Link made a rude noise. "You are *so* spoiled. Not just any video store,
she's working at Martian Signal on Queen Street."
Alan knew it, a great shop with a huge selection of cult movies and a
brisk trade in zines, transgressive literature, action figures and
T-shirts.
"It must be great there," he said.
She smiled and looked away. "It's okay." She bit her lip. "I don't think
I like working retail," she said.
"Ah, retail!" he said. "Retail would be fantastic if it wasn't for the
fucking customers."
She giggled.
"Don't let them get to you," he said. "Get to be really smart about the
stock, so that there's always something you know more about than they
do, and when that isn't true, get them to *teach you* more so you'll be
in control the next time."
She nodded.
"And have fun with the computer when it's slow," he said.
"What?"
"A store like that, it's got the home phone number of about seventy
percent of the people in Toronto you'd want to ever hang out with. Most
of your school friends, even the ones you've lost track of. All the
things they've rented. All their old addresses -- you can figure out
who's living together, who gave their apartment to whom, all of that
stuff. That kind of database is way more fun than you realize. You can
get lost in it for months."
She was nodding slowly. "I can see that," she said. She upended her
coffee and set it down. "Listen, Arbus --" she began, then bit her lip
again. She looked at Link, who tugged at his fading pink shock of hair.
"It's nothing," he said. "We get emotionally overwrought about friends
and family. I have as much to apologize for as... Well, I owe you an
apology." They stared at the park across the street, at the damaged
wading pool where Edward had vanished.
"So, sorries all 'round and kisses and hugs, and now we're all friends
again, huh?" Link said. Natalie made a rude noise and ruffled his hair,
then wiped her hand off on his shirt.
Alan, though, solemnly shook each of their hands in turn, and thanked
them. When he was done, he felt as though a weight had been lifted from
him. Next door, Mimi's window slammed shut.
"What is it you're doing around here, Akin?" Link said. "I keep seeing
you running around with ladders and tool belts. I thought you were a
writer. Are you soundproofing the whole Market?"
"I never told you?" Alan said. He'd been explaining wireless networking
to anyone who could sit still and had been beginning to believe that
he'd run it down for every denizen of Kensington, but he'd forgotten to
clue in his own neighbors!
"Right," he said. "Are you seated comfortably? Then I shall begin. When
we connect computers together, we call it a network. There's a *big*
network of millions of computers, called the Internet."
"Even *I* know this," Natalie said.
"Shush," Alan said. "I'll start at the beginning, where I started a year
ago, and work my way forward. It's weird, it's big and it's cool." And
he told them the story, the things he'd learned from Kurt, the arguments
he'd honed on the shopkeepers, the things Lyman had told him.
"So that's the holy mission," he said at last. "You give everyone a
voice and a chance to speak on a level playing field with the rich and
powerful, and you make democracy, which is good."
He looked at Link and Natalie, who were looking to one another rather
intensely, communicating in some silent idiom of sibling body-language.
"Plate-o-shrimp," Natalie said.
"Funny coincidence," Link said.
"We were just talking about this yesterday."
"Spectrum?" Alan quirked his eyebrows.
"No, not exactly," Natalie said. "About making a difference. About holy
missions. Wondering if there were any left."
"I mean," Link said, "riding a bike or renting out videos are honest
ways to make a living and all, and they keep us in beer and rent money,
but they're not --"
"-- *important*." Natalie said.
"Ah," Alan said.
"Ah?"
"Well, that's the thing we all want, right? Making a difference."
"Yeah."
"Which is why you went into fashion," Link said giving her skinny
shoulder a playful shove.