The anarchist hustled around inside the shop, turning on lights, firing up the cash-register and counting out a float, switching on the coffee machine. Alan waited patiently by the doorway, holding the door open with his toe when the clerk hauled out a rack of discounted paperbacks and earning a dirty look for his trouble. "Okay, we're open," the anarchist said looking Alan in the toes. He turned around and banged back into the shop and perched himself behind the counter, opening a close-typed punk newspaper and burying his nose in it. Adam walked in behind him and stood at the counter, politely, waiting. The anarchist looked up from his paper and shook his head exasperatedly. "Yes?" Alan extended his hand. "Hi, I'm Archie, I work with Kurt, over on Augusta?" The anarchist stared at his hand, then shook it limply. "Okay," he said. "So, Kurt mentioned that he'd spoken to your collective about putting a wireless repeater up over your sign?" The anarchist shook his head. "We decided not to do that, okay." He went back to his paper. Andrew considered him for a moment. "So, what's your name?" "I don't like to give out my name," the anarchist said. "Call me Waldo, all right?" "All right," Andy said smiling. "That's fine by me. So, can I ask why you decided not to do it?" "It doesn't fit with our priorities. We're here to make print materials about the movement available to the public. They can get Internet access somewhere else. Internet access is for people who can afford computers, anyway." "Good point," Art said. "That's a good point. I wonder if I could ask you to reconsider, though? I'd love a chance to try to explain why this should be important to you." "I don't think so," Waldo said. "We're not really interested." "I think you *would* be interested, if it were properly explained to you." Waldo picked up his paper and pointedly read it, breathing heavily. "Thanks for your time," Avi said and left. # "That's *bullshit*," Kurt said. "Christ, those people --" "I assumed that there was some kind of politics," Austin said, "and I didn't want to get into the middle of it. I know that if I could get a chance to present to the whole group, that I could win them over." Kurt shook his head angrily. His shop was better organized now, with six access points ready to go and five stuck to the walls as a test bed for new versions of the software. A couple of geeky Korean kids were seated at the communal workbench, eating donuts and wrestling with drivers. "It's all politics with them. Everything. You should hear them argue about whether it's cool to feed meat to the store cat! Who was working behind the counter?" "He wouldn't tell me his name. He told me to call him --" "Waldo." "Yeah." "Well, that could be any of about six of them, then. That's what they tell the cops. They probably thought you were a narc or a fed or something." "I see."