This chapter is dedicated to the MIT Press Bookshop, a store I've visitedon every single trip to Boston over the past ten years. MIT, of course, isone of the legendary origin nodes for global nerd culture, and the cam-pus bookstore lives up to the incredible expectations I had when I firstset foot in it. In addition to the wonderful titles published by the MITpress, the bookshop is a tour through the most exciting high-tech public-ations in the world, from hacker zines like 2600 to fat academic antholo-gies on video-game design. This is one of those stores where I have to askthem to ship my purchases home because they don't fit in my suitcase.
MIT Press Bookstore: Building E38, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cam-bridge, MA USA 02139-4307 +1 617 253 5249Here's the email that went out at 7AM the next day, while Ange and Iwere spray-painting VAMP-MOB CIVIC CENTER -> -> at strategic loca-tions around town.
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RULES FOR VAMPMOB>
You are part of a clan of daylight vampires. You've discovered thesecret of surviving the terrible light of the sun. The secret was cannibal-ism: the blood of another vampire can give you the strength to walkamong the living.
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You need to bite as many other vampires as you can in order to stay inthe game. If one minute goes by without a bite, you're out. Once you'reout, turn your shirt around backwards and go referee — watch two orthree vamps to see if they're getting their bites in.
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251To bite another vamp, you have to say "Bite!" five times before they do.
So you run up to a vamp, make eye-contact, and shout "bite bite bite bitebite!" and if you get it out before she does, you live and she crumbles todust.
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You and the other vamps you meet at your rendezvous are a team.
They are your clan. You derive no nourishment from their blood.
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You can "go invisible" by standing still and folding your arms overyour chest. You can't bite invisible vamps, and they can't bite you.
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This game is played on the honor system. The point is to have fun andget your vamp on, not to win.
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There is an end-game that will be passed by word of mouth as winnersbegin to emerge. The game-masters will start a whisper campaignamong the players when the time comes. Spread the whisper as quicklyas you can and watch for the sign.
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M1k3y>
bite bite bite bite bite!
We'd hoped that a hundred people would be willing to playVampMob. We'd sent out about two hundred invites each. But when Isat bolt upright at 4AM and grabbed my Xbox, there were 400 repliesthere. Four hundred.
I fed the addresses to the bot and stole out of the house. I descendedthe stairs, listening to my father snore and my mom rolling over in theirbed. I locked the door behind me.
At 4:15 AM, Potrero Hill was as quiet as the countryside. There weresome distant traffic rumbles, and once, a car crawled past me. I stoppedat an ATM and drew out $320 in twenties, rolled them up and put arubber-band around them, and stuck the roll in a zip-up pocket low onthe thigh of my vampire pants.
I was wearing my cape again, and a ruffled shirt, and tuxedo pantsthat had been modded to have enough pockets to carry all my little bits252and pieces. I had on pointed boots with silver-skull buckles, and I'dteased my hair into a black dandelion clock around my head. Ange wasbringing the white makeup and had promised to do my eyeliner andblack nail-polish. Why the hell not? When was the next time I was goingto get to play dressup like this?
Ange met me in front of her house. She had her backpack on too, andfishnet tights, a ruffled gothic lolita maid's dress, white face-paint, elab-orate kabuki eye-makeup, and her fingers and throat dripped with silverjewelry.
"You look great!" we said to each other in unison, then laughed quietlyand stole off through the streets, spray-paint cans in our pockets.
As I surveyed Civic Center, I thought about what it would look likeonce 400 VampMobbers converged on it. I expected them in ten minutes,out front of City Hall. Already the big plaza teemed with commuterswho neatly sidestepped the homeless people begging there.
I've always hated Civic Center. It's a collection of huge wedding-cakebuildings: court houses, museums, and civic buildings like City Hall. Thesidewalks are wide, the buildings are white. In the tourist guides to SanFrancisco, they manage to photograph it so that it looks like EpcotCenter, futuristic and austere.
But on the ground, it's grimy and gross. Homeless people sleep on allthe benches. The district is empty by 6PM except for drunks and drug-gies, because with only one kind of building there, there's no legit reasonfor people to hang around after the sun goes down. It's more like a mallthan a neighborhood, and the only businesses there are bail-bondsmenand liquor stores, places that cater to the families of crooks on trial andthe bums who make it their nighttime home.
I really came to understand all of this when I read an interview withan amazing old urban planner, a woman called Jane Jacobs who was thefirst person to really nail why it was wrong to slice cities up with free-ways, stick all the poor people in housing projects, and use zoning lawsto tightly control who got to do what where.
Jacobs explained that real cities are organic and they have a lot of vari-ety — rich and poor, white and brown, Anglo and Mex, retail and resid-ential and even industrial. A neighborhood like that has all kinds ofpeople passing through it at all hours of the day or night, so you get253businesses that cater to every need, you get people around all the time,acting like eyes on the street.
