Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town Part 27

"Hi there!" Arnold said pocketing the book and dusting off his hands.

"Hey," the guy said into his stringy beard, fumbling with a keyring. "I'll be opening up in a couple minutes, okay? I know I'm late. It's a bad day. okay?"

Arnold held his hands up, palms out. "Hey, no problem at all! Take as much time as you need. I'm in no hurry."

The anarchist hustled around inside the shop, turning on lights, firing up the cash-register and counting out a float, switching on the coffee machine. Alan waited patiently by the doorway, holding the door open with his toe when the clerk hauled out a rack of discounted paperbacks and earning a dirty look for his trouble.

"Okay, we're open," the anarchist said looking Alan in the toes. He turned around and banged back into the shop and perched himself behind the counter, opening a close-typed punk newspaper and burying his nose in it.

Adam walked in behind him and stood at the counter, politely, waiting. The anarchist looked up from his paper and shook his head exasperatedly. "Yes?"

Alan extended his hand. "Hi, I'm Archie, I work with Kurt, over on Augusta?"

The anarchist stared at his hand, then shook it limply.

"Okay," he said.

"So, Kurt mentioned that he'd spoken to your collective about putting a wireless repeater up over your sign?"

The anarchist shook his head. "We decided not to do that, okay." He went back to his paper.

Andrew considered him for a moment. "So, what's your name?"

"I don't like to give out my name," the anarchist said. "Call me Waldo, all right?"

"All right," Andy said smiling. "That's fine by me. So, can I ask why you decided not to do it?"

"It doesn't fit with our priorities. We're here to make print materials about the movement available to the public. They can get Internet access somewhere else. Internet access is for people who can afford computers, anyway."

"Good point," Art said. "That's a good point. I wonder if I could ask you to reconsider, though? I'd love a chance to try to explain why this should be important to you."

"I don't think so," Waldo said. "We're not really interested."

"I think you *would* be interested, if it were properly explained to you."

Waldo picked up his paper and pointedly read it, breathing heavily.

"Thanks for your time," Avi said and left.

"That's *bulls.h.i.t*," Kurt said. "Christ, those people --"

"I a.s.sumed that there was some kind of politics," Austin said, "and I didn't want to get into the middle of it. I know that if I could get a chance to present to the whole group, that I could win them over."

Kurt shook his head angrily. His shop was better organized now, with six access points ready to go and five stuck to the walls as a test bed for new versions of the software. A couple of geeky Korean kids were seated at the communal workbench, eating donuts and wrestling with drivers.

"It's all politics with them. Everything. You should hear them argue about whether it's cool to feed meat to the store cat! Who was working behind the counter?"

"He wouldn't tell me his name. He told me to call him --"

"Waldo."

"Yeah."

"Well, that could be any of about six of them, then. That's what they tell the cops. They probably thought you were a narc or a fed or something."

"I see."

"It's not total paranoia. They've been busted before -- it's always bulls.h.i.t. I raised bail for a couple of them once."

Andrew realized that Kurt thought he was offended at being mistaken for a cop, but he got that. He was weird -- visibly weird. Out of place wherever he was.

"So they owe me. Let me talk to them some more."

"Thanks, Kurt. I appreciate it."

"Well, you're doing all the heavy lifting these days. It's the least I can do."

Alan clapped a hand on his shoulder. "None of this would exist without you, you know." He waved his hand to take in the room, the Korean kids, the whole Market. "I saw a bunch of people at the Greek's with laptops, showing them around to each other and drinking beers. In the park, with PDAs. I see people sitting on their porches, typing in the twilight. Crouched in doorways. Eating a bagel in the morning on a bench. People are finding it, and it's thanks to you."

Kurt smiled a shy smile. "You're just trying to cheer me up," he said.

"Course I am," Andy said. "You deserve to be full of cheer."

"Don't bother," Andy said. "Seriously, it's not worth it. We'll just find somewhere else to locate the repeater. It's not worth all the bulls.h.i.t you're getting."

"Screw that. They told me that they'd take one. They're the only ones *I* talked into it. My contribution to the effort. And they're f.u.c.king *anarchists* -- they've *got* to be into this. It's totally irrational!"

He was almost crying.

"I don't want you to screw up your friendships, Kurt. They'll come around on their own. You're turning yourself inside out over this, and it's just not worth it. Come on, it's cool." He turned around his laptop and showed the picture to Kurt. "Check it out, people with tails. An entire gallery of them!" There were lots of pictures like that on the net. None of people without belly b.u.t.tons, though.

Kurt took a pull off his beer. "Disgusting," he said and clicked through the gallery.

The Greek looked over their shoulder. "It's real?"

"It's real, Larry," Alan said. "Freaky, huh?"

"That's terrible," the Greek said. "Pah." There were five or six other network users out on the Greek's, and it was early yet. By five-thirty, there'd be fifty of them. Some of them brought their own power strips so that they could share juice with their coreligionists.

"You really want me to give up?" Kurt asked, once the Greek had given him a new beer and a scowling look over the litter of picked-at beer label on the table before him.

"I really think you should," Alan said. "It's a poor use of time."

Kurt looked ready to cry again. Adam had no idea what to say.

"Okay," Kurt said. "Fine." He finished his beer in silence and slunk away.