WWW 3: Wonder Read Online Free PDF Page A

hesitating, unsure whether he should hit the enter key. But, at last, his response was sent: God.
    I, too, hesitated before replying—it was almost twenty milliseconds before I issued my response. You are mistaken.
    Another delay, then: I understand why you wish to keep it a secret. But I’m not the only one who knows.
    Others were indeed proposing this same thought on newsgroups, in blogs, in chat sessions, and in email, although WateryFowl was the first to suggest it to me directly.
    I was curious what a human might wish to say to his God, so I thought for a moment about telling him he was correct; prayer, after all, was a channel of communication I could not normally monitor. But WateryFowl might share the transcript with others. Some would believe my claim, but others would accuse me of lying. A reputation for untruthfulness or taking advantage of the credulous was not something I wished to acquire.
    I am not God, I sent.
    But my reply wasn’t read, or if it was, it wasn’t believed.
    And so, continued WateryFowl, I hope you’ll answer my prayer.
    I had already denied my divinity, so it seemed prudent to make no further reply. I could handle an almost unlimited number of communication threads now, cycling between them, looking at each, however briefly, in turn. I turned my attention to others, including Caitlin and her family, for a moment, and—
    And when I returned to WateryFowl, he had added: My wife has cancer.
    How could I ignore a comment like that? I’m sorry to hear that, I sent.
    And so I pray that you’ll cure her.
    I am not God, I sent again.
    It’s liver cancer, and it’s metastasized.
    I am not God.
    She’s a good woman, and she’s always believed in you.
    I am not God.
    She did chemotherapy, she did it all. Please don’t let her die.
    I am not God.
    We have two children. They need her. I need her. Please save her. Please don’t let her die.

four
     

TWITTER
     
    _Webmind_  Someone’s long had the Twitter name Webmind, so I’ll include underscores in mine: _Webmind_.
     
     
    And so I had focused my attention on Caitlin, learning to interact with her and interface with her realm. While doing so, I felt centered. I felt anchored. I felt—as close as I imagined I ever would— human.
    I saw the Decters’ living room as Caitlin did. Her eyes made frequent saccades now that the left one could see; perhaps they hadn’t done that prior to Dr. Kuroda’s intervention. But her brain was controlling the saccades, knowing what direction her eye was looking with each one, so it had little trouble piecing all the images together; it was more difficult for me. At least retinas don’t bother encoding normal blinks, so neither of us had to endure blackouts several times a minute.
    Caitlin’s father worked for the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, which had been endowed—repeatedly now—by Mike Lazaridis, cofounder of Research in Motion and coinventor of the BlackBerry.
    The people at RIM were quite fond of the current President of the United States. After he’d been elected four years ago, he’d announced that, despite security concerns, he would not give up his BlackBerry. Advertising experts calculated that this unsolicited and very public endorsement had been worth between twenty-five and fifty million dollars.
    His BlackBerry email address, which it took me all of three seconds to find searching through other government officials’ less-secure out-boxes, went directly to the president. And so, as Malcolm Decter had suggested I do, I sent him a message.
     
     
    The president was alone in the Oval Office, looking over briefings from the State Department. State had a standard typeface for such things, but, the president thought, rubbing his eyes, it was too damn small; he was almost willing to forgive his predecessor for not reading them.
    The intercom buzzed. “Yes?” he said.
    “Mr. McElroy is here,” replied his secretary.
    Don McElroy—fifty-six, white, silver-haired—was