You've encountered this before. You go walking around some olderpart of some city and you find that it's full of the coolest looking stores,guys in suits and people in fashion-rags, upscale restaurants and funkycafes, a little movie theater maybe, houses with elaborate paint-jobs.
Sure, there might be a Starbucks too, but there's also a neat-looking fruitmarket and a florist who appears to be three hundred years old as shesnips carefully at the flowers in her windows. It's the opposite of aplanned space, like a mall. It feels like a wild garden or even a woods:
like it grew.
You couldn't get any further from that than Civic Center. I read an in-terview with Jacobs where she talked about the great old neighborhoodthey knocked down to build it. It had been just that kind of neighbor-hood, the kind of place that happened without permission or rhyme orreason.
Jacobs said that she predicted that within a few years, Civic Centerwould be one of the worst neighborhoods in the city, a ghost-town atnight, a place that sustained a thin crop of weedy booze shops and flea-pit motels. In the interview, she didn't seem very glad to have been vin-dicated; she sounded like she was talking about a dead friend when shedescribed what Civic Center had become.
Now it was rush hour and Civic Center was as busy at it could be. TheCivic Center BART also serves as the major station for Muni trolley lines,and if you need to switch from one to another, that's where you do it. At8AM, there were thousands of people coming up the stairs, going downthe stairs, getting into and out of taxis and on and off buses. They gotsqueezed by DHS checkpoints by the different civic buildings, androuted around aggressive panhandlers. They all smelled like their sham-poos and colognes, fresh out of the shower and armored in their worksuits, swinging laptop bags and briefcases. At 8AM, Civic Center wasbusiness central.
And here came the vamps. A couple dozen coming down Van Ness, acouple dozen coming up Market. More coming from the other side ofMarket. More coming up from Van Ness. They slipped around the sideof the buildings, wearing the white face-paint and the black eyeliner,black clothes, leather jackets, huge stompy boots. Fishnet fingerlessgloves.
254They began to fill up the plaza. A few of the business people gavethem passing glances and then looked away, not wanting to let theseweirdos into their personal realities as they thought about whatever crapthey were about to wade through for another eight hours. The vampsmilled around, not sure when the game was on. They pooled together inlarge groups, like an oil spill in reverse, all this black gathering in oneplace. A lot of them sported old-timey hats, bowlers and toppers. Manyof the girls were in full-on elegant gothic lolita maid costumes with hugeplatforms.
I tried to estimate the numbers. 200. Then, five minutes later, it was300. 400. They were still streaming in. The vamps had brought friends.
Someone grabbed my ass. I spun around and saw Ange, laughing sohard she had to hold her thighs, bent double.
"Look at them all, man, look at them all!" she gasped. The square wastwice as crowded as it had been a few minutes ago. I had no idea howmany Xnetters there were, but easily 1000 of them had just showed up tomy little party. Christ.
The DHS and SFPD cops were starting to mill around, talking intotheir radios and clustering together. I heard a far-away siren.
"All right," I said, shaking Ange by the arm. "All right, let's go."We both slipped off into the crowd and as soon as we encountered ourfirst vamp, we both said, loudly, "Bite bite bite bite bite!" My victim wasa stunned — but cute — girl with spider-webs drawn on her hands andsmudged mascara running down her cheeks. She said, "Crap," andmoved away, acknowledging that I'd gotten her.
The call of "bite bite bite bite bite" had scrambled the other nearbyvamps. Some of them were attacking each other, others were moving forcover, hiding out. I had my victim for the minute, so I skulked away, us-ing mundanes for cover. All around me, the cry of "bite bite bite bitebite!" and shouts and laughs and curses.
The sound spread like a virus through the crowd. All the vamps knewthe game was on now, and the ones who were clustered together weredropping like flies. They laughed and cussed and moved away, clueingthe still-in vamps that the game was on. And more vamps were arrivingby the second.
8:16. It was time to bag another vamp. I crouched low and movedthrough the legs of the straights as they headed for the BART stairs. Theyjerked back with surprise and swerved to avoid me. I had my eyes laser-255locked on a set of black platform boots with steel dragons over the toes,and so I wasn't expecting it when I came face to face with another vamp,a guy of about 15 or 16, hair gelled straight back and wearing a PVCMarilyn Manson jacket draped with necklaces of fake tusks carved withintricate symbols.
"Bite bite bite —" he began, when one of the mundanes tripped overhim and they both went sprawling. I leapt over to him and shouted "bitebite bite bite bite!" before he could untangle himself again.
More vamps were arriving. The suits were really freaking out. Thegame overflowed the sidewalk and moved into Van Ness, spreading uptoward Market Street. Drivers honked, the trolleys made angry dings. Iheard more sirens, but now traffic was snarled in every direction.
It was freaking glorious.
BITE BITE BITE BITE BITE!
