This chapter is dedicated to the University Bookstore at the Universityof Washington, whose science fiction section rivals many specialtystores, thanks to the sharp-eyed, dedicated science fiction buyer, DuaneWilkins. Duance's a real science fiction fan — I first met him at theWorld Science Fiction Convention in Toronto in 2003 — and it showsin the eclectic and informed choices on display at the store. One greatpredictor of a great bookstore is the quality of the "shelf review" — thelittle bits of cardboard stuck to the shelves with (generally hand-lettered)staff-reviews extolling the virtues of books you might otherwise miss.
The staff at the University Bookstore have clearly benefited fromDuane's tutelage, as the shelf reviews at the University Bookstore aresecond to none.
The University Bookstore 4326 University Way NE, Seattle, WA 98105USA +1 800 335 READJolu stood up.
"This is where it starts, guys. This is how we know which side you'reon. You might not be willing to take to the streets and get busted foryour beliefs, but if you have beliefs, this will let us know it. This will cre-ate the web of trust that tells us who's in and who's out. If we're ever go-ing to get our country back, we need to do this. We need to dosomething like this."Someone in the audience — it was Ange — had a hand up, holding abeer bottle.
"So call me stupid but I don't understand this at all. Why do you wantus to do this?"Jolu looked at me, and I looked back at him. It had all seemed so obvi-ous when we were organizing it. "The Xnet isn't just a way to play freegames. It's the last open communications network in America. It's thelast way to communicate without being snooped on by the DHS. For it to140work we need to know that the person we're talking to isn't a snoop.
That means that we need to know that the people we're sending mes-sages to are the people we think they are.
"That's where you come in. You're all here because we trust you. Imean, really trust you. Trust you with our lives."Some of the people groaned. It sounded melodramatic and stupid.
I got back to my feet.
"When the bombs went off," I said, then something welled up in mychest, something painful. "When the bombs went off, there were four ofus caught up by Market Street. For whatever reason, the DHS decidedthat made us suspicious. They put bags over our heads, put us on a shipand interrogated us for days. They humiliated us. Played games with ourminds. Then they let us go.
"All except one person. My best friend. He was with us when theypicked us up. He'd been hurt and he needed medical care. He nevercame out again. They say they never saw him. They say that if we evertell anyone about this, they'll arrest us and make us disappear.
"Forever."I was shaking. The shame. The goddamned shame. Jolu had the lighton me.
"Oh Christ," I said. "You people are the first ones I've told. If this storygets around, you can bet they'll know who leaked it. You can bet they'llcome knocking on my door." I took some more deep breaths. "That's whyI volunteered on the Xnet. That's why my life, from now on, is aboutfighting the DHS. With every breath. Every day. Until we're free again.
Any one of you could put me in jail now, if you wanted to."Ange put her hand up again. "We're not going to rat on you," she said.
"No way. I know pretty much everyone here and I can promise you that.
I don't know how to know who to trust, but I know who not to trust: oldpeople. Our parents. Grownups. When they think of someone beingspied on, they think of someone else, a bad guy. When they think ofsomeone being caught and sent to a secret prison, it's someone else —someone brown, someone young, someone foreign.
"They forget what it's like to be our age. To be the object of suspicionall the time! How many times have you gotten on the bus and had everyperson on it give you a look like you'd been gargling turds and skinningpuppies?
141"What's worse, they're turning into adults younger and younger outthere. Back in the day, they used to say 'Never trust anyone over 30.' Isay, 'Don't trust any bastard over 25!'"That got a laugh, and she laughed too. She was pretty, in a weird,horsey way, with a long face and a long jaw. "I'm not really kidding, youknow? I mean, think about it. Who elected these ass-clowns? Who letthem invade our city? Who voted to put the cameras in our classroomsand follow us around with creepy spyware chips in our transit passesand cars? It wasn't a 16-year-old. We may be dumb, we may be young,but we're not scum.""I want that on a t-shirt," I said.
