found drama

You’re part of a big crowd, you and your wife. You’re on your way to some kind of celebratory event. (A company holiday party? A birthday party?) You know that the city you’re in both is LA and is not — and you’re part of that whole crowd moving through the streets and tunnels that used to be part of a highway and something else that used to be part of a canal or aqueduct. The route to the venue is way too long and convoluted by any definition. But you finally arrive and the staff welcome you and are quick to take coats and issue drink tickets. A lot of drink tickets. A handful of what must be dozens if not hundreds of those little paper scraps — way more than anyone could reasonably consume in a week. You get to the bar and your wife knows instantly what she wants — asks for it by name (some specific vintage of a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc) — and they tell her they need six drink tickets in exchange and she hands them over. You don’t see a menu. You can’t make out the labels of any of the bottles or the names on the tap handles. You consider asking for a cocktail but the line is backing up behind you. You point to a tap handle, trusting on faith that whatever it is will at least be fine and they pour it and they ask you for seven and three-quarters drink tickets. You hand over a handful of them because you can’t count and the line gets longer behind you.

You’re with Cory Doctorow in an office in — New York? London? A Silo-style underground facsimile of either? The two of you were going to get lunch (shawarma) when the call comes through. Government agents are coming to the office to shut it down — possibly also to arrest you. This should be terrifying but you’ve prepared for this, expected this. Within seconds you’re both working: leaking files onto the web, sending folders overflowing with documents out into the streets in the arms of comrades. They’ll be here any minute. Some of your comrades are already forming the line that they know the agents will demand of them — not out of submission, but as a way of blocking the entrance through malicious compliance — to buy you both more time. It seems to work. The building is surrounded by the agents can’t find a way in. You ascend to the roof.