, that Zhang had to monitor much of it himself: the New York Times, CNN, NHK, the BBC, Al Jazeera, Pravda —he had tabs for all of them always open in the Maxthon browser he favored.
And he had Google and Baidu alerts set for specific combinations of keywords: the president’s name, “Tibet,” “Falun Gong,” and, of late, “Shanxi” and “bird flu.” Most of the recent news had been unkind. Although a handful of Western commentators acknowledged that Beijing probably had no choice but to eliminate the peasants who had been exposed to the human-transmissible version of the H5N1 virus, most of the coverage excoriated China for what they variously termed a “heartless,” “unnecessary,” and—apparently the suggestion of a dragon had occurred spontaneously to numerous writers, although, as Zhang knew, the term actually referred to an Athenian politician—“draconian” action.
And now, as if all that weren’t bad enough, the police were once again being accused of brutality—over what should have been a minor arrest at the paleontology museum. Blogs domestic and foreign were aflame with the tale.
Zhang sighed as he read yet another damning story; this one was in the Huffington Post.
He decided to turn to his email instead. One of the messages was from Quan Li, the epidemiologist who had recommended the eliminations. He read it, answered the question with a curt no: Li could not accept any foreign interview requests.
He continued to work his way through the list of messages, saying no, no, and no again. And then—
A message from the University of Tokyo, here, on his secure account? How could . . . ? He clicked on it, read it, and felt the knot that had grown in his stomach loosening ever so slightly. When he was done, he picked up his phone’s handset and pushed the speed dial for the president’s office.
TWITTER
_Webmind_ AIDS? Working on it . . .
Malcolm Decter had hurried home from the Perimeter Institute—and Dr. Hawking. Caitlin was pleased he was willing to do that, but her mother was right: it was a crisis.
Still, part of her was happy that the secret was out, that everyone would know that she’d been the one who’d figured out that Webmind was there. In the world that mattered to her—the world of computing and math—those who did things first got ahead, even if they weren’t the best or the brightest. And if you were the best and the brightest, well, there’d be no stopping you! Google, Microsoft, RIM, Apple, the World Wide Web Consortium, the Jagster group—they’d all be offering her . . .
It was a heady thought for a sixteen-year-old who had never worked beyond occasionally tutoring math; she hadn’t been able to babysit, after all, or cut grass, or deliver newspapers, or do any of the other things kids did to make money. But, yes, multibillion-dollar corporations might well beat a path to her door, offering her jobs. And what Ivy League school would turn down an application that combined her marks with
Zhang Bo, China’s Minister of Communications, didn’t often think about the irony of his job—but that irony had haunted him for the last few weeks.
The Communist Party said they did not want outside influences, but he looked at what he was wearing: a blue Western-style business suit, and, today, a gray tie. He was forty-five but remembered the days of Mao suits—the plain, high-collared, shirtlike jackets customarily worn during the reign of Mao Zedong. Actually, given his own stocky frame, a Mao jacket might have been better for him, but at least under the current rules he was allowed a small mustache. That, too, was a Western influence ; his favorite American actor sported a similar one.
The mandate of the Ministry of Communications was to keep out information from the rest of the world—which meant, of course, that Zhang had to monitor much of it himself: the New York Times, CNN, NHK, the BBC, Al Jazeera, Pravda —he had tabs for all of them always open in the Maxthon browser he favored.
And he had Google and Baidu alerts set for specific combinations of keywords: the president’s name, “Tibet,” “Falun Gong,” and, of late, “Shanxi” and “bird flu.” Most of the recent news had been unkind. Although a handful of Western commentators acknowledged that Beijing probably had no choice but to eliminate the peasants who had been exposed to the human-transmissible version of the H5N1 virus, most of the coverage excoriated China for what they variously termed a “heartless,” “unnecessary,” and—apparently the suggestion of a dragon had occurred spontaneously to numerous writers, although, as Zhang knew, the term actually referred to an Athenian politician—“draconian” action.
And now, as if all that weren’t bad enough, the police were once again being accused of brutality—over what should have been a minor arrest at the paleontology museum. Blogs domestic and foreign were aflame with the tale.
Zhang sighed as he read yet another damning story; this one was in the Huffington Post.
He decided to turn to his email instead. One of the messages was from Quan Li, the epidemiologist who had recommended the eliminations. He read it, answered the question with a curt no: Li could not accept any foreign interview requests.
He continued to work his way through the list of messages, saying no, no, and no again. And then—
A message from the University of Tokyo, here, on his secure account? How could . . . ? He clicked on it, read it, and felt the knot that had grown in his stomach loosening ever so slightly. When he was done, he picked up his phone’s handset and pushed the speed dial for the president’s office.
_Webmind_ AIDS? Working on it . . .
Malcolm Decter had hurried home from the Perimeter Institute—and Dr. Hawking. Caitlin was pleased he was willing to do that, but her mother was right: it was a crisis.
Still, part of her was happy that the secret was out, that everyone would know that she’d been the one who’d figured out that Webmind was there. In the world that mattered to her—the world of computing and math—those who did things first got ahead, even if they weren’t the best or the brightest. And if you were the best and the brightest, well, there’d be no stopping you! Google, Microsoft, RIM, Apple, the World Wide Web Consortium, the Jagster group—they’d all be offering her . . .
It was a heady thought for a sixteen-year-old who had never worked beyond occasionally tutoring math; she hadn’t been able to babysit, after all, or cut grass, or deliver newspapers, or do any of the other things kids did to make money. But, yes, multibillion-dollar corporations might well beat a path to her door, offering her jobs. And what Ivy League school would turn down an application that combined her marks with
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