"It would be a good one," she said. We smiled at each other.
"Where do I go to get my keys?" she said, and pulled out her phone.
"We'll do it over there, in the secluded spot by the caves. I'll take youin there and set you up, then you do your thing and take the machinearound to your friends to get photos of your public key so they can signit when they get home."I raised my voice. "Oh! One more thing! Jesus, I can't believe I forgotthis. delete those photos once you've typed in the keys! The last thing wewant is a Flickr stream full of pictures of all of us conspiring together."There was some good-natured, nervous chuckling, then Jolu turnedout the light and in the sudden darkness I could see nothing. Gradually,my eyes adjusted and I set off for the cave. Someone was walking behindme. Ange. I turned and smiled at her, and she smiled back, luminousteeth in the dark.
"Thanks for that," I said. "You were great.""You mean what you said about the bag on your head andeverything?""I meant it," I said. "It happened. I never told anyone, but it happened."I thought about it for a moment. "You know, with all the time that wentby since, without saying anything, it started to feel like a bad dream. Itwas real though." I stopped and climbed up into the cave. "I'm glad I fi-nally told people. Any longer and I might have started to doubt my ownsanity."I set up the laptop on a dry bit of rock and booted it from the DVDwith her watching. "I'm going to reboot it for every person. This is astandard ParanoidLinux disc, though I guess you'd have to take myword for it."142"Hell," she said. "This is all about trust, right?""Yeah," I said. "Trust."I retreated some distance as she ran the key-generator, listening to hertyping and mousing to create randomness, listening to the crash of thesurf, listening to the party noises from over where the beer was.
She stepped out of the cave, carrying the laptop. On it, in huge whiteluminous letters, were her public key and her fingerprint and email ad-dress. She held the screen up beside her face and waited while I got myphone out.
"Cheese," she said. I snapped her pic and dropped the camera back inmy pocket. She wandered off to the revelers and let them each get pics ofher and the screen. It was festive. Fun. She really had a lot of charisma —you didn't want to laugh at her, you just wanted to laugh with her. Andhell, it was funny! We were declaring a secret war on the secret police.
Who the hell did we think we were?
So it went, through the next hour or so, everyone taking pictures andmaking keys. I got to meet everyone there. I knew a lot of them — somewere my invitees — and the others were friends of my pals or my pals'
pals. We should all be buddies. We were, by the time the night was out.
They were all good people.
Once everyone was done, Jolu went to make a key, and then turnedaway, giving me a sheepish grin. I was past my anger with him, though.
He was doing what he had to do. I knew that no matter what he said,he'd always be there for me. And we'd been through the DHS jail togeth-er. Van too. No matter what, that would bind us together forever.
I did my key and did the perp-walk around the gang, letting everyonesnap a pic. Then I climbed up on the high spot I'd spoken from earlierand called for everyone's attention.
"So a lot of you have noted that there's a vital flaw in this procedure:
what if this laptop can't be trusted? What if it's secretly recording our in-structions? What if it's spying on us? What if Jose-Luis and I can't betrusted?"More good-natured chuckles. A little warmer than before, more beery.
"I mean it," I said. "If we were on the wrong side, this could get all ofus — all of you — into a heap of trouble. Jail, maybe."The chuckles turned more nervous.
143"So that's why I'm going to do this," I said, and picked up a hammerI'd brought from my Dad's toolkit. I set the laptop down beside me onthe rock and swung the hammer, Jolu following the swing with his key-chain light. Crash — I'd always dreamt of killing a laptop with a ham-mer, and here I was doing it. It felt pornographically good. And bad.
Smash! The screen-panel fell off, shattered into millions of pieces, ex-posing the keyboard. I kept hitting it, until the keyboard fell off, expos-ing the motherboard and the hard-drive. Crash! I aimed square for thehard-drive, hitting it with everything I had. It took three blows beforethe case split, exposing the fragile media inside. I kept hitting it untilthere was nothing bigger than a cigarette lighter, then I put it all in agarbage bag. The crowd was cheering wildly — loud enough that I actu-ally got worried that someone far above us might hear over the surf andcall the law.
