Pirate Cinema (19 page)

The thing Cora said to me --
They cut off the net. They're the bullies and the bastards.
-- resonated in my skull for the rest of the day. Who were
they
? I hadn't really thought about the people who got the laws passed that had changed my life forever -- not the bigwigs at the film and record companies nor the MPs who showed up and voted to mess over even more of the voters who lived in their constituencies.

When I tried to picture them, my image of them got all tangled up with all those educational copyright videos they'd made us watch in school, where big stars came on and told us how awful we all were to download their stuff without paying for it, and then they'd trot out some working stiffs -- a spark, a make up artist, a set builder -- who'd drone on about how hard he worked all day and how he needed to feed his kids. We'd just laugh at these -- the ancient, exquisitely preserved rock star we saw getting out of a limo crying poverty; the workers who claimed that we were taking food out of their kids' mouths by remixing videos or sharing music, when every kid I knew spent every penny he could find on music as well as downloading more for free.

But now I tried to imagine the men who bought and sold MPs like they were pop songs, who put laws into production like they were summer blockbusters, and got to specify exactly what they'd like the statute book to say about the people they didn't like. I realized that somewhere out there, there were gleaming office towers filled with posh, well-padded execs who went around in limos and black cabs, who lived in big houses and whose kids had all the money in the world, and these men had decided to ruin my family for the sake of a few extra pennies. There were actual human beings who were answerable for the misery and suffering of God knew how many people all around the world -- rich bastards who thought that they alone should own our culture, that they should be able to punish you for making art without their permission.

"What are you thinking about?" 26 said. She was sitting in the pub's snug, laptop before her, earpiece screwed in. She'd been on the phone and e-mail all day to Annika, planning some kind of big event for the next day, when they were hoping that people from all over the country would descend on their MPs' offices to complain about the Theft of Intellectual Property Bill. All kinds of groups had joined in, and volunteers were contacting long lists of members and supporters to see if they'd commit to going out. I couldn't join in, of course: I wasn't on the voter's roll. I didn't, technically, exist. Technically, the Zeroday was an abandoned building and no one lived there.

"I'm thinking about how all this work you're doing, it's all because some rich bastards want to get richer."

Chester made a little tootling noise like he was blowing a bugle and Jem began to hum some revolutionary anthem I vaguely recognized -- that French song, the one that they used in the advert for the new Renault scooters. Even Rabid Dog rolled his eyes. They were okay about 26 coming by -- she was good company -- but they hated it when I talked politics. They seemed to think I was only interested in it because 26 was. Mostly, I think they were jealous that I had a girlfriend.

Twenty ignored them, as usual. "Well, yeah. 'Course."

"So why don't we do something to
them
? Why are we mucking around with Members of Parliament, if they're not the ones who make the laws, not really? Why not go straight to the source? It's like we're trying to fix a leaky faucet by plastering the ceiling below it -- why don't we just stop the drip?"

She laughed. "What did you have in mind, assassination? I think you'd probably get into more trouble than you could handle if you tried it, boyo."

I shook my head. "I don't know what I have in mind, but it just seems like such a waste of effort. These horrible wretches are sat in their penthouses, making the rest of us miserable, and they go off when they're done, go to some big house in the country. They get to eat in posh restaurants while we literally eat rubbish from skips --"

"What the hell's wrong with rubbish from skips?" Jem said, all mock-affronted.

I waved him off. "Nothing's wrong, Jem. You're the Sir Jamie Oliver of eating garbage, all right? But you get my point -- they make us suffer and what do we do? We ask people nicely to go to their MPs' offices and beg to have them debate a law that will put their kids in jail for downloading a film."

"Well, what do you propose?" Chester said.

I was pacing now, and I thumped my hand against the door. "I don't know, okay? Maybe -- I don't know, maybe you should make videos of these fat bastards eating babies for a change, instead of picking on Bullingham all the time."

Chester shook his head. "Wouldn't work, mate. No one knows who these people are. No one would recognize them. When I animate Bullingham eating babies and squishing puppies beneath his toned, spotty, hairy buttocks, it's, you know, it's
commentary
. No one has to ask, 'Who's the geezer with the babies in his gob, then?' Wouldn't work with some anonymous corporate stooge."

I thumped the door again. "Fine. So let's make them famous! We'll follow them with cameras, go through their rubbish bins and post their embarrassing love letters, steal their kids' phones and expose all the music
they
take for free."

"They'd do you for harassment."

I glared at all of them. "Fine," I said. "Fine. Do nothing then. And when your mates start going to prison and you can't get any friends together for a protest movement because they're all banged up, you'll see I was right."

I sat down on the sofa, as far away from Rabid Dog as I could. He still wasn't speaking much when Twenty was around, though he'd got better at talking when it was just the boys. There was an uncomfortable silence. I stared at my bare feet.

Jem cleared his throat. "So," he said. "So, I've got news, if you're interested."

Chester said, "I am interested in your news, good sire," in an artificial voice.

"Well, I've been nosing around the town hall," he said. "The title registry. Trying to figure out who actually owns this firetrap. After the way they ran us out the last time, I thought it must be some Russian mobster or something. But that ain't it at all. You will never guess who our landlord is."

Chester said, "Um, is it Sir David Beckham?"

"Nope."

