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New story of mine: TV Watches You

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“Dance, St33v,” Micah told the computer once it reached the floor. In response the little ball spun back and forth and LEDs on top of the computer casing flashed different colors. Tinny techno music issued from the laptop’s speakers and a dancing stick figure appeared onscreen. Nory laughed at the computer’s antics.

“Useless, I suppose, but that is truly awesome,” she told Micah. “Well, we’ve made our trades. Any news before I go?”

“Nope. Nobody on the Alternet has managed to break the government Nukewall yet, and until we do that, we won’t be able to get any reforms no matter how much we protest. You know how the protests go. They send the rep out in the armored truck and he explains how mistaken we are, how we’re really free already and we don’t need free speech,” Micah said with a grimace.

“Yep, then they bring out the police. I’ve seen it over and over. We’re arranging a protest, though, right? When’s it scheduled for?” Nory replied.

“When we figure out how to down the Nukewall. Until then, we’ve just got to sit around and poke at the little firewalls.” He donned a white bucket hat that had “h4ck3r” written on it, turning towards one of the computer keyboards and plugging in the flashdrive with the firewall samples. “Hack for justice,” he said.

“Till freedom we have,” Nory replied. It was the motto of the Alternet- the group to which they belonged, which was trying to regain free speech. Nory pocketed the phone and fake Pod. “Bye, St33v,” she told the computer in the hamster ball.

“kthxbai//g2g//for great justice//” scrolled across its screen. Nory nodded to Micah, then left the way she had come in.

Nory nodded to the shopkeeper of the grocery store as she headed for the door, then doubled back, picking a green apple from the fruit bin and buying it. The little man grinned at her.

<Found one, did you?> he asked her.

<Lucky, I guess,> she replied, handing over money for the apple.

<Apples are good,> he said. <Would you like perhaps a little toy penguin I found?>

Nory laughed. <You’re funny,> she told the shopkeeper. <Sure, I’ll take the penguin.>

The shopkeeper handed over a small stuffed penguin. It was not black and white as usual; it was mostly black, wearing a little suit.

<Ninja penguin! So cute!> Nory said of the plushie. <Thanks a lot!>

<Least I can do for one who understands the value of apples and penguins,> the shopkeeper said. <Keep up the good fight out there.>

Nory nodded and left the shop, putting the penguin in a pocket. She took a bite out of her apple and grinned: it was of the Macintosh variety.

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Comment that sorta pertains to the story:

I was ticked off to discover, when I was at school for band camp, that they have installed security cameras all over the school. All the hallways appear to have them as well as the outdoor walkways. Today, I received in the mail the usual information they send out before school starts. Nothing was included to tell people that the school now has a Big Brother.

Now, among other things, there's plenty they could be doing with the money used to buy the cameras that's LOADS more useful and doesn't anger the students. Like buying TISSUES and SOAP (two commodities that never seem to be there when you need them) and decent computers for the computer labs (the best computers are in the library, with nothing good installed on them.)

Not to mention that there's no POINT in the cameras. They won't prevent fights. They won't stop people from leaving school. They won't even make it easier to catch people who are breaking rules, because either they're caught on the scene or they'll disguise themselves from the cameras (which is dang easy to do, and I don't even need to.)

RRGH.

At least they haven't done anything idiotic like banning USB drives, though I fully expect a more draconian internet filter when I start my computer classes.

Rant over, time for another story chunk. It cuts off a little awkwardly because I didn't have time to write more, I'm afraid.

Nory hid her face until she was on the subway home. Then she went without caution, setting the arphid scrambler in her dog tag to transmit her real information to the scanners. She was a girl going home. Nothing at all suspicious about that. She even smiled in the direction of one of the government surveillance cameras.

She entered the house through the front door. “Mom, Dad, I’m home!” she called. An incoherent reply came from her father’s office. He was probably poring over some of his business records. Nory’s mother was more responsive, though she did not leave her computer. “Hello,” she answered. “Nory, why’s your arphid bracelet on the cat?”

