"See?"
The Greek's son, thirty with a paunch and sweat-rings under the pits of
his white "The Greek's" T-shirt, sat down and looked at the photos. "I
remember that place, on Harbord Street, right?"
Alan smiled. "Yup. We lost the store when they blew up the abortion
clinic next door," he said. "Insurance paid out, but I wasn't ready to
start over with another bookstore."
The Greek's son shook his head. "Another coffee, right?"
"Right," Alan said.
Alan went back to the map, realigning the laptop for optimal reception
again.
"You got a wireless card in that?" a young guy at the next table
asked. He was dressed in Kensington Market crusty-punk chic, tatts and
facial piercings, filth-gray bunchoffuckinggoofs tee, cutoffs, and
sweaty high boots draped with chains.
"Yeah," Alan said. He sighed and closed the map window. He wasn't
getting anywhere, anyway.
"And you get service here? Where's your access point?" Crusty-punk or
no, he sounded as nerdy as any of the Web-heads you'd find shopping for
bargains on CD blanks on College Street.
"Three blocks that way," Alan said, pointing. "Hanging off my house. The
network name is 'walesave.'"
"Shit, that's you?" the kid said. "Goddammit, you're clobbering our
access points!"
"What access point?"
"Access *points*. ParasiteNet." He indicated a peeling sticker on the
lapel of his cut-down leather jacket showing a skull with crossed radio
towers underneath it.
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