"The Archbishop of Canterbury?"

"Nope."

"Mickey Mouse?"

"Nope."

"Just tell us who it is," I snapped. I wasn't in the mood for playfulness.

"Only the freaking Bow Council! They ended up assuming the title for this place when the faceless corporate entity that bought it up declared bankruptcy and vanished up their own arseholes. They owned heaps of property all around here, and owed millions to the banks, so when they vanished, it was the banks sitting on all this stuff, and they auctioned it off, and the council bought it. So basically, this is a
public
building."

I was interested in spite of myself. "So it was the council that sent those goons in after us last time?" Somehow I figured that the local government would be gentler in its approach.

"I wondered about that, too. But I found the minutes of a council meeting where they approved hiring this anti-squatter firm with the unimaginative name of SecuriCorp to get rid of scum like us. They're notorious, SecuriCorp, hire a lot of crazy thugs, properly brutal. They've got a whole business model built on being savage pricks."

I shook my head. "Well, then, I suppose it's only a matter of time until they show up again."

He laughed. "That's where you're wrong, chum. I did some more digging and looked up the Meter Point Administration Service. That tells you who supplies the electricity to the place. Our Authorized Energy Provider is Virgin Gas and Electric. So yesterday, I rang up their customer service line and introduced myself as the new tenant on these premises and asked to have a pay-as-you-go box fitted. They're doing the job this week."

I shook my head. "You
what
?"

"It's brilliant, don't worry. They'll fit the mains box, and then we'll have to go buy top-ups on a card at the newsagent's. It's just a few pounds a week. But once we're paying for our power, we're not guilty of Abstraction of Electricity anymore. And that means they can't use SecuriCorp against us. Which means that they're going to have to get rid of us the hard way." He bowed in his seat. "You may applaud now."

Chester and Rabid Dog clapped enthusiastically, and I joined in with them. It
was
a clever little hack. Thinking of it only made me more miserable. Everyone else had a way to solve their problems.

Me, I was just useless.

The day of action on the Theft of IP Bill went off even better than Annika and her mates had planned. In Bow and other East London constituencies, the average MP heard from
one hundred and fifty
voters who showed up to explain why TIP was a bad idea. 26 dragged me out to the meeting with her MP, in Kensal Rise, a part of London I'd never been to before. It was a weird place, half posh and half run-down, with long streets of identical houses that ran all the way to the horizon.

Her MP's surgery was in a storefront between a florist and a dinky cafe that was rammed mums with babies. I was nervous as we rocked up, and got even more nervous when a bored security guard made us empty our pockets, marched us through a metal detector, and demanded to see our IDs.

26 was cool as a cuke. "You can't make us show ID to see our MP. It's the law: 'It is unlawful to place any condition on the ability of a lawful resident of a constituency to communicate with his Member of Parliament, Councillor, or other representative."

The security guard furrowed his brow like he was experiencing enlightenment (or taking a particularly difficult crap). 26 took a deep breath and prepared to throw more facts at him, but a voice called out from behind him, through an open door: "It's all right, James. I would recognize Ms. Khan's voice at a hundred yards on a busy street. Do come in, dear."

It was a woman's voice, moderately affectionate, middle-aged. It belonged to a moderately affectionate, middle-aged woman sitting on a sofa in a small office crammed with bookcases, papers, little kids' pictures, and letters tacked to a huge notice-board, and a pair of huge, battered laser-printers that looked like they should be at Aziz's place. She stood up as we walked in, bangles on her wrist tinkling as she shook 26's hand.

"Nice to see you again, dear. It's been a busy day, as I'm sure you know. Who's your gentleman friend?"

I had worn clean jeans and a T-shirt without anything rude written on it for the occasion, which was properly formal by Zeroday standards. Still, I felt as out of place as a fart in a palace.

"This is Cecil," Twenty said. "He's been helping out with the organizing." It was true -- I had spent a good twenty hours that week tweeting, e-mailing, calling, and messaging people from the mailing list, wheedling them to show up at their MPs' surgeries. I could rattle off ten reasons you should do it, three things you should stress with your MP, and five things you mustn't do without pausing for breath. It had made me feel a little less useless, but not much.

"Pleased to meet you, Cecil. I'm Letitia Clarke-Gifford, MP for Brent. Well, the two of you can certainly be very proud of yourselves. I've been seeing your army of supporters in lots of ten today, and I don't think I'll be able to get through them all even if I work through supper. From what I can tell, it's the same all over the country. I expect it's making
quite
an impression. A lot of my colleagues in Parliament like to use a rule of thumb that says a personal visit from a voter means that a hundred voters probably feel the same way. Even the very safest seats are in trouble when a thousand or more people are on your case about an issue."

26 beamed. "I can't believe the turnout -- it's
amazing
!"

I blurted out, "So, will it work?"

Both turned to look at me. 26 looked irritated. The MP looked thoughtful.

"I'll tell you straight up, I'm not positive it will. It breaks my heart to say it, because your lot have clearly played by the rules and done everything you're supposed to do. When voters across the country are against legislation, when no one except a few big companies are
for
it, it just shouldn't become law.

"But the sad fact is that this is going to a three-line-whip vote."

That jogged my memory, back to something Annika had said. "You mean if they don't vote in favor of it, they get kicked out of their own party?"