Manning reached over and tapped the 'Screen. The image froze on a close-up of Kate's face, hidden by her hands, tears visibly leaking between her fingers, her hair a tangle around her forehead, the whole surrounded by a faint fish-eye-distortion halo.
Manning said, "I believe this incident is the key to your story, Kate. The story of your life, of who you are."
The real Kate, bleak and subdued, stared at her younger self woodenly. "I was framed," she said evenly. "Over the IBM espionage. It was subtle, beyond the reach even of the WormCam. But it's nevertheless true. And that's what we should be focusing on. Not this barroom psychoanalysis."
Manning drew back. "That's as may be. But evidentiary issues are beyond my competence. The judge has asked me to come up with a framework for your state of mind at the time of the crime itself. Motive and intent: a deeper truth than even the WormCam can offer us. And," he said with a trace of steel, "let's remind ourselves that you don't have any choice but to cooperate."
"But that doesn't alter my opinion," she said.
"What opinion?"
"That, like every shrink I've ever met, you are one inhuman asshole." The attorney touched Kate's arm, but Kate shook her off.
Manning's eyes glittered, hard behind his spectacles; Bobby realized Manning was going to enjoy exerting power over this willful woman.
Manning turned to his SoftScreen and ran through the brief breakup scene again. "Let me recall what you told me about this period in your life. You'd been living with Kingsley Roman for some three years when you decided to try for a baby. You suffered a late miscarriage."
"I'm sure you enjoyed watching that," Kate said bleakly.
"Please," Manning said, pained. "You seem to have decided, with Kingsley, that you would try again."
"We never decided that. We didn't discuss it in that way."
Manning blinked owlishly at a notepad. "But you did. February 24, 2032, is the clearest example. I can show you if you like." He looked up at her over his glasses. "Don't be alarmed if your memory differs from the WormCam record. It's common. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's normal. Confabulation, remember. Shall I go on?
"Despite your stated decision, you don't conceive. In fact you return to the regular use of contraceptives, so that conception is impossible anyhow. Six months after the miscarriage, Kingsley begins his affair with a colleague at his place of work. A woman called Jodie Morris. And a few months after that, he is careless enough to let you find out about it." He studied her again. "Do you remember what you told me about that?"
Kate said reluctantly, "I told you the truth. I think Kingsley decided, on some level, that the baby was my fault. And so he started looking around. And besides, after the miscarriage, work was starting to take off for me. The Wormwood... I think Kingsley was jealous."
"And so he started to seek the attention he craved from somebody else."
"Something like that. When I found out, I threw him out."
"He claims he left."
"Then he's a lying asshole."
"But we just saw the incident," Manning said gently. "I didn't see any evidence of clear decision-making, of unilateral action by either of you."
"It doesn't matter what the WormCam shows. I know what is true."
Manning nodded. "I'm not denying that you're telling us the truth as you see it, Kate." He smiled at her, owlish, looming. "You aren't lying. That isn't the problem at all. Don't you see?"
Kate gazed at her caged hands.
They took a break. Bobby wasn't allowed to be with her.
Kate's treatment was one of many experiments being run as the politicians, legal experts, pressure groups and concerned citizens worked feverishly to find a way to accommodate the WormCam's eerie historical reach—still not widely known to the public—into something resembling the existing due process of the law, and, even more challenging, into natural justice.
In essence it had suddenly become radically easier to establish physical truth.
The conduct of court cases seemed likely to be transformed radically. Trials would surely become much less adversarial, fairer, much less dependent on the demeanor of a suspect in court or the quality of her representatives. When the WormCam was available at federal, state and county levels, some commentators were anticipating savings of billions of dollars annually: there would be shorter trials, more plea bargains, more civil settlements.
And major trials in future would perhaps focus on what remained beyond the bare facts: motive and intent—hence the assignment of a psychologist like Manning to Kate's case.
Meanwhile, as WormCammed law enforcers went to diligent work over unresolved cases, a huge logjam of new cases was heading for the courts. Some Congressmen had proposed that to maximize the clear-up rate a general amnesty should be declared for crimes of lesser severity committed up to the last full calendar year before the WormCam's invention—an amnesty, that is, in return for waiving of Fifth Amendment protection in the relevant case. In fact, evidence gathering was made so much more powerful, thanks to the WormCam, that Fifth Amendment rights had become moot anyhow. But this was proving highly contentious. Most Americans did not appear to feel comfortable with losing Fifth protection.
Challenges to privacy were even more contentious—made so by the fact that even now there was no accepted definition of privacy rights, even within America. Privacy was not mentioned in the Constitution. The Fourth Amendment to the Bill of Rights spoke of a right against intrusion by the state—but it left a great deal of room for maneuver by those in authority who wished to investigate citizens, and besides offered citizens virtually no protection against other bodies, such as corporations or the press or even other citizens. From a welter of scattershot laws at state and federal levels, as well as a mass of cases in common law to provide precedent, a certain common acceptance of the meaning of privacy had slowly emerged: for instance a right to be "let alone," to be free from unreasonable interference from outside forces.
But all of this was challenged by the WormCam.
