Read an Excerpt
Chapter 1
This chapter is dedicated to BakkaPhoenix Books in Toronto,
Canada. Bakka is the oldest science fiction bookstore in the
world, and it made me the mutant I am today. I wandered in for
the first time around the age of 10 and asked for some
recommendations. Tanya Huff (yes, the Tanya Huff, but she
wasn't a famous writer back then!) took me back into the used
section and pressed a copy of H. Beam Piper's "Little Fuzzy" into
my hands, and changed my life forever. By the time I was 18, I was
working at Bakka -- I
took over from Tanya when she retired to
write full time -- and
I learned lifelong
lessons about how and
why people buy books. I think every writer should work at a
bookstore (and plenty of writers have worked at Bakka over the
years! For the 30th anniversary of the store, they put together an
anthology of stories by Bakka writers that included work by
Michelle Sagara (AKA Michelle West), Tanya Huff, Nalo
Hopkinson, Tara Tallan -- and
me!)
BakkaPhoenix Books: http://www.bakkaphoenixbooks.com/ 697
Queen Street West, Toronto ON Canada M6J1E6, +1 416 963
9993
I'm a senior at Cesar Chavez high in San Francisco's sunny
Mission district, and that makes me one of the most surveilled
people in the world. My name is Marcus Yallow, but back when
this story starts, I was going by w1n5t0n. Pronounced "Winston."
Not pronounced "Double-you-one-enn-five-tee-zero-enn" -- unless
you're a clueless disciplinary officer who's far enough
behind the curve that you still call the Internet "the information
superhighway."
I know just such a clueless person, and his name is Fred
Benson, one of three vice-principals
at Cesar Chavez. He's a
sucking chest wound of a human being. But if you're going to
have a jailer, better a clueless one than one who's really on the
ball.
"Marcus Yallow," he said over the PA one Friday morning. The
PA isn't very good to begin with, and when you combine that with
Benson's habitual mumble, you get something that sounds more
like someone struggling to digest a bad burrito than a school
announcement. But human beings are good at picking their names
out of audio confusion -- it's
a survival trait.
I grabbed my bag and folded my laptop three-quarters
shut -- I
didn't want 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
I rolled my eyes back at her. The Man was always coming down
on me, just because I go through school firewalls like wet
kleenex, spoof the gait-recognition
software, and nuke the snitch
chips they track us with. Galvez is a good type, anyway, never
holds that against me (especially when I'm helping get with her
webmail so she can talk to her brother who's stationed in Iraq).
My boy Darryl gave me a smack on the ass as I walked past.
I've known Darryl since we were still in diapers and escaping
from playschool,
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 exit from Social Studies and began the perpwalk
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 stop me? I ducked into the toilet and shut myself in the
middle stall (the furthest stall is always grossest because so many
people head straight for it, hoping to escape the smell and the
squick -- the
smart money and good hygiene is down the middle).
I checked the phone -- my
home PC had sent it an email to tell it
that there was something new up on Harajuku Fun Madness,
which happens to be the best game ever invented.
I grinned. Spending Fridays at school was teh suck anyway, and
I was glad of the excuse to make my escape.
I ambled the rest of the way to Benson's office and tossed him a
wave as I sailed through the door.
"If it isn't Double-you-one-enn-five-tee-zero-enn,"
he said.
Fredrick Benson -- Social
Security number 545-03-2343,
date of
birth August 15 1962, mother's maiden name Di Bona, hometown
Petaluma -- is
a lot taller than me. I'm a runty 5'8", while he
stands 6'7", and his college basketball days are far enough behind
him that his chest muscles have turned into saggy manboobs
that
were painfully obvious through his freebie dotcom
poloshirts.
He always looks like he's about to slamdunk
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
eyeball and waited for me to wilt. Of course it was my handle, and
had been for years. It was the identity I used when I was posting
on messageboards
where I was making my contributions to the
field of applied security research. You know, like sneaking out of
school and disabling the mindertracer
on my phone. But he didn't
know that this was my handle. Only a small number of people did,
and I trusted them all to the end of the earth.
"Um, not ringing any bells," I said. I'd done some pretty cool
stuff around school using that handle -- I
was very proud of my
work on snitch-tag
killers -- and
if he could link the two identities,
I'd be in trouble. No one at school ever called me w1n5t0n or even
Winston. Not even my pals. It was Marcus or nothing.
Benson settled down behind his desk and tapped his classring
nervously on his blotter. He did this whenever things started to go
bad for him. Poker players call stuff like this a "tell" -- something
that let you know what was going on in the other guy's head. I
knew Benson's tells backwards and forwards.
"Marcus, I hope you realize how serious this is."
Continues …
