This chapter is dedicated to BakkaPhoenix Books in Toronto, Canada.
Bakka is the oldest science fiction bookstore in the world, and it made methe mutant I am today. I wandered in for the first time around the age of10 and asked for some recommendations. Tanya Huff (yes, the TanyaHuff, but she wasn't a famous writer back then!) took me back into theused section and pressed a copy of H. Beam Piper's "Little Fuzzy" intomy hands, and changed my life forever. By the time I was 18, I wasworking at Bakka — I took over from Tanya when she retired to writefull time — and I learned life-long lessons about how and why peoplebuy books. I think every writer should work at a bookstore (and plenty ofwriters have worked at Bakka over the years! For the 30th anniversary ofthe store, they put together an anthology of stories by Bakka writersthan included work by Michelle Sagara (AKA Michelle West), TanyaHuff, Nalo Hopkinson, Tara Tallan —and me!)BakkaPhoenix Books: 697 Queen Street West, Toronto ON CanadaM6J1E6, +1 416 963 9993I'm a senior at Cesar Chavez high in San Francisco's sunny Missiondistrict, and that makes me one of the most surveilled people in theworld. My name is Marcus Yallow, but back when this story starts, I wasgoing by w1n5t0n. Pronounced "Winston."Not pronounced "Double-you-one-enn-five-tee-zero-enn" — unlessyou're a clueless disciplinary officer who's far enough behind the curvethat you still call the Internet "the information superhighway."I know just such a clueless person, and his name is Fred Benson, one ofthree vice-principals at Cesar Chavez. He's a sucking chest wound of ahuman being. But if you're going to have a jailer, better a clueless onethan one who's really on the ball.
"Marcus Yallow," he said over the PA one Friday morning. The PAisn't very good to begin with, and when you combine that with Benson's17habitual mumble, you get something that sounds more like someonestruggling to digest a bad burrito than a school announcement. But hu-man beings are good at picking their names out of audio confusion — it'sa survival trait.
I grabbed my bag and folded my laptop three-quarters shut — I didn'twant to blow my downloads — and got ready for the inevitable.
"Report to the administration office immediately."My social studies teacher, Ms Galvez, rolled her eyes at me and Irolled my eyes back at her. The Man was always coming down on me,just because I go through school firewalls like wet kleenex, spoof thegait-recognition software, and nuke the snitch chips they track us with.
Galvez is a good type, anyway, never holds that against me (especiallywhen I'm helping get with her webmail so she can talk to her brotherwho's stationed in Iraq).
My boy Darryl gave me a smack on the ass as I walked past. I'veknown Darryl since we were still in diapers and escaping from play-school, and I've been getting him into and out of trouble the whole time.
I raised my arms over my head like a prizefighter and made my exitfrom Social Studies and began the perp-walk to the office.
I was halfway there when my phone went. That was another no-no —phones are muy prohibido at Chavez High — but why should that stopme? I ducked into the toilet and shut myself in the middle stall (the fur-thest stall is always grossest because so many people head straight for it,hoping to escape the smell and the squick — the smart money and goodhygiene is down the middle). I checked the phone — my home PC hadsent it an email to tell it that there was something new up on HarajukuFun Madness, which happens to be the best game ever invented.
I grinned. Spending Fridays at school was teh suck anyway, and I wasglad of the excuse to make my escape.
I ambled the rest of the way to Benson's office and tossed him a waveas I sailed through the door.
"If it isn't Double-you-one-enn-five-tee-zero-enn," he said. FredrickBenson — Social Security number 545-03-2343, date of birth August 151962, mother's maiden name Di Bona, hometown Petaluma — is a lottaller than me. I'm a runty 5'8", while he stands 6'7", and his college bas-ketball days are far enough behind him that his chest muscles haveturned into saggy man-boobs that were painfully obvious through hisfreebie dot-com polo-shirts. He always looks like he's about to slam-18dunk your ass, and he's really into raising his voice for dramatic effect.
Both these start to lose their efficacy with repeated application.
