Cory Doctorow - Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present

Cory Doctorow (born July 17, 1971) is a blogger, journalist andscience fiction author who serves as co-editor of the blog BoingBoing. He is in favor of liberalizing copyright laws, and aproponent of the Creative Commons organisation, and uses some oftheir licenses for his books. Some common themes of his workinclude digital rights management, file sharing, Disney, andpost-scarcity economics. Source: Wikipedia

This story is part of Cory Doctorows 2007 short storycollection Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present, publishedby Thunders Mouth, a division of Avalon Books. It is licensedunder a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5license, about which youll find more at the end of this file.

This story and the other stories in the volume are availableat:

http://craphound.com/overclocked

You can buy Overclocked at finer bookstores everywhere,including Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1560259817/downandoutint-20

In the words of Woody Guthrie:

This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright#154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin itwithout our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, causewe dont give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it.Yodel it. We wrote it, thats all we wanted to do.

Overclocked is dedicated to Pat York, who made my storiesbetter.

I was suckled on the Asimov Robots books, taken down off myfathers bookshelf and enjoyed again and again. I read dozens ofAsimov novels, and my writing career began in earnest when Istarted to sell stories to Asimovs Science Fiction Magazine, whichI had read for so long as Id had the pocket money to buy it on thestands.

When Wired Magazine asked me to interview the director of thefilm I, Robot, I went back and re-read that old canon. I was struckimmediately by one of the thin places in Asimovs world-building:how could you have a society where only one company was allowed tomake only one kind of robot?

Exploring this theme turned out to be a hoot. I worked in someof Orwells most recognizable furniture from 1984, and set theaction in my childhood home in suburban Toronto, 55 Picola Court.The main characters daughter is named for my god-daughter, AdaTrouble Norton. I had a blast working in the vernacular of theold-time futurism of Asimov and Heinlein, calling toothpastedentifrice and sneaking in references to the search engine.

My I, Robot is an allegory about digital rights managementtechnology, of course. This is the stuff that nominally stops usfrom infringing copyright (yeah, right, hows that working out foryou, Mr Entertainment Exec?) and turns our computers into somethingthat controls us, rather than enabling us.

This story was written at a writers workshop on Toronto Island,at the Gibraltar Point center, and was immeasurably improved by myfriend Pat York, herself a talented writer who died later that yearin a car wreck. Not a day goes by that I dont miss Pat. This storydefinitely owes its strength to Pat, and its a tribute to her thatit won the 2005 Locus Award and was a finalist for the Hugo andBritish Science Fiction Award in the same year.

Arturo Icaza de Arana-Goldberg, Police Detective Third Grade,United North American Trading Sphere, Third District, FourthPrefecture, Second Division (Parkdale) had had many adventures inhis distinguished career, running crooks to ground with anunbeatable combination of instinct and unstinting devotion to duty.Hed been decorated on three separate occasions by his commanderand by the Regional Manager for Social Harmony, and his mother kepta small shrine dedicated to his press clippings and commendationsthat occupied most of the cramped sitting-room of her flat offSteeles Avenue.

No amount of policemans devotion and skill availed him when itcame to making his twelve-year-old get ready for school,though.

Haul ass, young ladyout of bed, on your feet,shit-shower-shave, or I swear to God, I will beat you purple andshove you out the door jaybird naked. Capeesh?

The mound beneath the covers groaned and hissed. You are aterrible father, it said. And I never loved you. The voice wasindistinct and muffled by the pillow.

Boo hoo, Arturo said, examining his nails. Youll regret thatwhen Im dead of cancer.

The moundwhose name was Ada Trouble Icaza deArana-Goldbergthrew her covers off and sat bolt upright. Youredying of cancer? is it testicle cancer? Ada clapped her hands andsquealed. Can I have your stuff?

Ten minutes, your rottenness, he said, and then his breathcaught momentarily in his breast as he saw, fleetingly, hisex-wifes morning expression, not seen these past twelve years,come to life in his daughters face. Pouty, pretty, sleepy andguile-less, and it made him realize that his daughter was becominga woman, growing away from him. She was, and he was not ready forthat. He shook it off, patted his razor-burn and turned on hisheel. He knew from experience that once roused, the munchkin wouldbe scrounging the kitchen for whatever was handy before dashing outthe door, and if he hurried, hed have eggs and sausage on thetable before she made her brief appearance. Otherwise hed have topry the sugar-cereal out of her handsand she fought dirty.

In his car, he prodded at his phone. He had her wiretapped, ofcourse. He was a copevery phone and every computer was an openbook to him, so that this involved nothing more than dialing anumber on his special coppers phone, entering her number and aPIN, and then listening as his daughter had truck with a criminalenterprise.

Welcome to ExcuseClub! There are 43 members on the network thismorning. You have five excuses to your credit. Press one to redeeman excuse She toned one. Press one if you need an adult Tone.Press one if you need a woman; press two if you need a man Tone.Press one if your excuse should be delivered by your doctor; presstwo for your spiritual representative; press three for yourcase-worker; press four for your psycho-health specialist; pressfive for your son; press six for your father Tone. You haveselected to have your excuse delivered by your father. Press one ifthis excuse is intended for your case-worker; press two for yourpsycho-health specialist; press three for your principal Tone.Please dictate your excuse at the sound of the beep. When you havefinished, press the pound key.