The Tsinghua Uy campus in Beijing is so huge a river, called the Wanquan, runs through it. The uy is located in the North West of Beijing, in Haidian distriear the famed Summer Palace. A former imperial garden of the Qing Dynasty, Tsinghua Uy boasts several former palaces and many striking pagodas. The only way to effectively get around the campus, if you weren』t driving, was by bicycle or by renting a two-wheel transporter at the uy』s sed gate. Caldwell and Mei Lin stood at the West Gate as uy students whizzed in and out of the campus on their bikes. A few of the more athleties were oric-powered skateboards.
Mei Lin suggested that they ehe campus on foot. She figured they would look more like tourists that way. Tsinghua was one of the try』s leading educational institutions and it received its fair share of visitors. They』d bought the usual tourist paraphernalia he hotel, a disposable digital camera and an augmented reality system bought from a street vendor, after some protracted haggling, outside a huge multi-storey puter mall. The AR system was solely for Caldwell』s be. Mei Lin had assured him that she khe campus layout reasonably well. The system sisted of a pair of cheap plastic display glasses and a small unit that clipped unto a belt. A cartoon-character scribe described the various buildings as they headed towards the library. Caldwell reed the library system would be relatively easy to had that there was a good ce that Vicky Zhao or Wang Lin had an at on the system. Mei Lin agreed.
「Tsinghua Uy was founded in 1911 as a preparatory school for ese students whom the gover plao send to tiheir education at uies in the Uates. The uy campus is situated on reviously used to be Qing dynasty royal gardens hehe name Qing Hua derived from Qing Hua Yuan, which means Qing Gardens,」 the scribe explained in a squeaky puterized voice.
As they walked towards the main administrative buildings of the sprawling campus, ss of information were overlaid on the AR unit』s glasses with the cartoon scribe』s quirky voiceover describing the buildings somewhat superfluously. It oorly put together AR unit but Caldwell found the information and historical perspective somewhat helpful.
The scribe stopped theatrically, turo face Caldwell, broke out into its cartoon grin and tinued:
「To yht are mostly faculty residences, a nursery school and aary sost of the sd teology buildings are just a few minutes ahead.」
The scribe skipped merrily along the pavement, its hat bobbing up and down. The AR unit laying back pre-rendered animation. There was nothing autonomous about the scribe』s as. It just cycled through a series of behaviors, mixing and matg them acc to some random algorithmic routine. Caldwell switched the AI unit off as they got closer to the library.
「Problem,」 Caldwell said pensively.
「Yes?」
「How are we going to gain access to the library?」
「Good question,」 Mei Lin said. 「I have an alumni card. I am not sure whether it』s still valid though.」
「That means you have to go in.」
「Correct. I have to go in alone. If I recall correctly, the public catalogue search terminals just require a swipe of the card.」
「OK, I』ll poke around outside while you see what you get in the library. I re the thing to look for is Wang Lin』s borrowing at info. It just might list his dorm room or even the location of the lab.」
「I would have gone for Wang Lin』s records but wouldn』t necessarily have thou