Pirate Cinema

by Cory Doctorow

  Jem pretended he hadn’t heard. “How long can we have her for?”

  Aziz shrugged. “I have far too much inventory these days. The skips have been too good to me. I was planning on having a week off from them, though it breaks my heart to think of all the lovely junk I’ll miss. I’m just too full up now. So, a week? You can drive, can’t you Jem?”

  “I used to drive the tractor on the farm,” Jem said. “Can’t be much different, can it?”

  I tried to picture Jem living on a farm somewhere, mucking out the pigpen and scattering feed for the hens. I couldn’t do it. Jem almost never talked about his background, and when he did, he often told ridiculous stories, all of which contradicted one another. I didn’t push it. If he said he could drive, I expected he could.

  “Fine, fine,” Aziz said. “But if you wreck her or get stopped by the law, I’m going to report it as stolen, you understand me?”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way, my old,” Jem said. “Just so, just so.”

  And that was how we got the car.

  * * *

  Aziz helped us fill the car with many of the bits and pieces we’d need from his enormous stock—practically everything we’d need to kit out the cinema: beamers, sound system, lights, loads of power supplies and that. We’d have to get the chairs and bar from somewhere—there were several dozen chairs in the Zeroday, of course, and folding chairs were an easy scrounge, the kind of thing that often turned up on the curb on rubbish day. 26 reckoned that if we put the word out to the Confusing Peach lot to snag any they saw, we’d have more than enough come the day. Chester, meanwhile, had quite an eye for building sites where there was extra lumber lying around unloved and unregarded, and he reckoned he’d have an easy time getting enough to build a few outhouses, especially as we planned on using wood for the floors and seats, and do the walls with tarpaulin, which we’d found miles of in the Zeroday’s cellars.

  And Chester had found a band: The Honey Roasted Landlords were an odd bunch, playing a huge number of instruments—big horns like the sousaphone, fiddles, and upright bass, a couple of squeezeboxes and a load of little drums—and all of them were acoustic, an enormous plus as it saved us working out how to get them all equalized into the cinema’s sound system. The singers even sang into paper megaphones, using strange, nasal voices, a style Chester told me was actually called “megaphone singing,” and it dated back to the time before electrical microphones. Their sound was dead weird: old-fashioned, of course, can’t help but sound old-fashioned with all that brass and the megaphones and that, but there was something in the melodies, and the speed in which they played, that sounded not just contemporary, but somehow futuristic, like something out of a sci-fi flick. They had a big following in London already, and their own mailing list, and they’d do it for the chance to ring up some donations, as was their way. Chester told me that they could bring in a thousand quid or more in a night from the generosity of their audiences.

  What’s more, their fans were fantastic visual artists—collage types who’d whip up posters and handbills for their events that subtly reworked everything from commercial signage to iconic photos to fine art to film stills to make stuff that just popped. All illegal as hell, naturally, which was even better, far as I was concerned. Soon as I saw their stuff, I knew they were the right band and the right kind of people for our big night.

  Chester was also working on his own film for the night, another short feature, this one a recut of all the MPs who’d said stupid, smarmy things in support of the Theft of IP Act, supered over infamous film courtroom scenes, and he replaced the prisoners in the dock with all the infamous kids who’d been bunged in jail since the law passed. It didn’t have a spec of humor in it, but it wasn’t really meant to, and watching it made my blood boil.

  Rabid Dog had been secretly working on his own thing: an absolutely delightful remake of a popular zombie franchise, The Walking Dead, turned into a comedy, as was his thing, a series of six trailers, one after the other, for each part of the series. They got funnier and funnier, until you were roaring with laughter, practically wetting yourself. I figured it’d be a great warm-up for my feature.

  There was no question that my feature would be the main event. It wasn’t even mine, properly speaking. Everyone in the Zeroday had had a hand in it, arguing over the cuts and the pacing and the voice-over and that. It wouldn’t have been nearly so good if it had merely been mine. We were all slavering to show it to the world—once we’d screened it, we would salt ZeroKTube and all the other video sites to get it shown around. I’d never been as proud of anything in my life.

