Jeff. What about his place? Was it possible that he was coming back to school after all? He voiced the question even as it came into his head, and Hildie’s smile broadened.
“He’s coming back tomorrow,” she told him. “Which should make you happy, right? He’s your best friend, isn’t he?”
“Except for Amy,” Josh replied. “Is he still going to be in the seminar?”
“As far as I know.”
“But what’s it about?” Amy asked. “None of the kids who are in it ever talk about it.”
“Well, it’s hardly a big secret,” Hildie replied. “Basically, it’s a class in artificial intelligence.”
Josh’s eyes widened. “Wow. You mean like in teaching computers how to think?”
“Exactly. And since both of you seem to have remarkable abilities in math, we think you’d fit in very well.”
Amy looked uncertain. “I don’t really like computers,” she said. “All the games are kind of dumb, once you’ve played them a couple of times. I mean, it’s always the same stuff, over and over again.”
“And why do you think it’s always the same stuff?” Hildie asked.
Amy looked puzzled by the question, but Josh saw the answer instantly.
“Because all a computer does is put things together the way it’s told to. It can’t figure out anything new, because it can’t think like people can.”
Amy’s brows knit as she concentrated on the idea. “But how could a computer ever think like a person?” she asked.
“That’s what the seminar is all about,” Hildie explained. “Most of what Dr. Engersol is trying to do is learn how people think. In a way, our brains are like computers, but there’s a big difference. Somehow, we manage to put all the data in our heads together and come up with new ideas. Computers can’t do that. A lot of people think that if we can figure out just how our brains come up with new ideas, we might be able to design a computer to do it, too. That’s what artificial intelligence is all about”
“But what would we be doing?” Amy asked.
Hildie shrugged. “Dr. Engersol will have to explain that to you. But I can promise you, you’ll like the seminar. Everyone who’s been in it loves it.” She smiled ruefully. “Unfortunately, I don’t think I understand it enough to know quite why they love it, but they do.”
“I don’t know,” Amy said, fidgeting on the couch. “Do I have to take it? What if I don’t want to?”
“Well, I’m sure if you don’t want to, Dr. Engersol will understand,” Hildie told her. “Of course, you probably won’t get to move down to the second floor, but it’s entirely up to you.”
“The second floor?” Amy asked, her interest suddenly engaged. The rooms on the second floor were much larger than the ones on the third, which had originally been the servants’ quarters when the mansion had been built. “Why would we get to move downstairs?”
Hildie smiled as if it should have been obvious. “It has to do with the seminar. All the students in Dr. Engersol’s class are issued special computers, and the rooms on the third floor are just too small. And since Adam’s room, and Monica’s, are empty …” She left the bait hanging. As she’d been certain would happen, both Amy and Josh snatched at it.
“Could we move downstairs today?” Amy asked eagerly. “This morning?”
Hildie chuckled. “You can move right now, if you want to,” she told them. “Does that mean you both want to join the seminar?”
The two children agreed eagerly. Hildie took two pieces of paper out of a file folder that was already lying on her desk. “In that case, here are your new schedules. Starting tomorrow, you’ll both be going into the new class first period. Amy, you’ll be moved into the mathematics class that meets at two, and I’ve put you into the same one, Josh.”
Josh broke into a smile. “Since we’re taking another class, does that mean we can stop doing P.E.?” he asked eagerly.
Hildie made a face of exaggerated disapproval. “No, it doesn’t mean you can stop doing P.E. But it does mean,” she added, as Josh’s face fell, “that we’ll be making some changes in that, too. So as soon as you leave here, I want you both to go to the gym behind the college field house and see Mr. Iverson. I’ll give you a note telling him why you’re there, and he’ll give you some tests and then help you set up a gym schedule that won’t interfere with any of your classes. Okay?”
Both children, slightly dazed by the sudden change in the schedules that had been set up little more than a week ago, nodded silently, and Hildie handed them the note for Joe Iverson, who headed the university’s physical education program. Years ago, working closely with George Engersol, Iverson had designed a special regimen for the children in the Academy, emphasizing individual sports over team activities.
“None of the kids we’re targeting is going to grow up to be a team player,” Engersol had explained even before they’d taken in their first students. “They’ll all be unique kids, and most if not all of them will have had nothing but bad experiences with team sports. If they’re forced into situations where they have to curtail their intellects in favour of someone else’s physical superiority, they’ll only resent it, and I don’t intend for this Academy to be an unhappy experience for any of them. We’ll have a few kids who love baseball and football, but for the most part physical competition just won’t mean anything to our kids. So I want you to design a program that will give them the exercise they need, but not bore them. Is it possible?”
Iverson had nodded. “Anything’s possible,” he’d agreed, and set to work. What he’d come up with was a program emphasizing swimming, which he knew most kids loved to start with, and gymnastics, which, if one was to achieve any sort of proficiency, demanded nearly as much brain power as muscle development. Furthermore, the sports he’d selected for the kids were individual enough that most of them were able to work their P.E. sessions in at their own convenience, merely appearing at the pool or gym when they had time, so long as they put in a minimum of five hours a week.
For Josh and Amy the choice had been easy — an hour a day in the pool was more like playing than anything else.
Now, they left Hildie Kramer’s office and headed across the lawn and out the gate, then turned left into the main university campus, on the other side of which were the field house, a smaller gym, the pool, and the football stadium. Amy gazed curiously at Josh.
“How come they have to change our P. E.? Why can’t we just keep going swimming every day, like we have been?”
Josh shrugged. “Maybe they have something special for the kids in the seminar.”
“But why?” Amy pressed. “What’s dumb old P.E. got to do with artificial intelligence?”
“Who cares?” Josh grinned. “We get new rooms and new computers, don’t we?”
Amy nodded halfheartedly. The new room was great — she was already looking forward to that. But she didn’t really care about the new computer, and the thing with changing her P.E. program seemed stupid. She started to say something else, then changed her mind. After all, Josh didn’t know any more about the seminar than she did, and the other kids in it hadn’t ever said a word.
That, too, seemed weird to her. How come they all acted like it was a big deal? It was just another class, wasn’t it?
Or was it?
Why did she feel that she’d gotten talked into doing something she didn’t really want to do?
Well, it didn’t matter, really. If it turned out she hated it, they’d probably let her quit. After all, so far they’d never made her do anything she didn’t really want to do.
Or had they?
In her mind she began reviewing the days since she’d first come to the Academy, and the way Hildie Kramer had treated her.