This chapter is dedicated to The Tattered Cover, Denver's legendary in-dependent bookstore. I happened upon The Tattered Cover quite by acci-dent: Alice and I had just landed in Denver, coming in from London,and it was early and cold and we needed coffee. We drove in aimlessrental-car circles, and that's when I spotted it, the Tattered Cover'ssign. Something about it tingled in my hindbrain — I knew I'd heard ofthis place. We pulled in (got a coffee) and stepped into the store — awonderland of dark wood, homey reading nooks, and miles and miles ofbookshelves.
The Tattered Cover 1628 16th St., Denver, CO USA 80202 +1 303 4361070None of the three guys were around at the moment, so I took off. Myhead hurt so much I thought I must be bleeding, but my hands cameaway dry. My twisted ankle had frozen up in the truck so that I ran like abroken marionette, and I stopped only once, to cancel the photo-deletionon Masha's phone. I turned off its radio — both to save battery and tokeep it from being used to track me — and set the sleep timer to twohours, the longest setting available. I tried to set it to not require a pass-word to wake from sleep, but that required a password itself. I was justgoing to have to tap the keypad at least once every two hours until Icould figure out how to get the photo off of the phone. I would need acharger, then.
I didn't have a plan. I needed one. I needed to sit down, to get online— to figure out what I was going to do next. I was sick of letting otherpeople do my planning for me. I didn't want to be acting because of whatMasha did, or because of the DHS, or because of my dad. Or because ofAnge? Well, maybe I'd act because of Ange. That would be just fine, infact.
267I'd just been slipping downhill, taking alleys when I could, mergingwith the Tenderloin crowds. I didn't have any destination in mind. Everyfew minutes, I put my hand in my pocket and nudged one of the keys onMasha's phone to keep it from going asleep. It made an awkward bulge,unfolded there in my jacket.
I stopped and leaned against a building. My ankle was killing me.
Where was I, anyway?
O'Farrell, at Hyde Street. In front of a dodgy "Asian Massage Parlor."My traitorous feet had taken me right back to the beginning — taken meback to where the photo on Masha's phone had been taken, seconds be-fore the Bay Bridge blew, before my life changed forever.
I wanted to sit down on the sidewalk and bawl, but that wouldn'tsolve my problems. I had to call Barbara Stratford, tell her what hadhappened. Show her the photo of Darryl.
What was I thinking? I had to show her the video, the one that Mashahad sent me — the one where the President's Chief of Staff gloated at theattacks on San Francisco and admitted that he knew when and where thenext attacks would happen and that he wouldn't stop them becausethey'd help his man get re-elected.
That was a plan, then: get in touch with Barbara, give her the docu-ments, and get them into print. The VampMob had to have reallyfreaked people out, made them think that we really were a bunch of ter-rorists. Of course, when I'd been planning it, I had been thinking of howgood a distraction it would be, not how it would look to some NASCARDad in Nebraska.
I'd call Barbara, and I'd do it smart, from a payphone, putting myhood up so that the inevitable CCTV wouldn't get a photo of me. I dug aquarter out of my pocket and polished it on my shirt-tail, getting the fin-gerprints off it.
I headed downhill, down and down to the BART station and thepayphones there. I made it to the trolley-car stop when I spotted the cov-er of the week's Bay Guardian, stacked in a high pile next to a homelessblack guy who smiled at me. "Go ahead and read the cover, it's free —it'll cost you fifty cents to look inside, though."The headline was set in the biggest type I'd seen since 9/11:
INSIDE GITMO-BY-THE-BAYBeneath it, in slightly smaller type:
268"How the DHS has kept our children and friends in secret prisons onour doorstep.
"By Barbara Stratford, Special to the Bay Guardian"The newspaper seller shook his head. "Can you believe that?" he said.
"Right here in San Francisco. Man, the government sucks."Theoretically, the Guardian was free, but this guy appeared to havecornered the local market for copies of it. I had a quarter in my hand. Idropped it into his cup and fished for another one. I didn't bother polish-ing the fingerprints off of it this time.
"We're told that the world changed forever when the Bay Bridge wasblown up by parties unknown. Thousands of our friends and neighborsdied on that day. Almost none of them have been recovered; their re-mains are presumed to be resting in the city's harbor.
"But an extraordinary story told to this reporter by a young man whowas arrested by the DHS minutes after the explosion suggests that ourown government has illegally held many of those thought dead onTreasure Island, which had been evacuated and declared off-limits to ci-vilians shortly after the bombing… "I sat down on a bench — the same bench, I noted with a prickly hair-up-the-neck feeling, where we'd rested Darryl after escaping from theBART station — and read the article all the way through. It took a hugeeffort not to burst into tears right there. Barbara had found some photosof me and Darryl goofing around together and they ran alongside thetext. The photos were maybe a year old, but I looked so much younger inthem, like I was 10 or 11. I'd done a lot of growing up in the past couplemonths.
