text: Caitlin left the gym and headed out to find the girls' room. She knew the feel of the corridors well enough from when she'd been a student, but walking them now without her white cane was difficult. It took her much longer than it should have to find the right room; she'd never had cause to use the first-floor washroom before.
  
  Canadians were forever pointing out their inventions to her, and someone had told her that the stylized male and female silhouettes used on washroom doors—which she'd now seen in several buildings—had been originally designed for the 1967 World's Fair in Montreal, which explained why the woman was wearing a miniskirt.
  
  When Caitlin was finished, making her way back to the gym was easier. Just as when she'd been blind, she'd unconsciously taken note of the distance she'd traveled—and, of course, the blaring music coming from the gym served as a beacon.
  
  She re-entered the vast, warm room. Mr. Heidegger and redheaded Mrs. Zehetoffer were both right by the gym door; they said someone from another school had tried to get in unaccompanied, so they were now standing watch here. Caitlin crossed the gym, but—
  
  It took her a few seconds to figure out what had happened. The door leading directly outside was closed now. She located it, found the handle, opened it, and headed out into the evening; it was no brighter out here than it had been in the gym, and—
  
  And something was very wrong.
  
  "I told you to stay away from her." It was the Hoser's voice.
  
  Caitlin looked around, trying to parse the scene. There were fifteen people here, standing on concrete in the back of the school next to what she knew was a large athletic field.
  
  Matt was to her left, and near him was Trevor Nordmann, who had blond hair and wide shoulders. Others, who had presumably been standing about chatting earlier, were now facing Trevor. He apparently hadn't seen Caitlin yet, and, for that matter, neither had Matt, who had his deer-in-the-headlights face on.
  
  "Well?" demanded Trevor. "Didn't I?"
  
  Matt spoke up, but, of course, his voice cracked by the third word. "You don't have the right to—"
  
  "The fuck I don't," said Trevor.
  
  Caitlin's heart was pounding, and she was sure Matt's must be, too. Of course, he could run away; Trevor might chase after him, or he might let him go, but—
  
  But Matt caught sight of Caitlin and he looked—well, a way that Caitlin had never seen before, but it might have been mortified or humiliated, and—
  
  And it must be bad enough to be confronted by a bully in private, but to have it occur in front of the girl you're trying to impress probably made Matt want to curl up and die. Caitlin looked at the faces, but she'd only been a student here for a few days after gaining sight; she might very well have known most of these people, but she didn't recognize them—oh, wait, except for Sunshine; her platinum hair and the low-cut red top were quite distinctive.
  
  Matt made a noise—maybe a sigh?—but then he caught sight of something else. Caitlin was even worse at following people's gazes than she was at extrapolating what they were pointing at, but she soon realized that Matt was looking above her—above the dark red door that Caitlin had closed behind her.
  
  Trevor must have caught the glance, too. "Whatcha going to do, Reese? Go running for a teacher?"
  
  But Matt shook his head slowly, deliberately. "What are you going to do, Trevor?" His voice cracked, but he pressed on. "Hit me? Kick me? Cut with me with a knife?" And then he lifted his arm and pointed at Caitlin, and—
  
  No! No, again it wasn't at her; it was above her. "You see that?" There was a black hemisphere attached to the bottom of an overhang above the door. "That's a security camera." He turned and pointed again. "There's another over there."
  
  He then reached into his pocket and pulled out his BlackBerry. "And, if that's not enough, this has a five-megapixel camera." Matt stood defiantly. "The day of the bully is over," he said. "I don't have to fight you; I don't have to become you to defeat you."
  
  Trevor's voice was a snarl. "You want a record of you being shitkicked? Fine."
  
  But Matt kept his own tone even. "And look at Caitlin," he said, nodding in her direction. "Everything you do is being seen by her eye—and everything her eye sees is instantaneously transmitted to servers in Japan. What you do here tonight will be recorded permanently. What you do here tonight will be accessible until the end of time. What you do here tonight will become part of the permanent record of who Trevor Nordmann is."
  
  Matt looked around at the motionless crowd. Caitlin was terrified. He was expecting someone like Trevor to listen to reason, when—
  
  "Go ahead, Trevor," said Matt. "Hit a guy who weighs twenty kilos less than you do. Hit a guy who has half the muscle mass you do. Prove to the world—for all time, Trevor, in a record that your children and your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren will be able to access on down to the heat death of the universe—that you're a real man because you can beat up someone smaller than you. Make that case for posterity."
  
  Trevor's face contorted; Caitlin figured that was what being livid looked like, although it was dark enough that she couldn't actually see if his skin had changed color.
  
  Matt went on. "And, of course, what Caitlin sees, Webmind sees. He's watching."
  
  The words Indeed I am flashed in Caitlin's vision.
  
  Caitlin was terrified; Trevor looked like he was going to explode. But Matt pressed ahead, his voice somehow both shaky and firm at the same time. "And, just so you know, we live in a world of laws. Hitting someone is battery, and it's a criminal-code offense here in Ontario—and if you hit me, I will press charges, Trevor Nordmann, and I will win. That's not a threat: that's information so you can plan your own next move more effectively."
  
  "My next move," Trevor said, his eyes locked on Matt, "is going to be to kick your fucking ass."
  
