Free The Caryatids by Bruce Sterling

Acquis attention camp improved steadily with human usage. Exploiting the spex, the attention camp tracked every tiny movement of the user's eye-balls. It nudged its everyware between the users and the world they per-ceived. Comparing the movements of one user's eyeballs to the eyeballs of a thousand other users, the system learned individual aptitudes.
    A user who was good with an ax would likely be good with a water saw. A user quick to learn about plants could quickly learn about soil chemistry and hydrology. Or toxicity. Or meteorology. Or engineering. Or any set of structured knowledge that the sensorweb flung before the user's eyes. The attention camp had already recorded a billion things that had caught the attention of thousands of people. It preserved and displayed the many trails that human beings had cut through its fields of data. The camp was a search engine, a live-in tutoring machine. It was entirely and utterly personal, full of democratically trampled roads to human re-demption. By design, it was light, swift, glorious, brilliant. Vera had spent time in attention camps. So had Karen. This initia-tion was required of all the Acquis cadres on Mljet. At first, they'd been bewildered. Soon they had caught on. Within a matter of weeks, they were adepts. Eventually, life became elite.
    The graduates of Mljet attention camps lived in boneware; they'd be-come human power tools.
    "The camp people are happier today," judged Karen, consulting her faceplate. Vera shrugged. It was prettier weather. Better weather was always bet-ter for morale. Karen flexed her slender arms within their bony pistons. "I'll knock down that Dig patch of casuarina. Watch them worshipping me."
    "Don't be such a glory hog, Karen."
    "It takes five minutes!" Karen protested.
    "Karen, you need to cultivate a more professional perspective. This is not an entertainment. Neural scanning and ubiquitous mediation are our tools. An attention camp is a trade school." Karen stared down at her from the towering heights of her boneware.
    "Listen to you talking like that," she said. "You're so nervous about that rich banker, and his kid is driving you wild."

    ??????????

    MLJET'S TINY GROUPof Dispensation people were a discreet mi-nority on the island. They'd been living on Mljet since the project's first days.
    The Dispensation people were a tolerated presence, an obscure ne-cessity, imposed through arrangements high above. They never made any fuss about themselves or their odd political convictions. Now, however, those quiet arrangements were visibly changing in character. The local Dispensation activists were highly honored by the visit of Montalban and his daughter. Their leader, and Montalban's of-ficial host on the island, was Mljet's archaeologist: good old Dr. Radic. Archaeologists were always a nuisance on reconstruction sites. They fluttered around the sites of major earthworks like crows before the storm. There was no getting around the need for archaeologists. Their presence was mandated.
    Dr. Radic was a Croatian academic. Radic diligently puttered around the island, classifying broken bricks and taking ancient pollen counts. While Vera had labored on the island's mediation, installing her sensors and upgrading everyware, she had often encountered Dr. Radic. Their mutual love for the island and their wandering work lives made them friends.
    A much older man, Dr. Radic had always been ready with some kindly word for Vera, some thoughtful little gift or useful favor. Radic clearly viewed her as an integral part of the island's precious heritage. Vera was no mere refugee on Mljet—she was a native returnee. Knowing this, Radic had jolly pet names for Vera: the "domorodac," the "Mljecanka." The "home-daughter," the "Mljet girl." Radic loved to speak Croatian at Vera, for Radic was an ardent patriot.
    When she strained her memory, Vera could manage some "ijekavian," the local Adriatic dialect. This island lingo had never been much like Radic's