The piece was beautifully written. I kept feeling outraged on behalf ofthe poor kids she was writing about, then remembering that she waswriting about me. Zeb's note was there, his crabbed handwriting repro-duced in large, a half-sheet of the newspaper. Barbara had dug up moreinfo on other kids who were missing and presumed dead, a long list, andasked how many had been stuck there on the island, just a few milesfrom their parents' doorsteps.
I dug another quarter out of my pocket, then changed my mind. Whatwas the chance that Barbara's phone wasn't tapped? There was no way Iwas going to be able to call her now, not directly. I needed some interme-diary to get in touch with her and get her to meet me somewhere south.
So much for plans.
269What I really, really needed was the Xnet.
How the hell was I going to get online? My phone's wifinder wasblinking like crazy — there was wireless all around me, but I didn't havean Xbox and a TV and a ParanoidXbox DVD to boot from. WiFi, WiFieverywhere…That's when I spotted them. Two kids, about my age, moving amongthe crowd at the top of the stairs down into the BART.
What caught my eye was the way they were moving, kind of clumsy,nudging up against the commuters and the tourists. Each had a hand inhis pocket, and whenever they met one another's eye, they snickered.
They couldn't have been more obvious jammers, but the crowd was obli-vious to them. Being down in that neighborhood, you expect to bedodging homeless people and crazies, so you don't make eye contact,don't look around at all if you can help it.
I sidled up to one. He seemed really young, but he couldn't have beenany younger than me.
"Hey," I said. "Hey, can you guys come over here for a second?"He pretended not to hear me. He looked right through me, the wayyou would a homeless person.
"Come on," I said. "I don't have a lot of time." I grabbed his shoulderand hissed in his ear. "The cops are after me. I'm from Xnet."He looked scared now, like he wanted to run away, and his friend wasmoving toward us. "I'm serious," I said. "Just hear me out."His friend came over. He was taller, and beefy — like Darryl. "Hey,"he said. "Something wrong?"His friend whispered in his ear. The two of them looked like they weregoing to bolt.
I grabbed my copy of the Bay Guardian from under my arm and rattledit in front of them. "Just turn to page 5, OK?"They did. They looked at the headline. The photo. Me.
"Oh, dude," the first one said. "We are so not worthy." He grinned atme like crazy, and the beefier one slapped me on the back.
"No way —" he said. "You're M —"I put a hand over his mouth. "Come over here, OK?"270I brought them back to my bench. I noticed that there was somethingold and brown staining the sidewalk underneath it. Darryl's blood? Itmade my skin pucker up. We sat down.
"I'm Marcus," I said, swallowing hard as I gave my real name to thesetwo who already knew me as M1k3y. I was blowing my cover, but theBay Guardian had already made the connection for me.
"Nate," the small one said. "Liam," the bigger one said. "Dude, it is suchan honor to meet you. You're like our all-time hero —""Don't say that," I said. "Don't say that. You two are like a flashing ad-vertisement that says, 'I am jamming, please put my ass in Gitmo-by-the-Bay. You couldn't be more obvious."Liam looked like he might cry.
"Don't worry, you didn't get busted. I'll give you some tips, later." Hebrightened up again. What was becoming weirdly clear was that thesetwo really did idolize M1k3y, and that they'd do anything I said. Theywere grinning like idiots. It made me uncomfortable, sick to my stomach.
"Listen, I need to get on Xnet, now, without going home or anywherenear home. Do you two live near here?""I do," Nate said. "Up at the top of California Street. It's a bit of a walk— steep hills." I'd just walked all the way down them. Masha was some-where up there. But still, it was better than I had any right to expect.
"Let's go," I said.
Nate loaned me his baseball hat and traded jackets with me. I didn'thave to worry about gait-recognition, not with my ankle throbbing theway it was — I limped like an extra in a cowboy movie.
Nate lived in a huge four-bedroom apartment at the top of Nob Hill.
The building had a doorman, in a red overcoat with gold brocade, andhe touched his cap and called Nate, "Mr Nate" and welcomed us allthere. The place was spotless and smelled of furniture polish. I tried notto gawp at what must have been a couple million bucks' worth of condo.
