Eastern Standard Tribe, Cory Doctorow [reading e books TXT] 📗

of my coworkers who
were doing something that I thought was immoral. They decided that it would be
best for their plans if I was out of the way for a little while, so that I
couldn't screw them up, so they coopered this up, told the London police that
I'd gone nuts.

"So I ended up in an institution here for observation, on the grounds that I was
dangerously paranoid. When the people at the institution asked me about it, I
told them what had happened. Because I was claiming that the people who had me
locked up were conspiring to make me look paranoid, the doctors decided that I
*was* paranoid. But tell me, how could I demonstrate my non-paranoia? I mean, as
far as I can tell, the second I was put away for observation, I was guaranteed
to be found wanting. Nothing I could have said or done would have made a
difference."

The judge looked up from her comm and gave me another once-over. I was wearing
my best day clothes, which were my basic London shabby chic white shirt and gray
wool slacks and narrow blue tie. It looked natty enough in the UK, but I knew
that in the US it made me look like an overaged door-to-door Mormon. The judge
kept looking at me. *Call to action,* I thought. *End your speeches with a call
to action*. It was another bit of goofy West Coast Vulcan Mind Control, courtesy
of Linda's fucking ex.

"So here's what I wanted to do. I wanted to stand up here and let you know what
had happened to me and ask you for advice. If we assume for the moment that I'm
*not* crazy, how should I demonstrate that here in the court?"

The judge rolled her head from shoulder to shoulder, making glossy black
waterfalls of her hair. The whole hearing is very fuzzy for me, but that hair!
Who ever heard of a civil servant with good hair?

"Mr. Berry," she said, "I'm afraid I don't have much to tell you. It's my
responsibility to listen to qualified testimony and make a ruling. You haven't
presented any qualified testimony to support your position. In the absence of
such testimony, my only option is to remand you into the custody of the
Department of Mental Health until such time as a group of qualified
professionals see fit to release you." I expected her to bang a gavel, but
instead she just scritched at her comm and squirted the order at the court
reporter and I was led away.

I didn't even have a chance to talk to Gran.

26.

##Received address book entry "Toby Ginsburg" from Colonelonic.

## Colonelonic (private): This guy's up to something. Flew to Boston twice this
week. Put a down payment on a house in Orange County. _Big_ house. _Big_ down
payment. A car, too: vintage T-bird convertible. A gas burner! Bought CO2
credits for an entire year to go with it.

Trepan: /private Colonelonic Huh. Who's he working for?

## Colonelonic (private): Himself. He Federally incorporated last week,
something called "TunePay, Inc." He's the Chairman, but he's only a minority
shareholder. The rest of the common shares are held by a dummy corporation in
London. Couldn't get any details on that without using a forensic accounting
package, and that'd get me fired right quick.

Trepan: /private Colonelonic It's OK. I get the picture. I owe you one, all
right?

## Colonelonic (private): sweat.value==0 Are you going to tell me what this is
all about someday? Not some bullshit about your girlfriend?

Trepan: /private Colonelonic Heh. That part was true, actually. I'll tell you
the rest, maybe, someday. Not today, though. I gotta go to London.

Art's vision throbbed with his pulse as he jammed his clothes back into his
backpack with one hand while he booked a ticket to London on his comm with the
other. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he ordered the taxi while scribbling a
note to Gran on the smart-surface of her fridge.

He was verging on berserk by the time he hit airport security. The guard played
the ultrasound flashlight over him and looked him up and down with his goggles,
then had him walk through the chromatograph twice. Art tried to breathe calmly,
but it wasn't happening. He'd take two deep breaths, think about how he was yup,
calming down, pretty good, especially since he was going to London to confront
Fede about the fact that his friend had screwed him stabbed him in the back
using his girlfriend to distract him and meanwhile she was in Los Angeles
sleeping with her fucking ex who was going to steal his idea and sell it as his
own that fucking prick boning his girl right then almost certainly laughing
about poor old Art, dumbfuck stuck in Toronto with his thumb up his ass, oh Fede
was going to pay, that's right, he was -- and then he'd be huffing down his
nose, hyperventilating, really losing his shit right there.

The security guard finally asked him if he needed a doctor.

"No," Art said. "That's fine. I'm just upset. A friend of mine died suddenly and
I'm flying to London for the funeral." The guard seemed satisfied with this
explanation and let him pass, finally.

He fought the urge to get plastered on the flight and vibrated in his seat
instead, jiggling his leg until his seatmate -- an elderly businessman who'd
spent the flight thus far wrinkling his brow at a series of spreadsheets on his
comm -- actually put a hand on Art's knee and said, "Switch off the motor, son.
You're gonna burn it out if you idle it that high all the way to Gatwick."

Art nearly leapt out of his seat when the flight attendant wheeled up the
duty-free cart, bristling with novelty beakers of fantastically old whiskey
shaped like jigging Scotchmen and drunken leprechauns swinging from lampposts.

