SiSU: - Homeland - Cory Doctorow

Homeland
“Yeah,” she said. “Well, that's a nice fairy tale. Have you got any juice or soda, something
with sugar? I'm crashing here. Maybe some coffee.”
I made her an epic cup of coffee. I may not be a ninja secret agent, but that's one thing I
could most certainly do. She drank it with something approaching the proper reverence,
sent me for another, drank that, and said, “Okay, this'll do.” But the way she said it, I could
tell that it was Masha-ese for HOLY CRAP THAT IS */AWESOME/* COFFEE.
Then she typed some more. Then she typed some more. Then she made a face like she
smelled something bad and her fingers bounced over the keys like a troupe of ten methaddled
acrobats on eighty-nine little trampolines. Then some more typing, her teeth bared
like an animal. I tried to peek over her shoulder -- I used a polarized laptop shield that
made it impossible to see the screen unless you were looking at it straight on -- and she
batted me aside without even seeing me. More typing.
“Yeah, that'll do it,” she said, and pulled out the plug and the battery in two smooth motions,
thoroughly nuking the virtual machine she'd been working inside of and erasing all the
passwords and keys she might have entered. I didn't even bother to object. I wasn't even
particularly offended.
“That'll do it, huh?”
“You just nuke any copies you have of those files, starting with the darknet site you gave
them details on, and you can forget about Zyz and Carrie Johnstone forever. I've taken
the precaution of emailing myself a full set of docs, so that's that. They want to know if you
want your old phone back.”
“Huh?”
“They burgled some Egyptian girl's house after grabbing your old handset's location from
the carrier's network.”
“Jesus. Did they hurt anyone?”
“They didn't mention, so I'm assuming no. They're capable of some subtlety. Sounds like
it bought you some time, in any event. You want it back? They've probably filled it with
every bug and trojan known to the human race, of course.”
“Forget it,” I said.
“Smart guy,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Well, thanks, I guess.” It felt like something simultaneously monumental
and boring had just happened. Once again, someone else had solved my problems for me.
People thought M1k3y was some kind of action-hero, but I was just a player in someone
else's plot.
She climbed painfully to her feet, faced me. “You did pretty great, Marcus. I gave you a lot
of shit, but you did great. I relied on you, and I got you into trouble. I'm glad I was able to
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