Alan pursed his lips and watched Kurt prod at the keyboard.
“He’s got a shitkicking net connection, though—tell you what. Feels like a T1, and the IP address comes off of an ISP in Waterloo. You need a browser, right?”
Alan shook his head. “You know, I can’t even remember what it was I wanted to show you. There’s some kind of idea kicking at me now, though… ”
Kurt shifted his laptop to the back seat, mindful of the cords and the antenna. “What’s up?”
“Let’s do some more driving around, let it perk, okay? You got more dumpsters you want to show me?”
“Brother, I got dumpsters for weeks. Months. Years.”
It was the wardriving, of course. Alan called out the names of the networks that they passed as they passed them, watching the flags pop up on the map of Toronto. They drove the streets all night, watched the sun go up, and the flags multiplied on the network.
Alan didn’t even have to explain it to Kurt, who got it immediately. They were close now, thinking together in the feverish drive-time on the night-dark streets.
“Here’s the thing,” Kurt said as they drank their coffees at the Vesta Lunch, a grimy 24-hour diner that Alan only seemed to visit during the smallest hours of the morning. “I started off thinking, well, the cell companies are screwed up because they think that they need to hose the whole city from their high towers with their powerful transmitters, and my little boxes will be lower-power and smarter and more realistic and grassroots and democratic.”