“Simon! The phone is for you!!!” One hand grasped the bannister while she yelled this, her body swinging lazily at a forty five degree angle to the floor as she pushed the words up two flights of stairs. A pause. “Emmanuel Goldstien! From the magazine!!” After a second pause which evidently contained reassurances that the caller had or would soon be attended to, she walked over to the waiting phone and, after briefly putting it to her ear, replaced it on the receiver.
“Does that guy call here a lot?” The boy who asked was sitting at the kitchen table, watching the girl mess with the large unlabled jars of oils, grains, and spices which seemed to line every horizontal surface in the place. These, plus some scraggly plants she’d pulled from the small garden in the back, would be transformed into something better than edible by processes that were mysterious and sometimes vaguely threatening to him. They were both eighteen.
“I think so. I’m not here during the day, though. Simon is working on an action over this jailed hacker kid. That guy is helping, I guess.”
“What’s the name of the magazine?” He leaned forward, looking slightly amazed.
“Ah...” She took her hands out of the dough, put them on her hips and stepped back from the counter, gaze on the floor. “Shit. I forgot. It’s a number.” The kneading resumed, without eye contact.
“2600?”
“Sounds right, why?”
“You’re seriously asking me why?”
“Is he famous or something?”
“Um. Yeah. He’s been writing this ah... computer... magazine which I’ve been reading since I was like, twelve. Taught me how to break into my middle school’s records.”
“Really?” She looked up, her eyebrows jovially askew. “Weird. Small world, huh?”
“Yeah.” Such amusement was contagious. Biting his smile, the boy tousled his own hair and looked away.
“Honestly, the whole premise of a hacker march is a bit ridiculous. They are more paranoid about controlling access to their precious identities than your average anarcho-polyamourist urban homesteader. Simon’s not getting many takers on the sign holding/ chanting idea. Poor guy, he’s really busting his ass.”
They laughed again, both heads shaking.
Michele sent me. Just spreading comment cheer!
Posted by: Geekwif | August 30, 2005 at 09:45 AM
They still publish 2600? That's a series hardcore hacking manual. I always found it way too technical to be interesting. But I guess my computer related motives are a little purer than its target market's.
Posted by: yellojkt | August 30, 2005 at 11:58 AM
Thanks for visiting Lam(b) today, now I have another excuse to buy more chairs - my neighbors might need them! haha
Posted by: lisa | August 30, 2005 at 12:20 PM