  We began to spend our nights at the Sewer Cinema, unloading kit from the White Whale, setting things up by battery-powered lanterns. We had a load of spare batteries for these and at the end of every night, we brought them back to the Zeroday to charge them. It was half-term for 26, and she simply told her parents she was working on a big, secret project with me and they left her alone. It made me doubly envious: first, to have parents that understanding; and second, to have parents at all. Whenever I thought of my poor folks back in Bradford, it felt like sand had got in behind my eyes and a balloon was being inflated behind my heart, crushing it.

  But I still couldn’t bring myself to call them. At first, I’d been scared they’d order me home, make a scene. Then, as more time crept past without my ringing, I found that I was too ashamed to ring—ashamed that I’d let it go so long. I couldn’t explain myself to them, had no way to account for putting my parents through their torture. But then, hadn’t I always been torture for them? Hadn’t I cost them everything already with my reckless behavior? I was the family’s chief embarrassment and useless layabout—but here at the Zeroday, I was the mighty Cecil B. DeVil, with my glorious girlfriend, my brilliant videos, my excellent friends, and my grand plans to turn the sewers of London into cinemas.

  I still checked in on the throwaway phone number I’d given Cora, ringing it every day or every second day if things were busy. She sometimes left me chatty little messages that barely masked the pain she was going through. Once or twice we arranged times for me to call her back and we had brittle little conversations that were lighthearted parodies of the real talkers we’d have back in the old days.

  But on the third day of our preparations in Sewer Cinema, I got a different sort of message: “Hey, Trent. Well, hope you pick this one up soon. Very soon. Cos I’m on my way to London. Ha! Yes, I am. Gave myself French Leave, as they say. Things were just not working out with the crumblies and well, I shouldn’t have to explain this to you, right? Of all people, right? So. Well. I’ll be in about nine P.M. It’d be just great if you’d leave me a real number I could reach you on. You can’t call my old number. Right after I finish this call, I’m dropping the SIM in the bin and getting a new one. Your little sister’s no dummy, right? Well. Okay. That’s it. Erm. Love you? Okay. Love you. Call me.”

  I was breathing so hard at this point that I was actually dizzy. I stood behind the J SMITH AND SONS hoarding in my hard hat a hi-viz, clutching my phone to my head, trying not to fall over. 26 was going past with an armload of chairs, but she stopped when she saw me.

  “Cec? What is it?”

  I unlocked my phone with shaking hands, checked the time: 11:00 P.M. Cora’d been wandering the streets of London for two hours. “Cora,” I said, punching the redial button to call back into the voice-mail drop, talking as calmly as I could, “Cora, it’s Trent,” I said, and I caught sight of 26’s face as I said my real name in front of her for the first time. It was all so much to be thinking about, I could barely keep track of it all. “Cora, it’s me. Here’s my number. Erm.” I had an impulse to tick her off, tell her she was an idiot and irresponsible and did she know how much trouble she could get into here in London, a girl like her on her own? But even in my state, I knew what a hypocrite I’d be to say that sort of thing. I knew that I wouldn’t tolerate it if our positions were reversed. “Call me, all right? Call me quick.”


  It wasn’t until after I put the phone down that I realized I’d just given her my real number and that meant if she was still at home, helping my parents track me down, I was done for.

  “What is it, Cecil?” 26 said again.

  “My sister,” I said. “She’s in London on her own.” I slid down the hoarding until I was sat on the pavement, my back propped against it. “On her own,” I said again, my voice lost in the traffic noises from the other side of the hoarding. “Oh, God, Twenty, what will I do?”

  The next hour was agony. I made 26 go back to work. I couldn’t risk being down in the tunnel when Cora rang, and I waited and waited for the call, remembering all the creepy types in Victoria when I’d come off the bus that first night. It made me realize just how cruel and awful I’d been to my parents. That set me to crying. My friends trooped past me, carrying gear, silently, pretending that they couldn’t see me standing in the dark, snuffling back my sobs, tears dripping off my face onto the pavement.

