When Metaphors Are Real
- For the Gu/Orozco project, Robert Gu is trying to get music students from Boston and Chile to synchronize.
- Meanwhile he continues to talk to Sharif, who confesses that he's been hijacked by some other users. Which to Robert means the Mysterious Stranger.
- (And Sharif doesn't want to erase his whole system to get rid of the hijacker because that would erase all of his work.)
- Over at the library, Robert goes to meet the Elder Cabal. Apparently, while the Librareome was supposed to be paused, they went ahead and shredded most of the library. But they have a very secret and illegal plan.
- Luckily Tommie Parker's laptop has some highly illegal equipment so he can shut down all surveillance, including Sharif.
- Here's their plan to wreck Huertas's shredder plan: he plans to digitize everything and charge for access. But other companies are digitizing other libraries without shredding them, like a Chinese company named (ugh) Informagical. So if they can delay Huertas, they'll cut into his profits and make it unprofitable for Huertas to continue with the shredding. (Confused? It gets confusing, but the important part is they want to slow down Huertas's project.)
- So they'll go through some old steam tunnels that they used to hike through in the old days. They'll get to the biotech labs where Huertas is storing the shredded paper that needs to be re-scanned. And they'll ruin the shredda by temporarily gluing it together.
- Now they just need to get the internet to invent the glue that they need.
- And they'll need Robert for this plan: not only is he the most physically fit, but he can get past security by stealing Alice's clearance. And is betraying your family really such a big deal?
- So what does the library look like without books? Apparently the school administrators are getting a belief circle to make the library look interesting in the virtual world.
- That is, some fans of Jerzy Hacek's Dangerous Knowledge stories are making part of the library look like a fantasy library. Another part of the library looks like something out of M.C. Escher.
- Honestly, this sounds pretty cool to us, though they might be taking it a bit far. The admins simulate a little earthquake in the library by using the anti-earthquake stabilizers to shake the place. That sounds like a bad idea.
- At some point during the tour, Carlos Rivera has a little brain thing, where he starts talking Mandarin Chinese and can't stop. While Carlos goes to get checked out, Winnie explains to Robert that Carlos had JITT (just-in-time training) for Mandarin, which is why he sometimes speaks Mandarin and can't stop.
- Later, on the ride home, Robert looks up JITT, so this chapter is a good place to look for another explanation of what it is and why it's a bad idea. In short: you can learn stuff, but sometimes it intrudes on you. Would we like to learn Mandarin Chinese perfectly in a few months? Yes. Do we want to be permanently brain damaged by that? No.
- Also on the ride home, Robert looks through a few virtual overlays, like the historical society and the Terry Pratchett fan circle.
- Sharif shows up to explain how belief circles and virtual overlays work. See, for really popular works, lots of fans collaborate on building the virtual world.
- Robert also learns that Sharif is getting hijacked by multiple people. The Mysterious Stranger tells Robert that when he's in charge, he'll make the Sharif image look a little sinister and green.
- And then when he gets home, what a coincidence, he meets Miri, who is riding her bike around.