261 · LITTLE BROTHER
How the hell was I going to get online? My phone’s wifinder was blinking like crazy — there was wireless all around me, but I didn’t have an XBox and a TV and a ParanoidXBox DVD to boot from. WiFi, WiFi everywhere... That’s when I spotted them. Two kids, about my age, moving among the crowd at the top of the stairs down into the BART. What caught my eye was the way they were moving, kind of clumsy, nudging up against the commuters and the tourists. Each had a hand in his pocket, and whenever they met one another’s eye, they snickered. They couldn’t have been more obvious jammers, but the crowd was oblivious to them. Being down in that neighborhood, you expect to be dodging homeless people and crazies, so you don’t make eye contact, don’t look around at all if you can help it. I sidled up to one. He seemed really young, but he couldn’t have been any younger than me. “Hey,” I said. “Hey, can you guys come over here for a second?” He pretended not to hear me. He looked right through me, the way you would a homeless person. “Come on,” I said. “I don’t have a lot of time.” I grabbed his shoulder and hissed in his ear. “The cops are after me. I’m from Xnet.” He looked scared now, like he wanted to run away, and his friend was moving toward us. “I’m serious,” I said. “Just hear me out.” His friend came over. He was taller, and beefy — like Darryl. “Hey,” he said. “Something wrong?” His friend whispered in his ear. The two of them looked like they were going to bolt. I grabbed my copy of the Bay Guardian from under my arm and rattled it in front of them. “Just turn to page 5, OK?” They did. They looked at the headline. The photo. Me. “Oh, dude,” the first one said. “We are so not worthy.” He grinned at me like crazy, and the beefier one slapped me on the back. “No way — ” he said. “You’re M — ” I put a hand over his mouth. “Come over here, OK?” I brought them back to my bench. I noticed that there was something old and brown staining the sidewalk underneath it. Darryl’s blood? It made my skin pucker up. We sat down.