It was going to be fun solving the next clue in Harajuku Fun
Madness. Marcus, known online as w1n5t0n(Winston), met up with his
friends in the San Francisco neighbourhood called the Tenderloin.
They were zeroing in on the game location when a series of blasts
shook the area. While pushing their way through the crowd at the
subway station, Darryl, one of the friends, is stabbed. They go
back to the surface to seek help. When Marcus finally manages to
flag down a passing vehicle, that's when his troubles really
begin.
The Department of Homeland Security mobilizes instantly after the
explosions. This can't be a bad thing, as they were set up to
protect American interests, and what could be more American than
it's citizens. Marcus quickly learns that at least some of their
employees can be very vindictive, even towards those very
Americans.
Much of this story unfolds through the use of technology. Yes,
there are laptops and cell phones, after all, it is the rare
teenager that is caught without his or her accessories. It was the
use of the hacked Xbox Universal and Paranoid Linux that really got
'things' moving. I totally enjoyed the discussions of cryptography
and personal and public keys. I had previously heard of key signing
parties in business (persons flying in from around the globe to
sign) but not for private correspondence. Now if I could just find
me a fashionable Faraday pouch I'd be set, or is that secure.
My favourite scene in the book had to be the vamp mob. I can
imagine the frenzy of a rush hour crowd being caught up with a
thousand or more teens dressed as vampires yelling "bite, bite,
bite, bite, bite."
My overall take on this book: America all started out playing a
cooperative game, the objective being a country where all could
live safely, freely and be happy. After the attack on the the
bridge, the DHS became an aggressor. Each time DHS's control
slipped, they cheated at the game and changed the rules. The only
way the citizens could achieve their objective was to play the game
with a different approach. No longer could they play to win, but
they had to play to thwart this new opponent so he couldn't win.
The average citizen had to play the game such that they could make
the cheaters rules work against them.
I listened to the unabridged audio version of this book. It was
read by Kirby Heyborne. 11 hours 54 minutes. From Listening Library
at Random House. After finishing listening, I ordered two hardbound
copies, one for my bookshelf and one to lend. I then listened to
the complete audio book for a second time.