"Sorry, nope," I said. "I never heard of this R2D2 character of yours.""W1n5t0n," he said, spelling it out again. He gave me a hairy eyeballand waited for me to wilt. Of course it was my handle, and had been foryears. It was the identity I used when I was posting on message-boardswhere I was making my contributions to the field of applied security re-search. You know, like sneaking out of school and disabling the minder-tracer on my phone. But he didn't know that this was my handle. Only asmall number of people did, and I trusted them all to the end of theearth.
"Um, not ringing any bells," I said. I'd done some pretty cool stuffaround school using that handle — I was very proud of my work onsnitch-tag killers — and if he could link the two identities, I'd be introuble. No one at school ever called me w1n5t0n or even Winston. Noteven my pals. It was Marcus or nothing.
Benson settled down behind his desk and tapped his class-ringnervously on his blotter. He did this whenever things started to go badfor him. Poker players call stuff like this a "tell" — something that let youknow what was going on in the other guy's head. I knew Benson's tellsbackwards and forwards.
"Marcus, I hope you realize how serious this is.""I will just as soon as you explain what this is, sir." I always say "sir" toauthority figures when I'm messing with them. It's my own tell.
He shook his head at me and looked down, another tell. Any secondnow, he was going to start shouting at me. "Listen, kiddo! It's time youcame to grips with the fact that we know about what you've been doing,and that we're not going to be lenient about it. You're going to be lucky ifyou're not expelled before this meeting is through. Do you want tograduate?""Mr Benson, you still haven't explained what the problem is —"He slammed his hand down on the desk and then pointed his finger atme. "The problem, Mr Yallow, is that you've been engaged in criminalconspiracy to subvert this school's security system, and you have sup-plied security countermeasures to your fellow students. You know thatwe expelled Graciella Uriarte last week for using one of your devices."Uriarte had gotten a bad rap. She'd bought a radio-jammer from a head-19shop near the 16th Street BART station and it had set off the counter-measures in the school hallway. Not my doing, but I felt for her.
"And you think I'm involved in that?""We have reliable intelligence indicating that you are w1n5t0n" —again, he spelled it out, and I began to wonder if he hadn't figured outthat the 1 was an I and the 5 was an S. "We know that this w1n5t0n char-acter is reponsible for the theft of last year's standardized tests." That ac-tually hadn't been me, but it was a sweet hack, and it was kind of flatter-ing to hear it attributed to me. "And therefore liable for several years inprison unless you cooperate with me.""You have 'reliable intelligence'? I'd like to see it."He glowered at me. "Your attitude isn't going to help you.""If there's evidence, sir, I think you should call the police and turn itover to them. It sounds like this is a very serious matter, and I wouldn'twant to stand in the way of a proper investigation by the duly consti-tuted authorities.""You want me to call the police.""And my parents, I think. That would be for the best."We stared at each other across the desk. He'd clearly expected me tofold the second he dropped the bomb on me. I don't fold. I have a trickfor staring down people like Benson. I look slightly to the left of theirheads, and think about the lyrics to old Irish folk songs, the kinds withthree hundred verses. It makes me look perfectly composed andunworried.
And the wing was on the bird and the bird was on the egg and the egg was inthe nest and the nest was on the leaf and the leaf was on the twig and the twigwas on the branch and the branch was on the limb and the limb was in the treeand the tree was in the bog — the bog down in the valley-oh! High-ho the rat-tlin' bog, the bog down in the valley-oh —"You can return to class now," he said. "I'll call on you once the policeare ready to speak to you.""Are you going to call them now?""The procedure for calling in the police is complicated. I'd hoped thatwe could settle this fairly and quickly, but since you insist —""I can wait while you call them is all," I said. "I don't mind."He tapped his ring again and I braced for the blast.
"Go!" he yelled. "Get the hell out of my office, you miserable little —"20I got out, keeping my expression neutral. He wasn't going to call thecops. If he'd had enough evidence to go to the police with, he wouldhave called them in the first place. He hated my guts. I figured he'dheard some unverified gossip and hoped to spook me into confirming it.
