Miriam turned to glare at her friend, now a brown-haired little English witch. "Will you shut down, Annette!" Then back to Juan: "But she's right, Orozco. We gotta decide tonight. How about this: You come by my place at 6pm tonight and we talk."

Bertie was smiling with smug satisfaction.

"Well, yuh," said Juan. "But ... in person?"

"Of course. This is a local-team project."

"Yeah, okay then. I'll come over." There must be some way out of this. What was Bertie up to?

She took a step forward and held out her hand. "Shake."

He reached out and shook it. The little electric shock was surely his imagination, but the sudden burst of information was not: two emphatic sentences sparkling across his vision.

Miriam Gu and her friends turned away, and walked back along the driveway. There was the sound of muffled giggling. He watched them for a moment. The video-geek was going full-tilt, picture and sound from a million old movies and news stories. Annette could retrieve and arrange video archives so easily that imaging came as naturally to her as speech. Annette was a type of genius. Or maybe there are other flavors of little blue pills.

Dumboso. Juan turned away from them and started toward the bikestand.

"So what did Miri Gu tell you?" when she shook hands. Bertie's tone was casual.

How could he answer that question without getting Bertie dipped all over again? "It's strange. She said if she and I team, she doesn't want anyone remote participating."

"Sure, it is a local exam. Just show me the message."

"That's the strange part. She guessed that you were still hanging around. She said, in particular, if I show you the message or let you participate, she'll find out and she'll drop the exam, even if it means getting an F." And in fact, that was the entire content of the message. It had a kind of nonnegotiable flavor that Juan envied.