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Nostrils flaring, face flushed, Bash glared at the stubborn Dubsters, who remained unimpressed by his fevered speech.

The stalemate was broken when a segment of the bookshelves seemingly detached itself and stepped forward.

The moving portion of the bookcases possessed a human silhouette. In the next second the silhouette went white, revealing a head-to-toe suit of proteopape. This suit, Bash realized, must represent one of the newest third-generation Parametrics camo outfits. The myriad moletronic cameras in the rear of the suit captured the exact textures and lighting of the background against which the wearer stood, and projected the mappings onto the front of the clothing. The wearer received his visual inputs on the interior of the hood from the forward array of cameras. Gauzy portions of the hood allowed easy breathing, at the spotty sacrifice of some of the disguise’s hi-res.

A hand came up to sweep the headgear backward, where it draped like a loose cowl on the individual’s back. The face thus revealed belonged to a young Hispanic man with a thin mustache.

“My name is Tito Harnnoy, and I represent the Masqueleros. We will help you, hombre!”

6

The Manchurian Candidate

Tito Harnnoy drove his battered industrial-model two-person Segway down Mass Ave toward Cambridge. Riding behind Harnnoy, Bash experienced a creeping nostalgia, not altogether pleasant, that grew stronger the closer they approached his old alma mater, MIT.

Although Bash, once he became rich, had given generously to his university, endowing entire buildings, scholarship funds, research programs and tenured positions, he had not returned physically to the campus since graduation. The university held too many memories of juvenile sadness and loneliness blended with his culminating triumph. Whenever Bash cast his thoughts back to those years, he became again to some degree the geeky prodigy, a person he felt he had since outgrown. His maturity always a tenuous proposition, Bash felt it wisest not to court such retrogressive feelings. But now, apparently, he had no choice but to confront his past self.

Harnnoy broke Bash’s reverie by saying, “Just a few smoots away from help, pard.”

Indeed, they were crossing the Charles River into Cambridge. The scattered structures of MIT loomed ahead, to east and west.

Bash noted extraordinary activity on the water below. “What’s happening down there?” he asked Harnnoy.

“Annual Dragon Boat Festival. Big Asian carnival today, pard.”

Harnnoy brought the scooter to a gyroscopic stop nearly below the shadow of the Great Dome and they dismounted. Walking into the embrace of the buildings that comprised the Infinite Corridor, they attained grassy Killian Court. The bucolic campus scene reflected the vibrant July day.

Several artists were “painting” the passing parade from various perspectives, employing smart styluses on canvases of proteopape. Depending on the applications the artists used, their strokes translated into digitized pastels or charcoal, acrylics or oils, ink or pencil or watercolor. Some had style filters in place, producing instant Monets or Seurats.

Elsewhere a kite-fighting contest was underway. Made of proteopape with an extra abundance of special MEMS, the kites could flex and flutter their surfaces and achieve dynamic, breeze-assisted flight. Tetherless, they were controlled by their handlers who employed sheets of conventional proteopape on the ground that ran various strategy programs and displayed the kites’-eye view. Curvetting and darting, the lifelike kites sought to batter aerial opponents and knock them from the sky without being disabled in turn.

Elsewhere, sedentary proteopape users read magazines or newspapers or books, watched various videofeeds, mailed correspondents, telefactored tourist autonomes around the globe, or performed any of a hundred other proteopape-mediated functions.

Conducting Bash through the quad and toward the towering Building 54, Harnnoy