Navvy Jim plays rock-paper-scissors against the mirror. It is a difficult opponent to beat. He has settled into a comfortable routine of playing rock \u2014 little reason to shift it up until he has a better handle on his opponent \u2014 but he has yet to do any better than a tie.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s almost seen it, though.<\/p>\n
The mirror-Jim isn\u2019t quite the same as Navvy Jim, after all. The mirror-Jim is flipped right to left. The mirror-Jim is seen<\/em> whereas a navvier real Jim is<\/em>; and, as the symmetry itself reveals, the two things are not and cannot be the same.<\/p>\n All he must do is exploit an opening, where the mirror-Jim is seen<\/em> to throw rock, while Navvy Jim does <\/em>throw paper \u2014 before, of course, the mirror-Jim does the same \u2014<\/p>\n His eyes burn brightly.<\/p>\n He thinks his way into his mirror-self. He chases its horizontally-flipped thoughts. He begins to build a bridge of understanding to the self he sees himself as; begins to integrate it; begins to understand the patterns of the seen, and there is a rising glee in him as he starts to understand how to \u2014<\/p>\n His mirror-eyes look up, startledly, as if seeing something behind him. A moment later, the real Jim sees it too; it distracts him; there is a semi-circle of the Lethal students in their yellow hats standing behind him in Eldri\u2019s bathroom \u2014<\/p>\n He cannot remember what it was that he was thinking. The glow in his eyes dims. His mirror-self, which he was certain was looking in a slightly different direction than his real self, is now reflecting him exactly in the glass.<\/p>\n Paper, and paper. A tie, again.<\/p>\n \u201cEmily,\u201d he says, plaintively, \u201cI had almost beaten him.\u201d<\/p>\n Emily tilts her head.<\/p>\n He sighs.<\/p>\n \u201cA robot needs a little privacy,\u201d he says. \u201cSometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n He gestures around the bathroom.<\/p>\n Emily lifts an eyebrow.<\/p>\n He sighs.<\/p>\n \u201cI am going to go recharge,\u201d he says, with the stiff dignity of a rock-paper-scissors-playing robot, and he turns, and he walks away through them, and they disperse; they scatter like starlings and they are gone.<\/p>\n The summer is ending.<\/p>\n \u201cImagine,\u201d says Navvy Jim, a few days later, \u201ca perfect paper-playing robot.\u201d<\/p>\n Emily leans back against the hillside. She imagines it. \u201cJust how perfect?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell,\u201d he says, \u201cit can\u2019t beat scissors, of course.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI see.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut,\u201d he says, and he holds out his hand, flat, swims it through the air, \u201cit\u2019s really good paper. It\u2019s not, like, casual about it. It\u2019s paper at the level of the divine. Paper that has shed all the detritus of scissors, of rock, of ambiguity in it and become something pure.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI can imagine!\u201d<\/p>\n He is quiet for a while. Then he says, \u201cYou should not have your yellow, yellow hat, Emily, nor be in your yellow House.\u201d<\/p>\n She licks her lips.<\/p>\n She stares up at blue sky and silvered clouds.<\/p>\n \u201cThey need me,\u201d she says. After a while, she says, \u201cBesides, we\u2019re not really like paper. We\u2019re more like . . . like dynamite.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cDynamite is illegitimate,\u201d says Navvy Jim.<\/p>\n \u201cDynamite is awesome!\u201d says Emily. \u201cDynamite blows up paper and<\/em> rock!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI have played many games of rock-paper-scissors,\u201d says Navvy Jim, modestly. \u201cAnd I have never seen a game that was actually improved by the addition of dynamite.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou are an old fogey,\u201d she says. She flicks him in the metal belly with a finger, producing a ringing sound. \u201cYou are just too conservative<\/em> for dynamite, jaguar\u2019s claw, hobbit-Spock-spider, and other innovative playing techniques<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI am so looking forward to being in my boxes again,\u201d says Navvy Jim.<\/p>\n \u201cMean!\u201d<\/p>\n He laughs.<\/p>\n \u201cFine,\u201d he says. \u201cOK. Dynamite, then. Why not? Three options are inefficient in any case. But even a perfect dynamite-playing robot would \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n He stops.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI am trying not to say \u2018blow up,\u2019\u201d says Navvy Jim, \u201cbecause my point requires me to say \u2018lose to scissors.\u2019 However, my humor subroutine is flinging my sensibilities around judo-style in my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n Emily giggles.<\/p>\n After a while, he sighs.<\/p>\n \u201cYou do understand, though?\u201d<\/p>\n She reaches for the sky, as if to pluck the moon.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah,\u201d she says. \u201cI get it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA human,\u201d he says. \u201cEven a robot. A human can play all kinds of things. A human can grow. A human can learn. But I am afraid for you, in your yellow hat, because of the specificity of your perfection.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m afraid, too,\u201d she says, softly.<\/p>\n \u201cThen change,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d she says. She sits up. She turns. She looks at him. She takes his hands. \u201cI\u2019m afraid, because you were going to break the world. You were, Navvy Jim. Not anyone else was.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat is an exaggeration,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cA perfect rock-paper-scissors-playing robot can\u2019t exist, Navvy Jim. A mirror-beating rock-paper-scissors player \u2014 that can\u2019t happen. <\/em>You\u2019re not part of the real world. You\u2019re part of Gotterdammerung, part of the chaos Hans tried to tame. You\u2019re some numinous interjection.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not perfect,\u201d<\/em> he says.<\/p>\n \u201cHave you ever lost?