Pirate Cinema

Chapter 7

The news was always full of stories about banking security systems, smart cards, ATM records, and all manner of other sensitive information leaking out because someone had done the maths wrong, or forgot to turn off the debugging mode that dropped an unscram- bled copy of everything into a maintenance file. After all, that's what Aziz relied on, wasn't it? Badly done crypto rendering beautiful bits of kit illegal or unusable?

And that was just the start of the problem when it came to crypto. Even assuming the programmers got it all right, then you had to deal with the users, idiots like me who just wanted to get on with the job and not get hassled by having to remember long, complicated passwords and that. So we used short passwords that were easy to guess -- especially for a computer. We refused to run the critical software updates because we were too busy. We visited dodgy websites with our unpatched browsers and caught awful viruses that snooped on our crap passwords. It doesn't matter how great the bank-safe is if the banker uses 000 for a combination and forgets to lock the door half the time.

So maybe it was okay for us. Maybe Confusing Peach didn't have any readable logs or databases of users and messages. Maybe all that happened is that the poor admins who ran it -- a group of University of Nottingham physics students who'd been handing the admin duties on to younger students since before I was born -- were now missing all their computers and answering hard questions in some police station basement.

But I didn't think we should count on it.

“When did this all happen?”

“Just now,” she said. “Midnight raid. They didn't even wait for the building maintenance people to let them into the server cages: they just cut through them with torches. Brought in camera crews and everything. It's all over the news. The Motion Picture Association spokesman called it a 'major victory against piracy and theft.'”

I swallowed again. “I am a total cock-up,” I said. “God, what have I done?”

“Trent McCauley,” she said sharply. I sat to attention. She had never called me by my real full name. “Stop it, this instant. This is not the time to wallow in self-pity, idiot boy. You didn't do anything -- we did it. I was putting on Pirate Cinemas before I even met you, remember? You're not our leader, you fool -- you're one of us, and we're all in this together. So stop putting on airs and taking credit for everything that we've all done, right now.”

I opened and shut my mouth like a fish. “Twenty,” I said at last. “I'm not saying that --”

“Yes, you are, whether or not you mean to. You need to get over feeling responsible for everyone and everything that goes on and realize that we're all in this together.”

“I hate it when you're right,” I said. “I know. Apologize now.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Right, doesn't that feel better?”

It did. “Okay, boss. Now what do we do?”

“Come back to London and we'll figure it out.”

I took night buses from Victoria to 26's house, creeping across dark London, seeing it again with new eyes though I'd only been gone for a day. Everyone and everything seemed so strange -- big, menacing, mysterious. I felt paranoid, didn't want to get my laptop out in case someone robbed me for it. London didn't feel like home anymore, but neither did Bradford -- I guess that meant that I was genuinely homeless.

I texted 26 when I was outside her place and she silently opened the door for me. She led me up the dark stairs, past her parents' bedroom, and into her room. We kissed for a long time, like we'd been apart for a hundred years. Then I slid in between the sheets beside her and cuddled up to her from behind. Her hair tickled my nose, but I didn't mind. Had I thought that I had no home? Of course I did: wherever 26 was, that was home.