The sound came from all around me. There were so many vampsthere, playing so furiously, it was like a roar. I risked standing up andlooking around and found that I was right in the middle of a giant crowdof vamps that went as far as I could see in every direction.
BITE BITE BITE BITE BITE!
This was even better than the concert in Dolores Park. That had beenangry and rockin', but this was — well, it was just fun. It was like goingback to the playground, to the epic games of tag we'd play on lunchbreaks when the sun was out, hundreds of people chasing each otheraround. The adults and the cars just made it more fun, more funny.
That's what it was: it was funny. We were all laughing now.
But the cops were really mobilizing now. I heard helicopters. Anysecond now, it would be over. Time for the endgame.
I grabbed a vamp.
"Endgame: when the cops order us to disperse, pretend you've beengassed. Pass it on. What did I just say?"The vamp was a girl, tiny, so short I thought she was really young, butshe must have been 17 or 18 from her face and the smile. "Oh, that'swicked," she said.
"What did I say?""Endgame: when the cops order us to disperse, pretend you've beengassed. Pass it on. What did I just say?""Right," I said. "Pass it on."256She melted into the crowd. I grabbed another vamp. I passed it on. Hewent off to pass it on.
Somewhere in the crowd, I knew Ange was doing this too. Somewherein the crowd, there might be infiltrators, fake Xnetters, but what couldthey do with this knowledge? It's not like the cops had a choice. Theywere going to order us to disperse. That was guaranteed.
I had to get to Ange. The plan was to meet at the Founder's Statue inthe Plaza, but reaching it was going to be hard. The crowd wasn't mov-ing anymore, it was surging, like the mob had in the way down to theBART station on the day the bombs went off. I struggled to make myway through it just as the PA underneath the helicopter switched on.
"THIS IS THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY. YOUARE ORDERED TO DISPERSE IMMEDIATELY."Around me, hundreds of vamps fell to the ground, clutching theirthroats, clawing at their eyes, gasping for breath. It was easy to fake be-ing gassed, we'd all had plenty of time to study the footage of the parti-ers in Mission Dolores Park going down under the pepper-spray clouds.
"DISPERSE IMMEDIATELY."I fell to the ground, protecting my pack, reaching around to the redbaseball hat folded into the waistband of my pants. I jammed it on myhead and then grabbed my throat and made horrendous retching noises.
The only ones still standing were the mundanes, the salarymen who'dbeen just trying to get to their jobs. I looked around as best as I could atthem as I choked and gasped.
"THIS IS THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY. YOUARE ORDERED TO DISPERSE IMMEDIATELY. DISPERSEIMMEDIATELY." The voice of god made my bowels ache. I felt it in mymolars and in my femurs and my spine.
The salarymen were scared. They were moving as fast as they could,but in no particular direction. The helicopters seemed to be directly over-head no matter where you stood. The cops were wading into the crowdnow, and they'd put on their helmets. Some had shields. Some had gasmasks. I gasped harder.
Then the salarymen were running. I probably would have run too. Iwatched a guy whip a $500 jacket off and wrap it around his face beforeheading south toward Mission, only to trip up and go sprawling. Hiscurses joined the choking sounds.
257This wasn't supposed to happen — the choking was just supposed tofreak people out and get them confused, not panic them into a stampede.
There were screams now, screams I recognized all too well from thenight in the park. That was the sound of people who were scared spit-less, running into each other as they tried like hell to get away.
And then the air-raid sirens began.
I hadn't heard that sound since the bombs went off, but I would neverforget it. It sliced through me and went straight into my balls, turningmy legs into jelly on the way. It made me want to run away in a panic. Igot to my feet, red cap on my head, thinking of only one thing: Ange.
Ange and the Founders' Statue.
Everyone was on their feet now, running in all directions, screaming. Ipushed people out of my way, holding onto my pack and my hat, head-ing for Founders' Statue. Masha was looking for me, I was looking forAnge. Ange was out there.
I pushed and cursed. Elbowed someone. Someone came down on myfoot so hard I felt something go crunch and I shoved him so he wentdown. He tried to get up and someone stepped on him. I shoved andpushed.
Then I reached out my arm to shove someone else and strong handsgrabbed my wrist and my elbow in one fluid motion and brought myarm back around behind my back. It felt like my shoulder was about towrench out of its socket, and I instantly doubled over, hollering, a soundthat was barely audible over the din of the crowd, the thrum of the chop-pers, the wail of the sirens.
I was brought back upright by the strong hands behind me, whichsteered me like a marionette. The hold was so perfect I couldn't eventhink of squirming. I couldn't think of the noise or the helicopter orAnge. All I could think of was moving the way that the person who hadme wanted me to move. I was brought around so that I was face-to-facewith the person.
It was a girl whose face was sharp and rodent-like, half-hidden by agiant pair of sunglasses. Over the sunglasses, a mop of bright pink hair,spiked out in all directions.
"You!" I said. I knew her. She'............