All fawns stagger but not several days after birth. The fawn is sick. We are waiting for the herd to leave it behind as they forage for food. We watch the big buck begin striding away. The other deer follow and soon only the fawn's mother remains with her quivering infant. The pack moves in from two directions. The mother moves about, frantically pawing and kicking but our two big males run her off. Meanwhile, we move in and take the fawn down, tearing it apart as it dies.

The moment I raise my head, Sara wraps her arms about me, pressing her body to mine. Kiss her roughly as I run my hands possessively, intimately over her body. Then I get up and move to the bathroom.

When I walk out, Sara has left my room. Walk out my bedroom door and see Soji moving down the hall. Press one knuckle to my lips in greeting and get a nod in return. Open her bedroom door and hear the toilet flush. She moves to her dresser but I take her wrist and pull her to me, my hands on her body and my mouth on hers. She is completely responsive, her mouth open, her arms about my neck, giving herself to me. Turn to go.

"Jill," she whispers.

Turn to look at her, illuminated only by the light from the bathroom. Oh my, but she is beautiful. When she smiles and says nothing, I turn and walk to my bedroom.

Participate in the workout and the practice combat at the dojo but I withdraw from the combat sessions. Soji sits out with me to observe the `broken wing' scenario. Each `victim' has an arm wrapped to simulate injury and hamper movement, and then defends against an attack by two unrestricted opponents.

Sara is unrestricted in the first round and helps to finish the `victim' quickly. As the `victim' in the second round, she `kills' one opponent but gets `killed' by the second. Those of us who are observing provide comment and answer questions for the participants. Sara volunteers to be a victim for a final round while Soji and I withdraw for a massage. Later, Sara walks into the dressing room flushed with victory. She succeeded in `killing' both her opponents even with a broken wing. While Soji gives her a massage, I take a shower.

The master and I walk in the garden as I explain that I have hired Tony George to administer operational security and Sara to take over for Ume by the end of the month. He promises to provide both Sara and Tony with support.

Sara joins us in the garden, where I introduce her to the master. Kneeling before him, she touches her forehead to the ground and tells him that meeting him does her great honor. After helping her stand, the master explains to Sara about establishing the temple and the dojo here in the Western United States with my patronage. We discuss the land I have given to the temple in perpetuity and the foundation that provides for development and maintenance.

Over breakfast at Carter's, Sara and I negotiate her income, benefits and bonus schedule, which will make her wealthy. Of course, she will increase my wealth significantly in the process. Sara insists upon a 24-hour female bodyguard; eventually, she wants to recruit and hire her personal bodyguard.

We also discuss her initial findings from beginning the audit yesterday. Le and Mei have followed their instincts instead of accounting and audit practices for the sake of expediency in a few cases. By establishing critical procedures and enabling features in the mainframe applications, Sara has made sure that such oversights will not re-occur.

Ask her for more detail about her computing background. Even before she begins her reply, I can tell from her facial expression and body language that she is not comfortable with this subject. She tries several ruses, including sexual teasing, to change the subject. When I persist, she looks at me for several seconds, and says, "I don't want to discuss this, Jill. Besides, it will take time."

"We've worked out and eaten breakfast. We have time now, Sara."

She begins to smile and then looks into my eyes, and says, "Be careful what you ask me, Jill. I don't want to tell you, but I will if you insist."

Consider that for a while as we share a long look. Okay, this woman is deeply thoughtful for her age of twenty-four. Obviously, she has a big life behind her already, but then so did I at her age. Recall events that I have never discussed with anyone, for example, the way I hired Ume. "I'll set aside my question for now," I tell her, purely on instinct. "I want to know something else first. Tell me how you think."

"What?"

Elbows on the table, fingertips touching, I say, "What I'm about to tell you, I've never told anyone, Sara. Forgive me if I have difficulty explaining this." She nods, so I continue, "All my life, I've operated on logic and instinct, which means that once I understand a situation, I know what to do and I almost always do it immediately. I say almost because sometimes I need the knowledge and consent of a person or other people before I can act." Pausing, I look at her, wondering if she's tracking.

Sara nods and says, "I understand perfectly. Please continue."

Hurrying now that I can visualize what it is that I want to tell her, I say, "When I met Ume, my instincts told me that she was the one to help me shape the world. Problem was my logic told me that I needed her knowledge and consent, offered freely, before I could ask her to help me. The other problem was that she was a slave. . . ."

"Excuse me, Jill."

"What?"

"You're telling me about someone I don't know. Who is Ume?"

"My board chair."

"Yesterday, you wouldn't even tell me her name. I thought she was none of my business."

"That was before I hired you."

"Ume is my business now that you have employed me?"

"Of course. You report to her."

"You told me that you needed her knowledge and consent to help you shape the world. You were about to tell me that when you met Ume, she was a slave. Please continue."

Study her for a moment, convinced that Sara is not showing off the precision with which she recalls words and events. She is preparing to answer my question—to tell me how she thinks. Speaking more deliberately now, I tell her, "Ume was a slave and a prostitute. I hired her as my guide at the Sapporo Olympics."