  In the circle around them, one of the students said, "Fight ..." and "Fight ..." echoed another.
  
  Caitlin had read scenes like this in books, but although the blind were no less violent than anyone else, there hadn't been many schoolyard brawls at the TSBVI. "Webmind," Caitlin said softly, "how long would it take for the police to get here?"
  
  Assuming they dispatched the nearest car immediately, six minutes.
  
  Caitlin scowled; an eternity—and she doubted the cops would consider this a high priority.
  
  "Fight ..." said someone else, and "Fight ..." added another.
  
  Of course, she could run inside, get one of the teachers, but—
  
  But Matt must have been thinking the same thing, for he looked right at her, and firmly shook his head; he didn't want that.
  
  More voices now as others joined in: "Fight ...fight ...fight ..." The chant was low, rhythmic, almost tribal. Caitlin looked from face to face, unable to identify anyone. She could recognize voices when people were speaking normally, but this chanting was guttural and low.
  
  "Fight ...fight ...fight ..."
  
  Trevor's posture changed. He hunched over a bit, and his hands balled into fists. The light, coming mostly from a lamppost set into the concrete, was harsh, and it made his features look sharp.
  
  "Fight ...fight ...fight ..."
  
  Caitlin had read about women who got excited when men fought over them, as if their own self-worth was tied up in such a battle. But she didn't want this—not at all. She didn't want Matt hurt; she didn't want anyone hurt.
  
  "Fight ...fight ...fight ..."
  
  Not everyone was chanting. Sunshine wasn't; several other boys and girls weren't, either.
  
  Caitlin pulled out her red BlackBerry and activated the video function. She aimed it at Matt and Trevor as they slowly circled each other.
  
  The chanting of "fight" continued, but Caitlin spoke overtop of it, clearly and firmly, holding her BlackBerry out like a small shield: "Sight!" She began to pan it left and right, taking in the whole chanting crowd.
  
  She looked over at Sunshine, partway around the circle to her left. The tall girl seemed baffled for a moment, but then Caitlin saw her open her purse and fish out her own cell phone. She swung it left and right, too.
  
  "Sight!" Caitlin said again, and Sunshine echoed it: "Sight!"
  
  Next to Sunshine, a boy Caitlin didn't recognize pulled out his phone and held it in front of him. "Sight!" he said, and the three of them repeated it. "Sight! Sight! Sight!" It wasn't guttural; their voices were clear and strong.
  
  But others were still chanting, "Fight ...fight ...fight ..."
  
  Two girls on Caitlin's right pulled out their phones, and a boy had something bulkier in his hand that Caitlin guessed must be a video camera, which he slowly panned over the tableau. They added their voices to Caitlin's chorus: "Sight! Sight! Sight!"
  
  "Fight ...fight ...fight ..."
  
  More phones and cameras came out. "Sight!" "Fight ..." "Sight!" "Fight ..."
  
  A few flashes went off, one after the other. They reminded Caitlin of the lightning bolts from that night when everything had changed, and—
  
  And the chanting of "Fight ..." began to fade away. Caitlin let "Sight!" be repeated five more times, then she spoke loudly to Trevor, indicating all the cell phones being held out—all the little rectangles glowing in the gathering darkness. "Three-hundred-and-sixty-degree coverage," she said. "The police could reconstruct the scene in 3-D if they wanted to."
  
  Trevor looked at Caitlin, then back at Matt.
  
  "So," said Matt, his voice holding steady, "what's it going to be, Trevor? Who are you—for the record?"
  
  Trevor looked around the circle, and it reminded Caitlin of that moment in 2001: A Space Odyssey in which the lead australopithecine had first encountered the monolith; he'd stared at it, and slowly, ponderously, worked out in his dim fashion that the world had changed.
  
  Trevor's head nodded up and down a little. Caitlin was still learning to gauge these things, but it seemed to her that it wasn't meant as a signal to others; rather, it was a sign that he was thinking.
  
  And, at last, Trevor unclenched his fists. He glared at Caitlin and then at Matt, and then he turned, and slowly started walking. The crowd parted. Caitlin wondered if they hadn't opened quite so large a hole whether Trevor would have made a show of bumping into someone—an assault he could dismiss as accidental. But they didn't give him that opportunity, and he continued on. At first Caitlin thought he was heading for the door to the gymnasium, but he walked right past it, heading out into the chilly night.
  
  Caitlin surged forward and gathered Matt in a hug. His body was shaking, and she could feel his heart beating as they pressed together. After a moment, she released him enough so that she could kiss him on the lips—and she didn't care one whit how many records of that were being made.
  
  When they separated, Sunshine loomed in, and she squeezed Caitlin's upper arm affectionately. "That was awesome," she said.
  
  Caitlin found herself grinning. "Yeah, I guess it was."
  
  She took Matt's hand, and they opened the heavy red door and walked back inside. A new song was playing, and—
  
  And, no, no, it wasn't a new song. It must have been somebody's request—maybe one of the teachers, because it was an old song, one her mother sometimes listened to. But Caitlin liked it, too.
  
  And yes, as she draped her arms around Matt's neck again and they started to dance, she supposed you could say she was a dreamer—but she was sure she wasn't the only one.