  And then my mobile rang. “Cora?” I said, hitting the button.

  “Hey, Trent,” she said. Her voice sounded tiny, terrified, a one-molecule-thick layer of guts and bravery pasted over it.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m in a call box,” she said. “Near the station. Most of the phones were out of service, or were being used.” I heard traffic behind her, heard some idiot boys hooting filthy things at her from out a car window. She gave a small, suppressed whimper.

  “Is it safe to go back to the station? Tell me honestly. I need to know.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I think so. It’s a big road—I don’t reckon anyone’d give me trouble with this much traffic about.”

  I’d been fully prepared to call the law if she’d said no, even if it meant turning myself in. But I knew my sister. If she said it was safe, it was safe. “Go back to the taxi rank,” I said. Victoria Station served the Gatwick Express—the train to Gatwick airport—and there was a big rank with hundreds of black cabs all night, and several porters directing the travelers. She’d be as safe there as anywhere. “I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes.” I’d already got thirty pounds off my mates to supplement the fifteen I had in my pocket. That’d be plenty for a cab there and back, with plenty left over for contingencies and unforeseen circumstances.

  “Yeah, all right. Thanks, Trent.”

  I swallowed. “That’s what big brothers are for, innit?” I put the phone down.

  I kissed 26 hard, and said, “I’ll be back quick.” I stepped out into the road, leaving behind my hi-viz and hat, stood off a few yards from the White Whale, and stuck my hand out at the next black cab that went past. The driver pulled up to the curb and eyed me with suspicion.

  “Can you take me to Victoria Station?”

  The driver squinted at me. He was about a million years old, a proper ancient London black-cab driver, the sort that looks like he’s some kind of wizened gnarled tree that’s grown out of the seat of his taxi. “It’s third tariff after ten,” he said. “You know that, right, sir?”

  I felt a sear of anger at this old bastard, giving me a hard time when I was trying to rescue my sister. Six months ago, I would have cursed him out and kicked the wheel of his cab, and sent him off, but now I knew I couldn’t afford to indulge my anger.

  “Sir,” I said, drawing the money out of my pocket and fanning it out, “I have the money. I’ve just had a call to tell me that my little sister has run away from home and turned up at Victoria. She’s fifteen, she’s alone, and I’m trying to get to her as quickly as I can. Can you take me there?”

  He grunted and squinted at me, then jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Get in, mate, we’ll go get this wayward sister of yours, all right?”

  I jumped in, settling myself on the big backseat, belting myself in as the driver pulled away into the road, putting his foot down and turning London into a black blur dashed with streaks of white light that we tore past. The red intercom light was on, and the driver said, “She a clever girl, your sister? Good head on her shoulders?”

  He was looking at me in the rearview mirror. “A lot smarter than me,” I said. “But she’s too young to be on her own, and I’m nowhere near responsible enough to look after her.”

  He laughed, a sound like a series of coughs, and winked at me in the mirror. “You sound like you’re sensible enough to know that you’re not sensible, which is a pretty good trick. Let’s get this young lady with all due haste, then, shall we? Victoria’s no place for a child to be out on her own after dark.” So saying, he revved the engine and yanked at the gearshift, overtaking a night bus and pressing me back into the squeaking seat.

  London had been a blur before—now it was a screech of lights and movement that I went past so fast I couldn’t make out any details, just jumbled impressions of lights and motion.

  Abruptly he geared down and braked hard at a red light and I saw that we were about to turn into the Victoria Station taxi rank. I put my thumb over the seat-belt release and dug for my money. He saw the notes in my hand in his rearview and said, “Naw, naw, hold onto it. I’ll wait for ya and take you back. We’ll call it a tenner, even, and that’ll be my good deed for the night, and don’t say I never done nuffing for you.”