"So, this is January 1972," says Sara. "You're twenty-three years old, enlisted in the Air Force and serving in Japan. JP Performance in the US and ANZ Fleet Services in Australia are operating profitably in the hands of people you trust."

Tapping a fork handle with one finger, I look at her.

"At this point in your life," continues Sara, "you have just begun this new direction after almost a year in basic and technical training in . . . Texas. Without even defining your motive, you form a rough plan for shaping the world by establishing profitable businesses and then finding trustworthy people to run those businesses. You recognize these people by two traits—their intelligence, characterized by a keen business sense, and their loyalty, characterized by a willingness to disagree with you and even criticize you to your face. They become wealthy and you become wealthier. However, while you want to shape the world, you do not yet understand how you want to shape it and why."

When Sara stops talking, I say, "After a few days with Ume, I realize how smart, independent and . . . loyal she can be. Calling on my closest friends, I spent weeks winning her trust and devotion. Once I won her over, I purchased her freedom and gave her stewardship over my wealth and secrets."

"When you enlisted in the Air Force, Jill, you left JP Performance in the hands of someone you could trust. What was her name?

"Anna Martine."

When you left Australia, you left ANZ Fleet Services in someone's capable hands. What was her name?

"Maria Pacienza."

"Both women still work for you?"

"Yes."

Counting off by touching the fingers of her left hand with the index finger of her right, Sara says, "Anna, Maria, Ume—there are probably others—and now you have recruited me, which was unnecessary. I want to work for you despite the fact that you're a bitch with a titanium heart plated in depleted uranium. You already suspect that my intelligence is several orders of magnitude greater than yours and, of course, it is. What else do you want to know about me?"

Still tapping the fork handle, I look into her unflinching eyes for a couple seconds then say, "Tell me how you think, how you understand the world and your experience in it."

"Why?"

"I suspect that I have much more to exploit in you and I want to know what it is."

"Let me ask you one more time, Jill. Please think carefully. . . ."

"God damn it, Sara," I tell her evenly. "Tell me."

Sara sips at her water and says, "Mathematics and memory." She inhales deeply and releases a ragged sigh. "I understand mathematics without effort and I never forget anything." She looks at me for a moment, rubbing her palms, probably because they are damp from the condensation on her glass of ice water.

When people tell a story more than once, it is obviously practiced. The familiar concepts fall into routine phrases and practiced body language. However, when people are talking about something for the first time, they must make up new phrases and they have no idea what body language they're using. Obviously, Sara has never discussed her mathematical ability and her memory with anyone.

"As a little girl, I make decisions. One is not to study math formally any more than normal schooling requires so I can hide my gift. Study it and think about it on my own. Another is to study business and law. I hold two degrees, Jill."

"You told me you have an MBA from Northwestern."

"I also hold a law degree."

"An eidetic memory would be handy in the study of law."

"Don't state the obvious. Just listen," she says. "Imagine that you are in a cloud of lights."

Frown. A cloud of lights? I picture light strings, light points, massive lights like stars gone nova, all within a glowing cloud. Looking at her, I nod.

"Each light is an idea: a concept, an event, a scene, a conversation, a document, a song, a photograph and so on. You have never detected boundaries of this cloud."

Feel my frown deepen. This is difficult. Suddenly I have a real-world metaphor—my mind. Live in my mind, a product of my brain, which is bounded by my skull but I know no limits to what I can imagine. Nod again.

"Your light cloud grows but remains stable. You add lights to it but you never lose a light or forget its connection to other lights. Okay?"

"Yes."

"One day at thirteen, you change two concepts. First, you decide a cloud is too limiting so you begin calling it a universe of lights instead. Second, you form new patterns among the lights, new ways to relate to your knowledge. Call them constellations, except you are not limited to a fixed perspective as we are on earth. You can look at the constellations from any perspective." Sara pauses to move the dishes, glasses and silverware out of her way. The waitress notices and picks up our dishes.

"Would you like tea, Sara?" I ask.

"Yes, please."

The waitress smiles and removes our plates. "Be right back," she whispers.

Look into Sara's eyes, giving her my attention.

She continues, "At fifteen, you begin to abstract by copying lights from anywhere in the universe and placing them in new and strange patterns within a galaxy. You form numerous galaxies, shrink them and simply push them aside to retrieve any time you wish. You set these galaxies in motion within given circumstances to see what may develop over time passing at a rapid rate. When you retrieve them, you see what has transpired." Sara stops and looks at me.

Sara has set something in motion, something she keeps secret. Since she studies privately to hide her mathematical ability, she probably keeps her programming ability secret as well. Of course! Sara developed a program that runs on computers that communicate. What did Alvin call it? Oh yes, an inter-network, or internet.

Recall the internet from the papers that Alvin sent me. In '69 or '70, the government funded research on computer networks at educational institutions like the universities in Massachusetts, Utah and California. Around 1980, a computer program brought the entire network down because it could replicate itself like a . . . bacteria; no, a virus. By 1983, last year, over a hundred computer nodes were communicating. Last year, the federal government split off MILNET, a military network, from CSNET, a computer science network.