Legal safeguards surrounding WormCam use were being promoted, by law-enforcement and investigation agencies like the FBI and the police, as a compensating balance to the loss of privacy and other rights. For example WormCam records intended for legal purposes would have to be collected in controlled circumstances—probably by trained observers, and notarized formally. That wasn't likely to prove a problem, as any WormCam observation could always be repeated as many times as required simply by setting up a new wormhole link to the incident in question.
There were even suggestions that people should be prepared to submit to a form of "documented life." This would effectively grant the authorities legal access to any incident in an individual's past without the need for formal procedures in advance—and it would also be a strong shield against false accusation and identity theft.
But despite protests from campaigners against the erosion of rights, everybody seemed to accept that as far as its use in criminal investigation and prosecution was concerned, the WormCam was here to stay; it was simply too powerful to ignore.
Some philosophers argued that this was no bad thing. After all, humans had evolved to live in small groups in which everybody knew everybody else, and strangers were rarely encountered; it was only recently, in evolutionary terms, that people had been forced to live in larger communities like cities, crammed together with friends and strangers alike. The WormCam was bringing a return to older ways of living, of thinking about other people and interacting with them.
But that was little comfort for those who feared that their perceived need for curtailage—a defined space within which they could achieve solitude, anonymity, reserve and intimacy with loved ones—might no longer be met.
And now, as the WormCam's history-view facilities deepened, even the past was no refuge.
Many people had been hurt, in one way or another, by the revelation of the truth. Many of them blamed not the truth, or themselves, but the WormCam, and those who had infl
icted it on the world.
Hiram himself remained the most obvious target.
At first, Bobby suspected, he had almost enjoyed his notoriety. Any celebrity was good for business. But the hail of threats and assassination and sabotage attempts had worn him down. There were even libel actions, as people claimed Hiram must somehow be fabricating what the WormCam was showing about themselves, their loved ones, their enemies, or their heroes.
Hiram had taken to living in the light. His West Coast mansion was drenched in light from floods powered by multiple generators. He even slept in brilliant illumination. No security system was foolproof, but at least Hiram could ensure that anybody who got through would be visible to the WormCams of the future.
So Hiram lived, skewered by pitiless light, alone, scrutinized, loathed.
The gruesome procedure resumed.
Manning consulted his notebook. "Let me set out some of the facts: incontrovertible historical truths, all properly observed and notarized. First, Kingsley's affair with Ms. Morris wasn't his first in his time with you. He had a short, apparently unsatisfactory fling with another woman beginning a month after he met you. And another six months later."
"No."
"In all, he seems to have had six consummated relationships with other women before you challenged him over Jodie." He smiled. "If it's any consolation he's also cheated on other partners, before and since. He seems to be something of a serial adulterer."
"This is ridiculous. I'd have known."
"But you're also human. I can show you incidents where evidence of Kingsley's unfaithfulness was clearly available to you, yet you turned aside, rationalizing it away without even being aware of what you were doing. Confabulation."
She said coldly, "I've told you how it was. Kingsley started to cheat on me because the miscarriage screwed up our relationship."
"Ah, the miscarriage: the great causal event in your life. But I'm afraid it wasn't like that at all. Kingsley's behavior patterns were well established long before he met you, and were barely altered by the miscarriage incident. You've also said that you believe the miscarriage gave you a spur to working harder at developing your own career."
"Yes. That's obvious."
"This is a little more difficult to establish, but again I can demonstrate to you that the upward trajectory of your career began some months before the miscarriage. Again, you were doing it anyhow; the miscarriage didn't really change anything." He studied her. "Kate, you've constructed a kind of story around the miscarriage. You've wanted to believe that it was significant beyond itself. The miscarriage was a horrible trial for you to endure. But it actually changed very little... I sense you don't believe me."
She said nothing.
Manning steepled his fingers and put them to his chin. "I think you've been both right and wrong about yourself. I think that the miscarriage you suffered did change your life. But not in the rather superficial way you think it did. It didn't make you work harder, or cause cracks in your relationship with Kingsley. But the loss of your child did wound you deeply. And I think you're now driven by a fear that it might happen again."
"A fear?"
"Please believe I'm not judging you. I'm merely trying to explain. Your compensatory activity is your work. Perhaps this deeper fear has driven you to greater achievement, greater success. But you've also become obsessive. It has only been your work that has distracted you from what you see as a terrible darkness at the center of your being. And so you're driven to ever greater lengths."
"Right. And that's why I used Hiram's wormholes to spy on his competitors." She shook her head. "How much do they pay you for this stuff, Doctor?"
Manning paced slowly before his SoftScreen. "Kate, you're one of the first human beings to endure this—umm, this truth shock—but you won't be the last. We are all going to have to learn to live without the comforting lies we whisper to ourselves in the darkness of our minds."
"I'm capable of forming relationships: even long lasting, stable ones. How does that square with your portrait of me as a shock trauma victim?"
