Collections #02 - Wireless by Charles Stross

Author:Charles Stross [Stross, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, General, Short Stories, Science Fiction; English
ISBN: 9781841497716
Publisher: Ace
Published: 2009-07-01T22:00:00+00:00

Roscoe drove home slowly, and not just because of the snow and compacted slush on the roads. A hotshot from the FCC sounded like the inquisition come to town. Roscoe’s lifelong mistrust of radio cops had metastasized into surging hatred three years ago, when they busted him behind a Federal telecoms rap.

He’d lost his job and spent the best part of six months inside, though he’d originally been looking at a five-year contributory-infringement stretch—compounded to twenty by the crypto running on the access point under the “use a cypher, go to jail” statute—to second-degree tariff evasion. His public defender had been worse than useless, but the ACLU had filed an amicus on his behalf, which led the judge to knock the beef down to criminal trespass and unlawful emission, six months and two years’ probation, two years in which he wasn’t allowed to program a goddamn microwave oven, let alone admin the networks that had been his trade. Prison hadn’t been as bad for him as it could have been—unwirers got respect—but, while he was inside, Janice filed for divorce, and by the time he got out, he’d lost everything he’d spent the last decade building—his marriage, his house, his savings, his career. Everything except for the unwiring.

It was this experience that had turned him from a freewheeling geek into what FCC Chairman Valenti called “one of the copyright crooks whose illegal pirate networks provide safe havens to terrorists within the homeland and abroad.” And so it was with a shudder and a glance over his shoulder that he climbed the front steps and put his key in the lock of the house he and Marcel rented.

Marcel looked up from his laptop as Roscoe stamped through the living room.

“Slushy boots! For chrissakes, Roscoe, I just cleaned.”

Roscoe turned to look at the salty brown slush he’d tracked over the painted floor and shook his head.

“Sorry,” he said, lamely, and sat down on the floor to shuck his heavy steel-shank Kodiaks. He carried them back to the doormat, then grabbed a roll of paper towels from the kitchen and started wiping up the mess. The landlord used cheap enamel paint on the floor, and the road salt could eat through to the scuffed wood in half an hour.

“And paper towels, God, it’s like you’ve got a personal vendetta against the forests. There’s a rag bag under the sink, as you’d know if you ever did any cleaning around this place.”

“Ease the fuck off, kid, you sound like my goddamned ex-wife,” Roscoe said, giving the floor a vicious swipe. “Just ease back and let me do my thing, all right? It didn’t go so good.”

Marcel set his machine down reverently on the small hearthrug beside his Goodwill recliner. “What happened?”

Roscoe quickly related his run-in with the law. Marcel shook his head slowly.

“I bet it’s bullshit. Ever since Tijuana, everyone’s seeing spooks.” The ISPs on the Tijuana side of the San Ysidro border crossing had been making good coin off of unwirer sympathizers who’d pointed their antennae across the chain-link fence.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.