"My dad," he explained. "He was an investment banker. Lots of life in-surance. He died when I was 14 and we got it all. They'd been divorcedfor years, but he left my mom as beneficiary."From the floor-to-ceiling window, you could see a stunning view ofthe other side of Nob Hill, all the way down to Fisherman's Wharf, to theugly stub of the Bay Bridge, the crowd of cranes and trucks. Through the271mist, I could just make out Treasure Island. Looking down all that way,it gave me a crazy urge to jump.
I got online with his Xbox and a huge plasma screen in the livingroom. He showed me how many open WiFi networks were visible fromhis high vantage point — twenty, thirty of them. This was a good spot tobe an Xnetter.
There was a lot of email in my M1k3y account. 20,000 new messagessince Ange and I had left her place that morning. Lots of it was from thepress, asking for followup interviews, but most of it was from the Xnet-ters, people who'd seen the Guardian story and wanted to tell me thatthey'd do anything to help me, anything I needed.
That did it. Tears started to roll down my cheeks.
Nate and Liam exchanged glances. I tried to stop, but it was no good. Iwas sobbing now. Nate went to an oak book-case on one wall and swunga bar out of one of its shelves, revealing gleaming rows of bottles. Hepoured me a shot of something golden brown and brought it to me.
"Rare Irish whiskey," he said. "Mom's favorite."It tasted like fire, like gold. I sipped at it, trying not to choke. I didn'treally like hard liquor, but this was different. I took several deep breaths.
"Thanks, Nate," I said. He looked like I'd just pinned a medal on him.
He was a good kid.
"All right," I said, and picked up the keyboard. The two boys watchedin fascination as I paged through my mail on the gigantic screen.
What I was looking for, first and foremost, was email from Ange.
There was a chance that she'd just gotten away. There was always thatchance.
I was an idiot to even hope. There was nothing from her. I started go-ing through the mail as fast as I could, picking apart the press requests,the fan mail, the hate mail, the spam…And that's when I found it: a letter from Zeb.
"It wasn't nice to wake up this morning and find the letter that Ithought you would destroy in the pages of the newspaper. Not nice atall. Made me feel — hunted.
"But I've come to understand why you did it. I don't know if I can ap-prove of your tactics, but it's easy to see that your motives were sound.
272"If you're reading this, that means that there's a good chance you'vegone underground. It's not easy. I've been learning that. I've been learn-ing a lot more.
"I can help you. I should do that for you. You're doing what you canfor me. (Even if you're not doing it with my permission.)"Reply if you get this, if you're on the run and alone. Or reply if you'rein custody, being run by our friends on Gitmo, looking for a way tomake the pain stop. If they've got you, you'll do what they tell you. Iknow that. I'll take that risk.
"For you, M1k3y.""Wooooah," Liam breathed. "Duuuuude." I wanted to smack him. Iturned to say something awful and cutting to him, but he was staring atme with eyes as big as saucers, looking like he wanted to drop to hisknees and worship me.
"Can I just say," Nate said, "can I just say that it is the biggest honor ofmy entire life to help you? Can I just say that?"I was blushing now. There was nothing for it. These two were totallystar-struck, even though I wasn't any kind of star, not in my own mind atleast.
"Can you guys —" I swallowed. "Can I have some privacy here?"They slunk out of the room like bad puppies and I felt like a tool. Ityped fast.
"I got away, Zeb. And I'm on the run. I need all the help I can get. Iwant to end this now." I remembered to take Masha's phone out of mypocket and tickle it to keep it from going to sleep.
They let me use the shower, gave me a change of clothes, a new back-pack with half their earthquake kit in it — energy bars, medicine, hotand cold packs, and an old sleeping-bag. They even slipped a spare XboxUniversal already loaded with ParanoidXbox on it into there. That was anice touch. I had to draw the line at a flaregun.
I kept on checking my email to see if Zeb had replied. I answered thefan mail. I answered the mail from the press. I deleted the hate mail. Iwas half-expecting to see something from Masha, but chances were shewas halfway to LA by now, her fingers hurt, and in no position to type. Itickled her phone again.
They encouraged me to take a nap and for a brief, shameful moment, Igot all paranoid like maybe these guys were thinking of turning me in273once I was asleep. Which was idiotic — they could have turned me injust as easily when I was awake. I just couldn't compute the fact that theythought so much of me. I had known, intellectually, that there werepeople who would follow M1k3y. I'd met some of those people thatmorning, shouting BITE BITE BITE and vamping it up at Civic Center.
But these two were more personal. They were just nice, goofy guys, theycoulda been any of my friends back in the days before the Xnet, just twopals who palled around having teenage adventures. They'd volunteeredto join an army, my army. I had a responsibility to them. Left to them-selves, they'd get caught, it was only a matter of time. They were tootrusting.
