Freedom on a Very Long Leash
- Bob Gu, Jr. has been visiting the New Annex at Crick's Clinic frequently. Probably because his father, wife, and daughter are all there for serious medical issues.
- Here are the issues: Alice had lots of JITT training and now she's kind of stuck. Carlos Rivera sometimes switches into Mandarin Chinese, but Alice always speaks gibberish.
- Robert is here because he's a federal detainee. Also he had a crushed leg and serious burns. In fact, his left arm was destroyed when he protected Miri from the lava.
- Bob is here to interview Robert about the whole breaking into a biotech laboratory. (There's a joke here with a character named "Eve" who is eavesdropping on the convo between the Gus. But we explain that joke on Bob and Alice's character page.)
- The government doesn't want to put Robert in jail for what he did, because it wants him to be out in the world in case Rabbit or some other conspirators try to contact him. So Bob tells Robert he'll be coming home to finish out the semester—even though he set Alice up to get very very sick.
- On the other hand, Bob does appreciate that Robert saved Miri from the lava.
- So, Robert goes back to high school. (High school is inescapable.)
- Juan is confused about that night, but still friendly with Robert. Juan is actually more upset that Miri isn't being friendly anymore.
- To get Juan's mind off that, Robert suggests practicing their composition. (Although Lena thinks that Robert is just worried about his grade.)
- After the riot, Robert had a lot of notoriety, especially with the Friends of Privacy trying to keep things private.
- So there are a lot of people watching virtually when Robert goes up to show his composition with Juan.
- We get to see what these students do, which is just a reminder of how much crazy technology they have. Like, while the Radners put on a special effects show, some other students have created a sort of taffy/glue that changes depending on how you touch it. In fact, some of these student products are getting bought by companies.
- Juan and Robert present their demo, which is a live music performance and poetry performed by two student orchestras and choruses, one in Boston, the other in Chile. The real trick is that, though they're playing over cheap, free connections, the music and poetry gets synched up by an algorithm that Robert wrote.
- It goes off pretty well.