WWW 2: Watch Read Online Free PDF

some old argument. “I told you something like this would happen,” she said. “A blind girl spending all that time unsupervised online.”
    Caitlin’s voice was suddenly sharp. “I’m not blind anymore! And, even when I was, I was always careful. This is as real as anything.”
    “You didn’t answer your mother’s question,” her dad said. “Have you given out any personal numbers or passwords?”
    “Jesus, Dad, no. This isn’t a scam.”
    “That’s what everyone who is being scammed says,” he replied.
    “Look, come up to my room,” Caitlin said. “I’ll show you.”
    She didn’t wait for an answer; she just turned and headed for the staircase. Her breathing was ragged, but she knew she wasn’t going to accomplish anything by being pissy. She took a deep breath, and a memory of an animated cartoon came to her. She hadn’t seen it yet, but she’d always enjoyed listening to it, after Stacy back in Austin had explained what was going on. It was a Looney Tunes short called “One Froggy Evening,” about a frog who sang and danced for the guy who’d found it, but just croaked when anyone else was around. Eyes closed, steps passing beneath her feet, the frog’s favorite song ran through her head:
    Hello! ma baby
Hello! ma honey
Hello! ma ragtime gal
Send me a kiss by wire
Baby, ma heart’s on fire!
    Her parents followed her. Caitlin sat down in the swivel chair in front of her desk. She had an old seventeen-inch monitor hooked up to one computer, and the new twenty-seven-inch widescreen monitor she’d received that morning as an early birthday present connected to her other computer. Her mother took up a position on her left, arms crossed in front of her chest, and her father stood on her right. The chat session with Webmind was still on screen, with her brb as the last post. Things she said were in red letters, and Webmind’s words were in blue.
    She couldn’t see her father—she was still blind in her right eye—but in her left-side peripheral vision, she saw her mother shoot him another look.
    She typed, Back.
    There was no response. The IM window—a white rectangle parked in a corner of her big monitor—showed nothing except an animated ad at its top. She shifted in her chair. Of course, Webmind knew she wasn’t alone. It watched the datafeed from her eyePod, and certainly could see her mother.
    She tried again, typing Hello.
    Still nothing. She turned to look at her father—and realized that might have been a mistake, since Webmind could now see that he was there, too. She faced the screen again and drummed her fingers on the stonewashed denim stretched across her thigh. Come on, she thought. Send me a kiss by wire . . .
    And after six more seconds, the blue letters “POS” appeared in the instant-messenger window.
    A startled laugh burst from Caitlin.
    “What’s that mean?” demanded her mother.
    “ ‘Parents over shoulder,’ ” Caitlin said. “It’s what you write in an IM when you can’t talk freely.” She typed: Yes, they are, and I’d like you to meet them. She looked at her father, so Webmind could see him, and she sent, That’s my dad, Dr. Malcolm Decter. And she looked the other way, then added, And my mom, Dr. Barbara Decter.
    Webmind might have wrestled mightily with what to do next—but its response appeared instantaneously. Greetings and felicitations.
    Caitlin smiled. “It’s read all of Project Gutenberg,” she said. “Its language tends to be dated.”
    “Sweetheart,” her mother said gently, “that could be anyone.”
    “It’s read all of Wikipedia, too,” Caitlin said. “Ask it something that no human being could find quickly online.”
    “The Wikipedia entry on any topic is usually the first Google hit,” her mom said. “If this guy’s got a fast enough connection, he could find anything quickly.”
    “Ask it a question, Dad. Something technical.”
    He seemed to hesitate, as if wondering whether to go along with this nonsense or not.