"Guys, listen to me for a second. I have something serious I need totalk to you about."They almost stood at attention. It would have been funny if it wasn'tso scary.
"Here's the thing. Now that you've helped me, it's really dangerous. Ifyou get caught, I'll get caught. They'll get anything you know out of you—" I held up my hand to forestall their protests. "No, stop. You haven'tbeen through it. Everyone talks. Everyone breaks. If you're ever caught,you tell them everything, right away, as fast as you can, as much as youcan. They'll get it all eventually anyway. That's how they work.
"But you won't get caught, and here's why: you're not jammers any-more. You are retired from active duty. You're a —" I fished in mymemory for vocabulary words culled from spy thrillers — "you're asleeper cell. Stand down. Go back to being normal kids. One way or an-other, I'm going to break this thing, break it wide open, end it. Or it willget me, finally, do me in. If you don't hear from me within 72 hours, as-sume that they got me. Do whatever you want then. But for the nextthree days — and forever, if I do what I'm trying to do — stand down.
Will you promise me that?"They promised with all solemnity. I let them talk me into napping, butmade them swear to rouse me once an hour. I'd have to tickle Masha'sphone and I wanted to know as soon as Zeb got back in touch with me.
The rendezvous was on a BART car, which made me nervous. They'refull of cameras. But Zeb knew what he was doing. He had me meet himin the last car of a certain train departing from Powell Street Station, at atime when that car was filled with the press of bodies. He sidled up to274me in the crowd, and the good commuters of San Francisco cleared aspace for him, the hollow that always surrounds homeless people.
"Nice to see you again," he muttered, facing into the doorway. Lookinginto the dark glass, I could see that there was no one close enough toeavesdrop — not without some kind of high-efficiency mic rig, and ifthey knew enough to show up here with one of those, we were deadanyway.
"You too, brother," I said. "I'm — I'm sorry, you know?""Shut up. Don't be sorry. You were braver than I am. Are you ready togo underground now? Ready to disappear?""About that.""Yes?""That's not the plan.""Oh," he said.
"Listen, OK? I have — I have pictures, video. Stuff that really provessomething." I reached into my pocket and tickled Masha's phone. I'dbought a charger for it in union Square on the way down, and hadstopped and plugged it in at a cafe for long enough to get the battery upto four out of five bars. "I need to get it to Barbara Stratford, the womanfrom the Guardian. But they're going to be watching her — watching tosee if I show up.""You don't think that they'll be watching for me, too? If your plan in-volves me going within a mile of that woman's home or office —""I want you to get Van to come and meet me. Did Darryl ever tell youabout Van? The girl —""He told me. Yes, he told me. You don't think they'll be watching her?
All of you who were arrested?""I think they will. I don't think they'll be watching her as hard. AndVan has totally clean hands. She never cooperated with any of my —" Iswallowed. "With my projects. So they might be a little more relaxedabout her. If she calls the Bay Guardian to make an appointment to ex-plain why I'm just full of crap, maybe they'll let her keep it."He stared at the door for a long time.
"You know what happens when they catch us again." It wasn't aquestion.
I nodded.
275"Are you sure? Some of the people that were on Treasure Island withus got taken away in helicopters. They got taken offshore. There are coun-tries where America can outsource its torture. Countries where you willrot forever. Countries where you wish they would just get it over with,have you dig a trench and then shoot you in the back of the head as youstand over it."I swallowed and nodded.
"Is it worth the risk? We can go underground for a long, long timehere. Someday we might get our country back. We can wait it out."I shook my head. "You can't get anything done by doing nothing. It'sour country. They've taken it from us. The terrorists who attack us arestill free — but we're not. I can't go underground for a year, ten years, mywhole life, waiting for freedom to be handed to me. Freedom issomething you have to take for yourself."That afternoon, Van left school as usual, sitting in the back of the buswith a tight knot of her friends, laughing and joking the way she alwaysdid. The other riders on the bus took special note of her, she was so loud,and besides, she was wearing that stupid, giant floppy hat, somethingthat looked like a piece out of a school play about Renaissance swordfighters. At one point they all huddled together, then turned away tolook out the back of the bus, pointing and giggling. The girl who worethe hat now was the same height as Van, and from behind, it could beher.
No one paid any attention to the mousy little Asian girl who got off afew stops before the BART. She was dressed in a plain old school uni-form, and looking down shyly as she stepped off. Besides, at that mo-ment, the loud Korean girl let out a whoop and her friends followedalong, laughing so loudly that even the bus driver slowed down, twistedin his seat and gave them a dirty look.
Van hurried away down the street with her head d............