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not perfect,\u201d he says softly. \u201cI\u2019m just me. I just play rock-paper-scissors.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHey,\u201d she says. Her eyes are suddenly bright. \u201cHey. Hey. What\u2019s the next move in your arm?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI can prove it,\u201d she says. \u201cI can prove it. That you\u2019re right. That everything\u2019s OK. I can beat you. Just tell me what you\u2019re going to throw next.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t,\u201d he says \u2014<\/p>\n He\u2019s shaking his head.<\/p>\n \u201cCome on,\u201d she says. She pokes him. She pokes him again.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s paper,\u201d he says. \u201cBut \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI can throw scissors?\u201d she says. \u201cI mean, if I go one two three scissors, bam, I win?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d he says. \u201cBut \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re not that kind of player!\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re not the kind of player who goes one-two-three scissors right now,\u201d he says. \u201cYou know that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t know that!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI can totally know that,\u201d he says. \u201cJust look at your hat.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJust . . . my hat has nothing to do with this!\u201d<\/p>\n Emily takes off her railroad cap. She hugs it to her chest. She hides it behind her back. It\u2019s too stressful! She\u2019s not wearing a yellow hat! She puts it back on and pulls it down over her eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s me, then,\u201d she says. \u201cI mean, it\u2019s paper for throwing against me<\/em>, right?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d says Navvy Jim.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s not even get into how you knew that when you programmed it,\u201d Emily says.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s an analyzable sequence of players,\u201d says Navvy Jim, \u201cwith detectable features \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s. Not. Get. Into. It.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut science,\u201d says Navvy Jim, \u201cis<\/em> the art of taking a data stream, representing it in binary form, and analyzing it, producing observations either probabilistic or hypothetical about future bits to come \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJim,\u201d says Emily, sternly.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAre you seriously trying to distract me from playing rock-paper-scissors?\u201d<\/p>\n Navvy Jim subsides.<\/p>\n \u201cYou,\u201d<\/em> she says. \u201cDistracting me<\/em>. From playing rock-paper-scissors?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI just so rarely get the opportunity to explain any of this stuff to anybody,\u201d says Navvy Jim. \u201cMost people just laugh, say, \u2018Navvy Jim, you\u2019ve won again!\u2019 and wander off to drink svart-drink and putter about among their machines.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat is your overly cursory social experience,\u201d Emily informs him.<\/p>\n \u201cI also visited a nursing home!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t give people at a nursing home svart-drink,\u201d Emily says. \u201cThat\u2019s very bad, Navvy Jim.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s got Pepsi blood! It gives them joie de vivre!\u201d<\/p>\n Emily shakes her head. She fixes him with her golden gaze. She is calm. She is calm like a snake on morphine. The snake is also a master of Zen. It sways back and forth \u2014 or does it?<\/p>\n That snake doesn\u2019t even exist!<\/p>\n Navvy Jim sighs.<\/p>\n \u201cVery well,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n He lifts his arm. They shake their fists at one another. One, two \u2014<\/p>\n Emily pauses the game there. She says, \u201cPaper, right? You\u2019re sure?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m certain, Emily.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEven though I intend to play scissors?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou intend to play scissors,\u201d says Navvy Jim. \u201cYou really do. But you are straightened in yourself, Emily. You are made one thing: one being, purified, all the scattered impulses of you brought down to a single form. When the time comes you will throw rock, because you love me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBecause I love you?\u201d<\/p>\n He shrugs.<\/p>\n \u201cI played through this conversation a thousand times in my head,\u201d he says, \u201cand a thousand more, and never found the path where \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n He looks stricken.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to find a path where you\u2019d be free of all this,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I couldn\u2019t. All I could find was this. All I could find was a way to end it with something beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n They count again. One. Two \u2014<\/p>\n \u201cEmily,\u201d says Navvy Jim.<\/p>\n She\u2019s waving a hand at him frantically. \u201cWait, wait, wait,\u201d she says. \u201cLike, if I play scissors, I\u2019m ugly and I don\u2019t love you?<\/em> What kind of freaky robo-blackmail is<\/em> that?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n He stands up. He flails his hands. He stomps around on the hillside.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not blackmail!\u201d he says. \u201cLook! I won\u2019t even look! I\u2019ll face the other direction<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve wormed your words into my head!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEmily,\u201d he says, \u201cI won\u2019t think the less of you for throwing scissors. I won\u2019t think you don\u2019t love me. I\u2019ll just think that you\u2019re willing to use scissors to cut the paper of my hand. That\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s not love!