  I stopped with the money in my hand, trying to think of something to say that would express my gratitude, but no words rose to my lips. “Thanks” was the best I could manage, but the cabbie looked like he understood, and he swung into the turnabout and set the brake, unlocking my door. In a flash, I was out and searching, a fresh rain making everything go swimmy and glittery. I hunted the length of the long queue in the taxi rank twice before I spotted her, huddled, face down, hunched behind the luggage trolleys, her hair hanging over her face.

  “Cora?” I said.

  She looked up and for a moment, I was staring at my little sister again—not the young woman she’d become, but the little girl who used to follow me around, copy everything I did, look up to me, and look to me for approval. I nearly bawled there and then.

  Her expression changed a bit and now I was looking at the Cora I knew, the teenager who was indeed much smarter than I ever was or would be, beautiful and sharp-tongued, who didn’t really need her cock-up of a big brother anymore. Except that now she did, and she opened her arms and gave me a cuddle that was so hard the breath whooshed out of me. She smelled of home, of Bradford and our flat and the family I’d left behind, and that smell was a new shock as big as the earlier ones, and I was glad she was holding me so hard or I might have fallen to my knees.

  “I’ve got a cab waiting,” I managed. “Come on.” I picked up her rucksack—it weighed a ton—and lugged it to the taxi, Cora clinging tight to my hand. We climbed inside, her eyes wide and staring in the buttery light from the tiny bulb in the cab’s ceiling. I sat her down on the bench and folded down one of the jump-seats, so that we could face each other.

  The cabbie looked over his shoulder, his face inches from mine, separated by the clear perspex, and he cocked a crooked grin at Cora. “You’d be the young lady, then,” he said. “Your brother here’s been having kittens over you being out there all on your own, you know?”

  My stomach sank. Saying something like this to Cora was bound to get her back up, make her feel like she was being patronized, which would only make my self-appointed task of sending her home again even harder.

  But she didn’t snap at the driver. Instead, she actually looked sheepish, ducking her face behind her fringe, and said, “I expect he was.”

  The driver grunted with satisfaction. “Back to where I picked you up in the Embankment, yeah?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “Hold on, guv,” he said, and hit the intercom switch, leaving us in privacy as the cab lurched into traffic, and I was glad I’d put on my seat belt or I would have ended up sitting in Cora’s lap.

  She grinned at me and I grinned back at her. “Welcome to London, I suppose,” I said.

  She made a
point of looking out the windows. “I like what you’ve done with the place,” she said.

  * * *

  Somehow, we managed not to talk about the fact that she had run away as we sped back to my friends. It seemed she knew the city better than I did, and she excitedly called out the name of each bridge as we passed it (I knew Tower Bridge and Millennium Bridge, because the former had a couple of bloody great towers in the middle of it and the latter looked like it had been built out of futuristic ice-lolly sticks and steel cabling), and I found myself sharing in her excitement. Something about all that steel and fairy archways, lit up in the night, over the lapping black water, everything prismed by the rain spattering the windows.

  We got out by the hoarding and I gave the driver a tenner and then passed him another fiver through the window. He grabbed my hand as I gave him the fiver and gave it a single hard, dry shake. “You take care of that sister of yours, and of yourself, you hear me, young man?”

  “I will,” I said, and it came out like a promise.

  He drove away, leaving us standing by the hoarding with the rain drizzling around us.

  “Trent?”

  “Yes?”

  “Why are we in the middle of this pavement?”

  I had thought this one through, a bit of showmanship. I laid my finger alongside my nose and led her behind the hoarding, opening the door and ushering her into it, closing it behind us, leaving us in the warm gloom of the lantern we’d left in the corner of the vestibule.

  She cocked her head at me. “Trent, what’s going on?”

  I laid my finger alongside my nose again, changing sides this time. “Oh, all shall be revealed in good time, my dear. Come along, now.”

  I led her down the stairs, then said, “You’ll want to hold your nose for this next bit.”

  “Trent, what the hell is this about?” She was looking rather put out, which was good. At least she’d lost all her fright and timidity.

  “Trust me, little sister,” I said. “All shall be revealed anon.”