The aforementioned cat, grey and white, streaked past Nory’s feet after some invisible object as Nory called back, “Didn’t need it, and it’s picked up a new program that tells if it’s moving around. So leaving it under the toaster was out of the question.” Nory kicked off her shoes and started up the stairs. Her mother sighed.

“You’re making things up and you know it,” Nory’s mother informed her. “There’s no sensor in that thing that can tell if you’re moving.”

“Okay, okay,” Nory admitted, “I left it on the cat because I thought it was funny.”

“Actually it was, when I first saw it,” Nory’s mother told her. “But I’m pretty sure Cheezburger isn’t amused by it. He’s been scratching at it all day when he isn’t chasing things. How was your day?”

“Good,” Nory said in teenage fashion, then decided to elaborate. “I swapped my new Pod for an old iPod in a Pod shell. Got a new phone. Submitted the firewall samples.” Most teenagers would not dream of telling their parents that they had been messing with illtech (actually, most wouldn’t dream of using illtech at all), but Nory’s parents were part of the Alternet. There were only the bugs in the walls to worry about, and Nory’s mother had written a program that generated nice, ordinary conversation for the bugs to hear.

“You were careful?” Of course, Nory’s mom was a normal mother in some regards.

“Yes mom,” Nory muttered, rolling her eyes.

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MORE FINALLY MORE

Yes mom,” Nory muttered, rolling her eyes. “What’s for dinner?”

“I don’t know,” replied her mother, keying in a few commands on the computer. “Haven’t thought about it.”

“I’ll call the delivery place,” Nory said, restraining a sigh. She knew her parents; remembering food was not one of their strong points. Both were capable of becoming entirely absorbed in whatever they were working on. She dug the house phone out of a pile of papers and called in an order to the delivery service.

Eventually, the food arrived and Nory convinced her parents to emerge from their offices. Dinner was uneventful. After dinner Nory played with the cat a bit, chatted with her friends over the internet, and went to sleep.

The first thing Nory noticed in the morning was that the light on her Wii was blinking. She booted the little piece of illtech up to find a message on the Alternet channel: a mass email from Micah, along with a little snippet at the end encoded with Nory’s key. The broadcast message read:

“Big JAM today @ Sci Msm. Dress geeky and bring SPEAKERS! music tech and PROTEST the imprisonment of INTERNET! 1200-1800”

Nory blinked. Had Micah and his code monkeys gotten through the Nukewall already? That was the only reason she could think of for a protest of such magnitude. She decrypted the postscript.

“Thanks for the school sample. We’ve got a worm into the Nukewall now. Not downed it yet, but we’re closer. Can you make sure nobody does anything idiotic at the protest?”

Nory grinned. Progress. She drafted a reply, writing it in her personal code just to be safe. “Sure, I’ll be there at the party. I’ll babysit the kids.” She signed off and dressed. There were only a couple of hours until she had to be at the Science Museum. She left her iPod speakers- she wanted to be able to move freely through the crowns and run if necessary, as one of the leaders. She picked up a can of temporary hair color spray and sprayed her hair black- it wasn’t a good idea to look the same at a protest as she normally did. She then donned a big black t-shirt and an old pair of jeans, putting a baseball cap on and stuffing the longer ends of her hair into it. Now it was harder to discern her gender.

She stopped by the kitchen and grabbed a couple of leftover baozi for breakfast, yelling to her parents as she headed out the door. “I’m going out to shop,” she called. Nory knew she couldn’t tell her parents about the protest; though they wanted to end the government’s abuse of people’s rights as much as she did, they didn’t want her to get caught. Nory knew she wouldn’t get caught.

“Call us later,” her mother replied. “And remember, Mrs. Roberts is coming over for dinner.”

“’Kay,” Nory replied, and headed for the bus stop.

P.S. If you don't know what baozi are, you're deprived. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baozi

Edited by Kiryn
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