Rick Dakan - Geek Mafia

Praise for Geek Mafia!

The story is gripping as anything, and the characters are likable and funny and charming. I adore caper stories, and this stands with the best of them, a geeky version of The Sting... this is one hell of a book.

Cory Doctrow, BoingBoing.net

* * *

Unputdownable...highly recommended

Seth Godin, Bestselling Author

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Twists and turns will leave you guessing many of the time who is really scamming who. Dakan is able to write a 320 page book that is over all too soon.

410Media.com

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Geek Mafia aint just any book...the kids got chops, the books getting props, and the price is right. We bought one.

Vladimir Cole, Joystiq.com

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A fast, fun novel from author Rick Dakan. One is reminded that living a sheltered, regimented life can be oh so boring and dull. Its time to get Off-the-Grid and experience freedom in a whole new way! A highly recommended read!

USABookNews.com

GEEK MAFIA

GEEK MAFIA !

Rick Dakan

GEEK MAFIA, Third Edition
By Rick Dakan

ISBN: 978-1-60486-006-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2007906968

Copyright 2008 Rick Dakan
This edition copyright 2008 PM Press
All Rights Reserved

PM Press
PO Box 23912
Oakland, CA 94623
www.pmpress.org

Design and illustrations: Austin McKinley
Cover: John Yates
Interior layout: Courtney Utt
Copy Editor: Anthony Salveggi

Printed in the USA, on acid-free, recycled paper.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Atrribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

This is a work of fiction. All characters in this book are fictional and events portrayed in this book are either products of the authors imagination or used fictitiously.

Contents

First and foremost, this book is dedicated to mom and dad. Withouttheir support and love none of this wouldve been possible.

Thanks to everyone who helped me with early drafts of this book and forall their helpful comments and careful criticisms: Karen and StephenDakan, Alan Dakan, Austin McKinley, Neil Hendrick, Becky Woomer,Laurie Roberts, Rebecca Stultz, Poz, Charles Salzberg, and Michael Neff.All of you gave valuable insights and your support helped me see thisthing through to the end (which is really just the beginning.) And if youenjoyed reading my babbling here, you can read my babbles every day at

rickdakan.com.

P AUL Reynolds crisscrossed his sketchbook with furious strokes, filling the pages with images of the vengeance he would take on his former co-workers at Fear and Loading Games. Hed founded the company three years back, and, just a few hours ago, his partners and erstwhile friends had fired him without cause or warning. He concentrated hard as his pen brought to life demonic figures from one of the best-selling comics hed created, scythe-wielding cyber-men called Myrmidons who tore into surprised computer programmers with fangs and claws. Elsewhere on the page, computers assembled themselves into 21st-century Golems, rising up against traitorous CEOs and producers to crush them to bloody pulp as they cowered beneath their desks. Sitting at the bar in Seor Goldsteins Mexican Restaurant in San Jose, California, Pauls own artwork engaged him for the first time in months, maybe years. Under other circumstances, that would have made him happy. But todays circumstances allowed only two emotions: despair and a burning desire for revenge. Not wanting to succumb to the former, and not quite wanting to find a gun and go back to the office, he instead drew.

He had turned to a fresh page and begun to sketch his most elaborate revenge-scheme yet when a woman walked into his line of vision. There were four or five other women in the restaurant already (most of them employees), but this one stood out. This one wouldve stood out anywhere. Her hair, cut short and spiky, was dyed a magenta so bright it nearly glowed. She wore a tight black t-shirt, baggy olive drab shorts that hung on shapely hips, and heavy black boots with two-inch thick soles. She had a faded black messenger bag slung across her chest, the strap pressing between her breasts. If Paul had to guess, she wasnt wearing a bra. She definitely wasnt your average Silicon Valley techie on an early lunch break, and certainly not a restaurant employee.

Grateful for the distraction, Paul focused on the newcomer, chilling his anger for a moment with a swift sip of margarita and melted ice. He ran a hand through his fine brown hair, brushed a few wrinkles out of his Green Lantern t-shirt, and sucked in his bit of beer belly before he turned back to the sketchbook and kept drawing. He didnt care what his pen pushed onto the page as long as he looked busy. As far as Paul was concerned, a sad man sitting at a bar before noon was not someone with whom striking young women with ruby hair engaged in random conversation. However, as past experience in many a coffee house and dive bar had taught him, a scruffy artist sketching away when normal folks should be working often attracted all kinds of interesting attention. And so, he sketched.

Im here to speak with the manager, the woman said to the bartender.

Yeah, hes here, the bartender replied and skulked off to find the boss.

The girl leaned forward onto the bar, drumming a random beat on the wood with her knuckles while she looked around the room. Paul, whod been watching out of the corner of his eye, took the noise as an excuse to glance over at her. She was looking right back at him, smiling.

Hey, she said.

Hey, he replied. He gave a smile, but inside he was suddenly embarrassed by the attention. He didnt want to hit on girls. He wanted to get drunk and figure out if there was any way he could avoid his looming fate. But he hadnt dated anyone in over a year, and some urgesand some womenrefused to be ignored.

Whatre you working on there? she asked.

Oh, just doodling you know, he said as he looked down at the page. Hed sketched the outline of a hydra-like monster with five heads and ten tentacles. Four of the heads were laughing as the tentacles strangled the fifth. Im a Im a comic-book artist.

Was that true? Was he no longer a videogame designer then, just like that?

Really? Very cool.

Thanks

But tell me something, she said as she came over and claimed the bar stool next to his. She smelled like soap and shampoo, clean and fresh. Are you really a comic-book artist or are you, like, a comic-book artist in waiting?

What?

You know, you meet guys all the time in bars or Starbucks or wherever who carry around their notebooks and sketchpads and say theyre writers or artists. But really theyre waiters or clerks or something. She paused to put a reassuring hand on his forearm. Her touch was warm and the feel of her flesh gave him a little internal twitch of arousal. Not that theres anything wrong with that or anything. Im all kinds of things in my head that Im not actually in real life.