Watch by Robert J. Sawyer

Author:Robert J. Sawyer
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: PENGUIN GROUP (CANADA)

Underneath that, in red Magic Marker, Barb had written, “Oh, yes you can, Honey!” And Malcolm had every intention of being brilliant later in the day. But for right now, he needed to do something that didn’t involve Ashtekar variables, the Kodama state, or spin-foam models.

And, yes, he was a geek; he knew that. He rather reveled in the notion, and had been quite pleased back when he and Barb were first dating that she had worn a button that said “I (heart) nerds.”

Indeed, it was the nerd in him that had been bothered thirty years ago when, in one issue of Superman, the giant yellow key shown outside the Man of Steel’s Fortress of Solitude had been drawn the wrong shape to fit in the giant keyhole in the Fortress’s door. That sort of spatial anomaly leapt out at him.

He’d carefully sketched various shapes that might have passed through the depicted keyhole, and outlined a series of transformations to the key that could have made it fit. He’d sent the whole thing off to DC Comics in New York, and had gotten back a form letter saying they weren’t currently open to freelance submissions. He’d been miffed—he hadn’t been looking for work but merely wanted them to get the geometry correct in future issues. It had been only one of many times he’d failed to communicate properly with neurotypicals.

Neurotypicals. He liked that term, which was very much in vogue among autism activists. Malcolm, in fact, had noted a lot of parallels between how the militant part of the autistic community spoke about itself and the rhetoric used by blind activists. Neither group liked the majority to be referred to as normal, since that implied that they were abnormal.

The procedure Dr. Kuroda had performed in September had hardly been the first time they’d attempted to give Caitlin sight, and Caitlin, he knew, had taken flak over the earlier tries from some students at the Texas School for the Blind. To set out to cure blindness implied that there was something wrong with it—and, the militants firmly believed, there wasn’t. No, they said, the drives to eliminate blindness (or autism!) came not from those who possessed the trait in question but rather from the people around them. Sighted people were uncomfortable around the blind, and neurotypicals were—he’d heard it said often enough—creeped out by autistics.

Malcolm did understand intellectually how hard it was on Barb and Caitlin that he rarely showed affection, and even more rarely spoke about his love for them. But he had made such progress—if they only knew! He hadn’t said his first sentences until he was four, and had never looked at people (they were so uninteresting, with no angles in their construction); now, at least, he could make brief eye contact with his wife and daughter when necessary. He knew he’d never feel precisely what neurotypicals felt, but he had learned, at least to some small degree, to ape their behavior.

He crossed the little corridor, entered the

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