By the time he hit UK customs he was supersonic, ready to hammer an entire
packet of Player's filterless into his face and light them with a blowtorch. It
wasn't even 0600h GMT, and the Sikh working the booth looked three-quarters
asleep under his turban, but he woke right up when Art stepped past the red line
and slapped both palms on the counter and used them as a lever to support him as
he pogoed in place.

"Your business in England, sir?"

"I work for Virgin/Deutsche Telekom. Let me beam you my visa." His hands were
shaking so badly he dropped his comm to the hard floor with an ominous clatter.
He snatched it up and rubbed at the fresh dent in the cover, then flipped it
open and stabbed at it with a filthy fingernail.

"Thank you, sir. Door number two, please."

Art took one step towards the baggage carousel when the words registered.
Customs search! Godfuckingdammit! He jittered in the private interview room
until another Customs officer showed up, overrode his comm and read in his ID
and credentials, then stared at them for a long moment.

"Are you quite all right, sir?"

"Just a little wound up," Art said, trying desperately to sound normal. He
thought about telling the dead friend story again, but unlike a lowly airport
security drone, the Customs man had the ability and inclination to actually
verify it. "Too much coffee on the plane. Need to have a slash like you wouldn't
believe."

The Customs man grimaced slightly, then chewed a corner of his little moustache.
"Everything else is all right, though?"

"Everything's fine. Back from a business trip to the States and Canada, all
jetlagged. You know. Can you believe the bastards actually expect me at the
office today?" This might work. Piss and moan about the office until he gets
bored and lets him go. "I mean, you work your guts out, fly halfway around the
world and do it some more, get strapped into a torture seat -- you think Virgin
springs for business-class tickets for its employees? Hell no! -- for six hours,
then they want you at the goddamned office."

"Virgin?" the Customs man said, eyebrows going up. "But you flew in on BA, sir."

Shit. Of course he hadn't booked a Virgin flight. That's what Fede'd be
expecting him to do, he'd be watching for Art to use his employee discount and
hop a flight back. "Yes, can you believe it?" Art thought furiously. "They
called me back suddenly, wouldn't even let me wait around for one of their own
damned planes. One minute I'm eating breakfast, the next I'm in a taxi heading
for the airport. I forgot half of my damned underwear in the hotel room! You'd
think they could cope with *one little problem* without crawling up my cock,
wouldn't you?"

"Sir, please, calm down." The Customs man looked alarmed and Art realized that
he'd begun to pace.

"Sorry, sorry. It just sucks. Bad job. Time to quit, I think."

"I should think so," the Customs man said. "Welcome to England."

Traffic was early-morning light and the cabbie drove like a madman. Art kept
flinching away from the oncoming traffic, already unaccustomed to driving on the
wrong side of the road. England seemed filthy and gray and shabby to him now,
tiny little cars with tiny, anal-retentive drivers filled with self-loathing,
vegetarian meat-substitutes and bad dentistry. In his rooms in Camden Town, Art
took a hasty and vengeful census of his stupid belongings, sagging rental
furniture and bad art prints hanging askew (not any more, not after he smashed
them to the floor). Bad English clothes (toss 'em onto the floor, looking for
one thing he'd be caught dead wearing in NYC, and guess what, not a single
thing). Stupid keepsakes from the Camden market, funny novelty lighters, retro
rave flyers preserved in glassine envelopes.

He was about to overturn his ugly little pressboard coffee table when he
realized that there was something on it.

A small, leather-worked box with a simple brass catch. Inside, the axe-head. Two
hundred thousand years old. Heavy with the weight of the ages. He hefted it in
his hand. It felt ancient and lethal. He dropped it into his jacket pocket,
instantly deforming the jacket into a stroke-y left-hanging slant. He kicked the
coffee table over.

Time to go see Fede.

27.

I have wished for a comm a hundred thousand times an hour since they stuck me in
this shithole, and now that I have one, I don't know who to call. Not smart. Not
happy.

I run my fingers over the keypad, think about all the stupid, terrible decisions
that I made on the way to this place in my life. I feel like I could burst into
tears, like I could tear the hair out of my head, like I could pound my fists
bloody on the floor. My fingers, splayed over the keypad, tap out the old
nervous rhythms of the phone numbers I've know all my life, my first house, my
Mom's comm, Gran's place.

Gran. I tap out her number and hit the commit button. I put the phone to my
head.

"Gran?"

"Arthur?"

"Oh, Gran!"

"Arthur, I'm so worried about you. I spoke to your cousins yesterday, they tell
me you're not doing so good there."

"No, no I'm not." The stitches in my jaw throb in counterpoint with my back.

"I tried to explain it all to Father Ferlenghetti, but I didn't have the details
right. He said it didn't make any sense."

"It doesn't. They don't care. They've just put me here."

"He said that they should have let you