Manning frowned, as if puzzled by the question. "You mean Mr. Patterson? But there's no contradiction there." He walked over to Bobby and, with a murmured apology, studied him. "In many ways, Bobby Patterson is one of the most childlike adults I have ever encountered. He is therefore an exact fit for the, umm, the child-shaped hole at the center of your personality." He turned to Kate. "You see?"
She stared at him, her color high.
Chapter 16—THE WATER WAR
Heather sat at her home SoftScreen. She entered fresh search parameters. COUNTRY: Uzbekistan. TOWN: Nukus...
She wasn't surprised to see an attractive turquoise blockout appear before her. Nukus was, after all, a war zone.
But that wouldn't stop Heather for long. She had found reason in her time to find ways past censoring software before. And having access to a WormCam of her own was a powerful motivation. Smiling, she went to work.
When—after much public pressure—the first enterprising companies started offering WormCam access to private citizens via the Internet, Heather Mays was quick to subscribe.
She could even work from home. From a straightforward menu she selected a location to view. This could be anywhere in the world, specified by geographical coordinates or postal address as precisely as she could narrow it down. The mediating software would convert her request to latitude-longitude coordinates, and would offer her further options. The idea was to narrow her selection down until she had reached a specification of a room-sized volume, somewhere on or near the surface of the Earth, where a wormhole mouth would be established.
There was also a randomizing feature if she had no preference: for instance, if she wanted to view some remote picture-postcard coral atoll, but didn't care which. She could even—at additional cost—select intermediate views, so for example she could view a street and select a house to call at."
When she'd made her choice, a wormhole would be opened up between the supplier's central server location and the site of her choice. Images from the WormCam would then be sent direct to her home terminal. She could even guide the viewpoint, within a limited volume.
The WormCam's commercial interface made it feel like a toy, and every image was indelibly marked by intrusive OurWorld logos and ads. But Heather knew that intrinsically the WormCam was much more powerful than it appeared, in this first public incarnation.
When she'd first mastered the system, she was inordinately pleased, and called Mary to come see. "Look," she said, pointing. The 'Cam image was of a nondescript house, in evening summer sunlight; the image frame was plastered with annoying ad logos. "That's the house where I was born, in Boise, Idaho. In that very room, in fact."
Mary shrugged. "Are you going to give me a turn?"
"Sure. In fact I got it for you, in part. Your homework assignments."
"Yeah, yeah."
"Listen, this isn't a toy." Abruptly the 'Screen filled up with a soothing-color blockout.
Mary frowned. "What's wrong?... Oh. I get it. It comes with a nanny filter. So we're still only seeing what they will allow us to see."
The idea was that the WormCams couldn't be used voyeuristically, to spy on people in their homes or other private places, or to breach corporate confidentiality, or to view government buildings, military establishments, police stations and other sensitive places. The nanny software was also supposed to monitor patterns of usage and, in case of morbid or excessive behavior, to break the service and offer counseling, either by expert system or a human agent.
And, for now, only the remote-viewing facilities of the WormCam had been made available. Past-viewing was considered, by a whole slew of experts, to be much too dangerous to be put in the hands of the public—in fact, it was argued, it would be dangerous even to make the existence of the past-viewer facility widely known.
But, of course, all this cotton-wool wrapping would only be as effective as the ingenuity of the human designers beh
ind it. And already, fueled by Internet rumor and industry leaks and speculation, clamor was rising for much wider public access to the WormCam's full power: to the past-viewers themselves.
Heather sensed that this new technology was by its very nature going to be difficult to contain...
But that wasn't something she was about to share with her fifteen-year-old daughter.
Heather cleared down the wormhole and prepared to start a new search. "I need to work. Go. You can play later. One hour only."
With a look of contempt, Mary walked out, and Heather returned her attention to Uzbekistan.
Anna Petersen, USN—heroine of a 24-by-7 WormCam docu-soap—had been heavily involved in the U.S.-led UN intervention in the water war raging in the Aral Sea area. A precision war was being fought by the Allies against the principal aggressor, Uzbekistan: an aggression which had threatened Western interests in oil and sulphur deposits and various mineral production sites, including a major copper source. Bright and technical, Anna had mostly worked on command, control and communications operations.
WormCam technology was changing the nature of warfare, as it had much else. WormCams had already largely replaced the complex of surveillance technology—satellites, monitoring aircraft and land-based stations—which had governed battlefields for decades. If there had been eyes capable of seeing, every major target in Uzbekistan would have sparkled with evanescent wormhole mouths. Precision-guided bombs, cruise missiles and other weapons, many of them no larger than birds, had rained down on Uzbek air-defense centers, military command and control facilities, on bunkers concealing troops and tanks, on hydroelectric plants and natural gas pipelines, and on targets in the cities, such as Samarkand, Andizhan, Namangan and the capital Tashkent.
The precision was unprecedented—and, for the first time in such operations, success could be verified.
Of course, for now, the Allied troops had the upper hand in WormCam deployment. But future wars would have to be fought under the assumption that both sides had perfect and up-to-date information on the strategy, resources and deployment of the other. Heather supposed it was too much to hope that such a change in the nature of war might lead to its cessation altogether. But at least it was giving the warriors pause for thought, and might lead to less meaningless waste.