I moved down the corridor lightly and sprightly, keeping my gait evenand measured for the gait-recognition cameras. These had been installedonly a year before, and I loved them for their sheer idiocy. Beforehand,we'd had face-recognition cameras covering nearly every public space inschool, but a court ruled that was unconstitutional. So Benson and a lotof other paranoid school administrators had spent our textbook dollarson these idiot cameras that were supposed to be able to tell one person'swalk from another. Yeah, right.
I got back to class and sat down again, Ms Galvez warmly welcomingme back. I unpacked the school's standard-issue machine and got backinto classroom mode. The SchoolBooks were the snitchiest technology ofthem all, logging every keystroke, watching all the network traffic forsuspicious keywords, counting every click, keeping track of every fleet-ing thought you put out over the net. We'd gotten them in my junioryear, and it only took a couple months for the shininess to wear off. Oncepeople figured out that these "free" laptops worked for the man — andshowed a never-ending parade of obnoxious ads to boot — they sud-denly started to feel very heavy and burdensome.
Cracking my SchoolBook had been easy. The crack was online within amonth of the machine showing up, and there was nothing to it — justdownload a DVD image, burn it, stick it in the SchoolBook, and boot itwhile holding down a bunch of different keys at the same time. TheDVD did the rest, installing a whole bunch of hidden programs on themachine, programs that would stay hidden even when the Board of Eddid its daily remote integrity checks of the machines. Every now andagain I had to get an update for the software to get around the Board'slatest tests, but it was a small price to pay to get a little control over thebox.
I fired up IMParanoid, the secret instant messenger that I used when Iwanted to have an off-the-record discussion right in the middle of class.
Darryl was already logged in.
>
The game's afoot! Something big is going down with Harajuku FunMadness, dude. You in?
>
21No. Freaking. Way. If I get caught ditching a third time, I'm expelled.
Man, you know that. We'll go after school.
>
You've got lunch and then study-hall, right? That's two hours. Plentyof time to run down this clue and get back before anyone misses us. I'llget the whole team out.
Harajuku Fun Madness is the best game ever made. I know I alreadysaid that, but it bears repeating. It's an ARG, an Alternate Reality Game,and the story goes that a gang of Japanese fashion-teens discovered a mi-raculous healing gem at the temple in Harajuku, which is basicallywhere cool Japanese teenagers invented every major subculture for thepast ten years. They're being hunted by evil monks, the Yakuza (AKAthe Japanese mafia), aliens, tax-inspectors, parents, and a rogue artificialintelligence. They slip the players coded messages that we have to de-code and use to track down clues that lead to more coded messages andmore clues.
Imagine the best afternoon you've ever spent prowling the streets of acity, checking out all the weird people, funny hand-bills, street-maniacs,and funky shops. Now add a scavenger hunt to that, one that requiresyou to research crazy old films and songs and teen culture from aroundthe world and across time and space. And it's a competition, with thewinning team of four taking a grand prize of ten days in Tokyo, chillingon Harajuku bridge, geeking out in Akihabara, and taking home all theAstro Boy merchandise you can eat. Except that he's called "Atom Boy"in Japan.
That's Harajuku Fun Madness, and once you've solved a puzzle ortwo, you'll never look back.
>
No man, just no. NO. Don't even ask.
>
I need you D. You're the best I've got. I swear I'll get us in and outwithout anyone knowing it. You know I can do that, right?
>
I know you can do it>
So you're in?
>
22Hell no>
Come on, Darryl. You're not going to your deathbed wishing you'dspent more study periods sitting in school>
I'm not going to go to my deathbed wishing I'd spent more time play-ing ARGs either>
Yeah but don't you think you might go to your death-bed wishingyou'd spent more time with Vanessa Pak?
Van was part of my team. She went to a private girl's school in the EastBay, but I knew she'd ditch to come out and run the mission with me.
Darryl has had a crush on her literally for years — even before pubertyendowed her with many lavish gifts. Darryl had fallen in love with hermind. Sad, really.
>
You suck>
You're coming?
He looked at me and shook his head. Then he nodded. I winked at himand set to work getting in touch with the rest of my team.