"All right!" I called. "Now, if you'd like to accompany me, I'm going tomarch this down to the sea and soak it in salt water for ten minutes."I didn't have any takers at first, but then Ange came forward and tookmy arm in her warm hand and said, "That was beautiful," in my ear andwe marched down to the sea together.
It was perfectly dark by the sea, and treacherous, even with our key-chain lights. Slippery, sharp rocks that were difficult enough to walk oneven without trying to balance six pounds of smashed electronics in aplastic bag. I slipped once and thought I was going to cut myself up, butshe caught me with a surprisingly strong grip and kept me upright. Iwas pulled in right close to her, close enough to smell her perfume,which smelled like new cars. I love that smell.
"Thanks," I managed, looking into the big eyes that were further mag-nified by her mannish, black-rimmed glasses. I couldn't tell what colorthey were in the dark, but I guessed something dark, based on her darkhair and olive complexion. She looked Mediterranean, maybe Greek orSpanish or Italian.
I crouched down and dipped the bag in the sea, letting it fill with saltwater. I managed to slip a little and soak my shoe, and I swore and shelaughed. We'd hardly said a word since we lit out for the ocean. Therewas something magical in our wordless silence.
At that point, I had kissed a total of three girls in my life, not countingthat moment when I went back to school and got a hero's welcome.
That's not a gigantic number, but it's not a minuscule one, either. I havereasonable girl radar, and I think I could have kissed her. She wasn't144h4wt in the traditional sense, but there's something about a girl and anight and a beach, plus she was smart and passionate and committed.
But I didn't kiss her, or take her hand. Instead we had a moment that Ican only describe as spiritual. The surf, the night, the sea and the rocks,and our breathing. The moment stretched. I sighed. This had been quitea ride. I had a lot of typing to do tonight, putting all those keys into mykeychain, signing them and publishing the signed keys. Starting the webof trust.
She sighed too.
"Let's go," I said.
"Yeah," she said.
Back we went. It was a good night, that night.
Jolu waited after for his brother's friend to come by and pick up hiscoolers. I walked with everyone else up the road to the nearest Munistop and got on board. Of course, none of us was using an issued Munipass. By that point, Xnetters habitually cloned someone else's Muni passthree or four times a day, assuming a new identity for every ride.
It was hard to stay cool on the bus. We were all a little drunk, andlooking at our faces under the bright bus lights was kind of hilarious. Wegot pretty loud and the driver used his intercom to tell us to keep itdown twice, then told us to shut up right now or he'd call the cops.
That set us to giggling again and we disembarked in a mass before hedid call the cops. We were in North Beach now, and there were lots ofbuses, taxis, the BART at Market Street, neon-lit clubs and cafes to pullapart our grouping, so we drifted away.
I got home and fired up my Xbox and started typing in keys from myphone's screen. It was dull, hypnotic work. I was a little drunk, and itlulled me into a half-sleep.
I was about ready to nod off when a new IM window popped up.
>
herro!
I didn't recognize the handle — spexgril — but I had an idea whomight be behind it.
>
hi145I typed, cautiously.
>
it's me, from tonightThen she paste-bombed a block of crypto. I'd already entered her pub-lic key into my keychain, so I told the IM client to try decrypting thecode with the key.
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it's me, from tonightIt was her!
>
Fancy meeting you hereI typed, then encrypted it to my public key and mailed it off.
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It was great meeting youI typed.
>
You too. I don't meet too many smart guys who are also cute and alsosocially aware. Good god, man, you don't give a girl much of a chance.
My heart hammered in my chest.
>
Hello? Tap tap? This thing on? I wasn't born here folks, but I'm suredying here. Don't forget to tip your waitresses, they work hard. I'm hereall week.
I laughed aloud.
>
I'm h............