Man vs society!

   Man vs society!

November 4th 100-165

     When Marcus leaves the Bart train station, he spots all these crazy street sellers, gangs, and drug dealers around the area as he walks up the stairs to the streets. As he is walking, he feels that two police men are spying on him. After Marcus steps into a restaurant, the two cops enter the restaurant to take Marcus into their police car to ask him some questions. They notice unusual Transportation timing in his pass. After Marcus makes a wise comment, the police officers drive him home and ask his mother questions. When the cops finish talking to Marcus's mother and leave, Marcus's father sounds like he is taking the cops side on this whole situation. When Marcus goes upstairs to check on his privacy fixed Xbox, he notices that the government is able to track unusual amounts of codes through Xnet, so he calls Jolu and Vanessa for a meeting at their favorite cafe. After Vanessa goes against Marcus's brand new idea on trying to figure out how to keep people's privacy safe on Xnet, she kisses Jolu and Marcus on the cheek and leaves. Jolu and Marcus have a discussion and they are going to work together on this risky mission. Their mission is to balance the abnormal activity on this private connection system. The next day many people are found with abnormal activity. People are caught with drug dealings, and cheating on people. That day Marcus meets Vanessa at the park, and they talk about random stuff. Eventually Marcus gets into the topic about fighting against the towns security, but Vanessa hates that he brings this up. She mentions that if everyone is arrested, then no one would be different from another, and Marcus gets the idea on how to balance out the Xnet to prevent abnormal activity. Vanessa thinks that Marcus is crazy after hearing his plan to defeat the DHS, so she pushes him down and runs away before he gets up. After Marcus sets up his plan using a pocket clone to create codes that add to Xnet, he explains how it's an automat fail to have this new security system called FasTrack. It's a system that records all movements of cars and people twenty four hours a day.The next morning he hears all around the news about the DHS not working well. Marcus is happy to know that what he is doing is working, which is hiding  Xnet connectors from the DHS. That night Marcus's father comes home late in a horrible mood! It turns out that he has been pulled over by cops that night and he apologizes to his son for not agreeing with him about the DHS. That night Marcus uses the Xnet, when people all over the net are asking him extremely suspicious questions. He then shuts down the system and goes to sleep. The next morning his father notifies him with huge news! The DHS is getting a three hundred percent budget increase towards the security systems and Marcus freaks out from hearing this. After his father mentions this news, he goes back to agreeing with these security systems again! Later that week, after a foolish Xnet member calls a station using a pay phone, Marcus gets several emails from many different people discussing a recent incident with cops capturing people involved in the Xnet. Marcus blames himself for this incident and compares himself to a terrorist. After Marcus's mother tells him things that he never hears before about how he kept his parents marriage together, he goes to his room and spots a wifinder. A wifinder is a DHS worker who tries to track down different  Xnet codes. After Marcus goes on Xnet to post a warning, he notices a suspicious quiz all over the server! Now Marcus wants to use the crypto key system, which only allows trust worthy people to receive and send messages. He calls Jolu, asking him to create a trust worthy group with him. They set up a fake party for the meeting so they don't get busted. As Marcus and Jolu are waiting for everyone, Jolu chickens out and Marcus is upset.

Prediction: I predict a crime scene! With the three hundred percent budget increase, there is no way Marcus will get away with what he is doing and continue to proceed. It keeps on getting harder and harder to avoid the DHS, but Marcus's plans do keep getting better and better!  I think Jolu will come back to help Marcus in the story because a huge theme in this book is friendship!

Quote:  After Marcus notices that he is being followed by cops, and is followed into the restaurant he says, "I knew I couldn't outrun fate"(Doctorow 103). This quote is really important because he is already determining what will happen. How did he know that he would be brought into a police car? Did he think that  he did anything wrong already to expect this, or maybe he knew the government would come back for him eventually in advance? Society is becoming to predictable for him!

Reaction: I'm a little confused. Why does Marcus care so much about all of this? His friends are even starting to think he is crazy! I'm getting a little annoyed about why he is so into this. He should notice that what he is doing is stupid! He's even getting people in trouble rather then saving them. Him being this paranoid is getting me paranoid!

(Sorry about the tremendous summary! There was so much information in these two chapters)