I wasn't always into ARGing. I have a dark secret: I used to be aLARPer. LARPing is Live Action Role Playing, and it's just about what itsounds like: running around in costume, talking in a funny accent, pre-tending to be a super-spy or a vampire or a medieval knight. It's likeCapture the Flag in monster-drag, with a bit of Drama Club thrown in,and the best games were the ones we played in Scout Camps out of townin Sonoma or down on the Peninsula. Those three-day epics could getpretty hairy, with all-day hikes, epic battles with foam-and-bambooswords, casting spells by throwing beanbags and shouting "Fireball!"and so on. Good fun, if a little goofy. Not nearly as geeky as talkingabout what your elf planned on doing as you sat around a table loadedwith Diet Coke cans and painted miniatures, and more physically activethan going into a mouse-coma in front of a massively multiplayer gameat home.
23The thing that got me into trouble were the mini-games in the hotels.
Whenever a science fiction convention came to town, some LARPerwould convince them to let us run a couple of six-hour mini-games at thecon, piggybacking on their rental of the space. Having a bunch of enthu-siastic kids running around in costume lent color to the event, and wegot to have a ball among people even more socially deviant than us.
The problem with hotels is that they have a lot of non-gamers in them,too — and not just sci-fi people. Normal people. From states that beginand end with vowels. On holidays.
And sometimes those people misunderstand the nature of a game.
Let's just leave it at that, OK?
Class ended in ten minutes, and that didn't leave me with much timeto prepare. The first order of business were those pesky gait-recognitioncameras. Like I said, they'd started out as face-recognition cameras, butthose had been ruled unconstitutional. As far as I know, no court has yetdetermined whether these gait-cams are any more legal, but until theydo, we're stuck with them.
"Gait" is a fancy word for the way you walk. People are pretty good atspotting gaits — next time you're on a camping trip, check out the bob-bing of the flashlight as a distant friend approaches you. Chances areyou can identify him just from the movement of the light, the character-istic way it bobs up and down that tells our monkey brains that this is aperson approaching us.
Gait recognition software takes pictures of your motion, tries to isolateyou in the pics as a silhouette, and then tries to match the silhouette to adatabase to see if it knows who you are. It's a biometric identifier, likefingerprints or retina-scans, but it's got a lot more "collisions" than eitherof those. A biometric "collision" is when a measurement matches morethan one person. Only you have your fingerprint, but you share yourgait with plenty other people.
Not exactly, of course. Your personal, inch-by-inch walk is yours andyours alone. The problem is your inch-by-inch walk changes based onhow tired you are, what the floor is made of, whether you pulled yourankle playing basketball, and whether you've changed your shoes lately.
So the system kind of fuzzes-out your profile, looking for people whowalk kind of like you.
24There are a lot of people who walk kind of like you. What's more, it'seasy not to walk kind of like you — just take one shoe off. Of course,you'll always walk like you-with-one-shoe-off in that case, so the camer-as will eventually figure out that it's still you. Which is why I prefer toinject a little randomness into my attacks on gait-recognition: I put ahandful of gravel into each shoe. Cheap and effective, and no two stepsare the same. Plus you get a great reflexology foot massage in the process(I kid. Reflexology is about as scientifically useful as gait-recognition).
The cameras used to set off an alert every time someone they didn't re-cognize stepped onto campus.
This did not work.
The alarm went off every ten minutes. When the mailman came by.
When a parent dropped in. When the grounds-people went to work fix-ing up the basketball court. When a student showed up wearing newshoes.
So now it just tries to keep track of who's where and when. If someoneleaves by the school-gates during classes, their gait is checked to see if itkinda-sorta matches any student gait and if it does, whoop-whoop-whoop, ring the alarm!
Chavez High is ringed with gravel walkways. I like to keep a couplehandsful of rocks in my shoulder-bag, just in case. I silently passedDarryl ten or fifteen pointy little bastards and we both loaded our shoes.
Class was about to finish up — and I realized that I still hadn't checkedthe Harajuku Fun Madness site to see where the next clue was! I'd been alittle hyper-focused on the escape, and hadn't bothered to figure outwhere we were escaping to.