Wait! If Sara is running a virus on networked computers'the internet, then other skilled programmers would detect it and remove it . . . unless she made it undetectable.

"Sara," I ask, "Once you graduated from Northwestern, a few months passed before you accepted a job with the firm you are with now. What did you do during that time?"

She shrugs. "I checked out a few doctoral research programs but decided to begin working instead." She grins, lighting up the surrounding area. "I needed the money to pay off my educational loans."

What research field would Sara study if she did not want to attract attention to her natural gifts of mathematics and memory? Sounds like crap to me, but I decide to stick with my line of questioning. "Where did you go to check out these doctoral programs?" Another shrug, "Places that do research: MIT, Wisconsin, Michigan, Utah, Berkeley, Santa Barbara and Stanford."

Those are schools with hosts connected to CSNET! A series of concepts tumble into my mind in rapid succession. Sara developed a computer program that operates undetected on computer networks. She introduced the program to one of the government-funded networks, probably CSNET, and then toured the computing research sites to assure her self that it was operating. No one knows that her program is running on the internet. What is it doing?

Suddenly, I know. Sara's program snoops data, then remembers the location of the data so she can retrieve it anytime she wants it. All she has to do is access a computer terminal, call up the program and ask it questions . . . or submit queries as Alvin calls it.

We pause while the waitress serves our tea. Sign the check.

How did Sara make the program undetectable? Why, she has already told me. She shrunk it and hid it, just like she did with the galaxies running rapidly in her mind.

Question: How did Ume find out about Sara and her little secret?

As I stir my tea, waiting for it to cool, I say, "You mentioned that one way your mind works is you set thought processes in motion within given circumstances to see what develops over time. Right?"

"Yes," says Sara, eyes unfocused, absently stirring her tea.

"You also said that you could shrink those processes, push them aside and retrieve them any time you wish."

Sara's hand holding the spoon pauses above her tea. Slowly, carefully, she sets down the spoon and lifts her eyes to mine.

Pick up my cup and say, "Hypothetical situation, Sara. You develop a virus and compress it to an undetectable size. The virus' purpose is to tabulate data and its location, to replicate itself and to remain undetected. Last year, you drop it into CSNET. Your virus crosses the gateway and travels around ARPANET collecting data just before the government splits off just over half the hosts into MILNET. All hosts become infected but no one knows. You can access any host on the internet using a terminal, call up the data stored by your viral routines and retrieve the data any time you want."

Sara's mouth drops open as she stares at me.

Sip at my tea. "You'll let it run around gathering data. In ten or fifteen years, the internet will connect millions of hosts all over the world—and off-planet, maybe. You can review the data any time you want from the security and privacy of your home or office." Setting down my cup, I add, "Congratulations, Sara. You have the world by its big, hairy testicles and it doesn't even know. Oh, and don't bother learning to play poker. You don't have the face for it."

She closes her mouth and looks at her cup. She sips tea, sets down her cup and says, "They're starting to call it the Internet with a capital I now—over a thousand hosts today and growing." When I look at her, saying nothing, she says, "Le, Mei and Tony warned me."

"About?"

"They said you rarely forget anything and that you frequently make leaps of logic."

Actually, Ume does that far better than I do. Somehow, Ume figured out what Sara did, perhaps from Donny, and then sent SIA after her to investigate. Ume waited for a circumstance in which we logically call in Sara to audit the books. That circumstance was Le and Mei's relationship.

Still looking at me, Sara asks, "So what do we do?"

"Keep it secret. Keep it safe."

"I know that but we need to talk about this."

"Yes, we do. How about this weekend?"

She inhales deeply, sighs audibly and nods. Picking up her cup, Sara sips her tea and returns the cup to the saucer. Suddenly, she does not appear nervous at all.

Hiding my smile with the teacup, I realize that Ume understands Sara better than I do, better than Sara understands herself. Sara wants a place to build wealth and power in peace. She has found that place—the vast labyrinth of Pere's underground headquarters. Under Ume's matriarchy and SIA's protection, Sara can reap the harvest of data that she planted in the world's garden. Ume—the Ainu spider—has enticed Sara into her web so that she can gain control of both Sara and her code.

Following my instincts to drop the subject, I ask, "So, Mei and Le are clean?"

"Yes, and fiscally conservative," says Sara. "Pere is actually worth more than you know, depending upon one's definition of acceptable risk and how one reports revenue and profit. Your little company, as you call it, is in good hands. The rest of my team will be here today. We'll finish the audit by tomorrow and I'll hand you the report on Friday."

"Good. Are we finished here?"

"Yes, thank you for a wonderful meal."

We stand and walk to the door, pausing to thank the waitress. Drive home as Sara relaxes beside me.

"I enjoyed last night and this morning," says Sara. "You're really good, Jill." When I smile at her, she says only, "Mm," and leans her head back.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License