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s not not<\/em> love,\u201d says Navvy Jim. \u201cI can\u2019t believe this. I can\u2019t believe that I have to spend my last day not in boxes stomping around on a hillside explaining to someone that it is all right for scissors to cut paper.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cScissors don\u2019t love paper,\u201d says Emily.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is not the point,\u201d says Navvy Jim. \u201cAlso, maybe they do.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNobody has ever asked <\/em>the scissors how they feel about such things.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey are of two minds,\u201d giggles Emily, suddenly.<\/p>\n \u201cThey \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n Navvy Jim hesitates a long moment. Then he says, \u201cOh.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really OK?\u201d Emily says.<\/p>\n \u201cWould it be all right if you weren\u2019t Emily?\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I weren\u2019t Navvy Jim? If blue wasn\u2019t blue and the sun were not the sun? Emily, you are a rock-throwing player. If you throw scissors that is more than all right; that is . . . unprecedented. That is heroic. That is . . . the world . . . it would be a terrifying miracle. It would sunder me. I would fall to my knees and laugh because the world is so very much bigger than I had ever dreamed. I would cry robot tears and I would laugh and suddenly everything would be big and bright and beautiful and unknown again, I would be a child again, and it would be more than just all right.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut not as good as taking my hat off,\u201d Emily says.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d says Navvy Jim. \u201cI just don\u2019t like it. I think you can be more.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMore than a girl who\u2019s fighting Gotterdammerung,\u201d she says. \u201cEvery single day.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI distracted Tom from detonating the quantum foam the other day,\u201d Emily says.<\/p>\n Navvy Jim shrugs. \u201cI wore a pair of sunglasses and played rock-paper-scissors with the mirror.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThese are some seriously fulfilling lives,\u201d Emily says.<\/p>\n \u201cAbsolutely.\u201d<\/p>\n So she counts it off. He turns around like he\u2019s said. She counts it off, one, two, three. But she isn\u2019t strong enough. She can\u2019t make herself do it. It isn\u2019t in her.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so sorry,\u201d she says, staring in confusion, in vague incomprehension, at her hand.<\/p>\n \u201cRock tears through paper?\u201d he suggests.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cRock weighs paper down,\u201d he offers.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s just, I didn\u2019t want everything to change.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t like things being the same, Navvy Jim,\u201d she says, and he\u2019s turned around now, and he\u2019s smiling at her, but with only half his mouth. She says: \u201cI don\u2019t like things being the same. But I was too scared. I didn\u2019t want everything to change.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEmily,\u201d he says. He takes and squeezes her hand. \u201cEmily, you weren\u2019t afraid of things<\/em> changing. You were afraid for me.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI was so,\u201d she says. \u201cI was so. I was afraid for things. I was afraid of everything.\u201d<\/p>\n Now she is crying and she doesn\u2019t even know why. Now he is brushing her tears from her, touching her arm and shoulder, walking back with her towards Eldri\u2019s home with her hand in his as if she hasn\u2019t grown at all.<\/p>\n And sometimes I wonder if she\u2019s alive today because, somehow, somehow because of that battle; if he\u2019d charted all the paths, all the futures, or at least all three of them, and the world we got was the best one he could find. Sometimes I wonder if this was all he could do, the best Navvy Jim himself<\/em> could do: getting her through to the day she decides to call the jaguars down.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes I think,\u201d he says, \u201cwhat would it be like to be a hobbit-Spock-spider-playing robot?<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes I think,\u201d he says, \u201cwouldn\u2019t that make everybody happier?\u201d<\/p>\n But it wouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n That\u2019s what Emily says. That it wouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be you, Navvy Jim,\u201d says Emily. \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be you.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n And they stay up very late that night, drinking hot cocoa and toasting marshmallows and telling stories, and then they power him down and they box him up and they put Navvy Jim away, until the world should have a place in it for rock-paper-scissors-playing robots once again.<\/p>\n And later, she goes back to school, and she votes at the club meeting.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a patch, you see. There\u2019s a new patch for the Thunder Dance.<\/p>\n There doesn\u2019t have to be a Dynamite, any more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Navvy Jim plays rock-paper-scissors against the mirror. It is a difficult opponent to beat. He has settled into a comfortable routine of playing rock \u2014 little reason to shift it up until he has a better handle on his opponent \u2014 but he has yet to do any better than a tie. He\u2019s almost seen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5099,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"series":[47],"class_list":["post-5363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-storm-that-saw-itself-chapter-5","series-the-storm-that-saw-itself"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Hat_2_noBG.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5363"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6123,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5363\/revisions\/6123"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5363"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=5363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}