I turned to my SchoolBook and hit the keyboard. The web-browser weused was supplied with the machine. It was a locked-down spyware ver-sion of Internet Explorer, Microsoft's crashware turd that no one underthe age of 40 used voluntarily.
I had a copy of Firefox on the USB drive built into my watch, but thatwasn't enough — the SchoolBook ran Windows Vista4Schools, an an-tique operating system designed to give school administrators the illu-sion that they controlled the programs their students could run.
But Vista4Schools is its own worst enemy. There are a lot of programsthat Vista4Schools doesn't want you to be able to shut down — keylog-gers, censorware — and these programs run in a special mode that25makes them invisible to the system. You can't quit them because youcan't even see they're there.
Any program whose name starts with $SYS$ is invisible to the operat-ing system. it doesn't show up on listings of the hard drive, nor in theprocess monitor. So my copy of Firefox was called $SYS$Firefox — andas I launched it, it became invisible to Windows, and so invisible to thenetwork's snoopware.
Now I had an indie browser running, I needed an indie network con-nection. The school's network logged every click in and out of the sys-tem, which was bad news if you were planning on surfing over to theHarajuku Fun Madness site for some extra-curricular fun.
The answer is something ingenious called TOR — The Onion Router.
An onion router is an Internet site that takes requests for web-pages andpasses them onto other onion routers, and on to other onion routers, un-til one of them finally decides to fetch the page and pass it back throughthe layers of the onion until it reaches you. The traffic to the onion-routers is encrypted, which means that the school can't see what you'reasking for, and the layers of the onion don't know who they're workingfor. There are millions of nodes — the program was set up by the US Of-fice of Naval Research to help their people get around the censorware incountries like Syria and China, which means that it's perfectly designedfor operating in the confines of an average American high school.
TOR works because the school has a finite blacklist of naughty ad-dresses we aren't allowed to visit, and the addresses of the nodes changeall the time — no way could the school keep track of them all. Firefoxand TOR together made me into the invisible man, impervious to Boardof Ed snooping, free to check out the Harajuku FM site and see what wasup.
There it was, a new clue. Like all Harajuku Fun Madness clues, it had aphysical, online and mental component. The online component was apuzzle you had to solve, one that required you to research the answers toa bunch of obscure questions. This batch included a bunch of questionson the plots in d?jinshi — those are comic books drawn by fans ofmanga, Japanese comics. They can be as big as the official comics that in-spire them, but they're a lot weirder, with crossover story-lines andsometimes really silly songs and action. Lots of love stories, of course.
Everyone loves to see their favorite toons hook up.
26I'd have to solve those riddles later, when I got home. They were easi-est to solve with the whole team, downloading tons of d?jinshi files andscouring them for answers to the puzzles.
I'd just finished scrap-booking all the clues when the bell rang and webegan our escape. I surreptitiously slid the gravel down the side of myshort boots — ankle-high Blundstones from Australia, great for runningand climbing, and the easy slip-on/slip-off laceless design makes themconvenient at the never-ending metal-detectors that are everywherenow.
We also had to evade physical surveillance, of course, but that getseasier every time they add a new layer of physical snoopery — all thebells and whistles lull our beloved faculty into a totally false sense of se-curity. We surfed the crowd down the hallways, heading for my favoriteside-exit. We were halfway along when Darryl hissed, "Crap! I forgot,I've got a library book in my bag.""You're kidding me," I said, and hauled him into the next bathroom wepassed. Library books are bad news. Every one of them has an arphid —Radio Frequency ID tag — glued into its binding, which makes it pos-sible for the librarians to check out the books by waving them over areader, and lets a library shelf tell you if any of the books on it are out ofplace.
But it also lets the school track where you are at all times. It was anoth-er of those legal loopholes: the courts wouldn't let the schools track uswith arphids, but they could track library books, and use the school re-cords to tell them who was likely to be carrying which library book.
I had a little Faraday pouch in my bag — these are little wallets linedwith a mesh of copper wires that effectively block radio energy, silencingarphids. But the pouches were made for neutralizing ID cards and toll-book transponders, not books like —"Introduction to Physics?" I groaned. The book was the size of adictionary.