The Intruder Read Free

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    "You can see the implant desktop because of a connection with the optic nerve. It looks like a semi-transparent tablet floating in the air," she said, and Jeremy noticed that her eyes suddenly took on that faraway look he'd noticed in the others in the waiting room. She looked back in his direction with her right eye while her left eye wandered slightly. "By sending the right commands -- that's something you'll learn to do -- I can call up anything I want.
    "Watch this," she said, and she smiled as her eye wiggled slightly. A moment later Dr. Jenkins' voice came over a speaker somewhere in the room.
    "Yes, Dr. Berry ?" he said.
    "Dr. Jenkins," Dr. Berry said aloud, "would you please bring me a portable workstation?"
    "Right away, doctor," came the reply.
    Jeremy smiled and shook his head. "So you were able to call him without even saying a word? And did he hear your call, or see it on his visual display?"
    "That's a perceptive question," Dr. Berry said. "I sent a pro forma 'call' to Dr. Jenkins. It said, 'call Dr. Berry on the intercom immediately.' That message traveled through the hole to Dr. Jenkins' address. How he retrieved the message would depend on how he had his relay set. It could have been on audio, on visual, or he could have been offline, in which case it would have gone into his mailbox, and it wouldn't have been a very impressive demonstration for you."
    Jeremy was beginning to grasp the concepts, but he was certain there was much more to know. What if there's another Dr. Jenkins? he wondered. How does the hole know which person to send the message to?   As Jeremy was thinking, Dr. Jenkins entered the room with a dark gray object, about the size of one of the world atlases he used to study when he was a boy in school , but as thin as a piece of cardboard .
    "Hi, Jeremy," he said. "How's it going?" 
    "Just fine, doc," he replied. 
    "Good," Dr. Jenkins replied. "Stop by and see me before you leave, okay?"
    "Sure," Jeremy said, but he wondered what Dr. Jenkins wanted. The Advocate, who served as the intermediary and legal representative between the Community and Society -- both to make sure the Community was in compliance with all applicable laws, and to represent the Community's interests if they were threatened -- had warned Jeremy to be very cautious. Some of the people in Society might try to take advantage of him, he had said, and others might be unnaturally curious about people from the Community. "Remember the stories about country bumpkins buying the Brooklyn Bridge ," he had advised. "You're the country bumpkin."
     
    Dr. Berry took the gray, book-shaped object from Dr. Jenkins and set it on the table, gesturing for Jeremy to stand next to her and observe. She was wearing a perfume with a very distinctive smell. It reminded him of something back home. Something his mother used to grow in the flower garden.
    Dr. Berry swept her hand over the flat surface of the workstation and it immediately lit up with a colorful and very complicated display. In the exact center of the screen was a bright dot with the words "Berry Clinic" displayed in dark lettering. Flowing out from the dot in all directions, almost like a child's maze, were lines to other "sites" -- that's what Dr. Berry called them. Each site seemed to have a unique graphic element, and some of them had explanatory text, holographic images, or animations.
    "You select a site by touching it," Dr. Berry explained, touching a graphic of a small green cube, which immediately moved to the center of the screen. The network of interconnecting lines and graphics adjusted instantaneously. "This line," she said, pointing to a white line that extended from the green cube to the Berry Clinic site, "traces your path, so you know where you've been."
    He studied the screen carefully, and then asked, "So this is what you can see when you have your visual display on? A screen like this just floats in the air in front of you."
    "Somewhat like