I had just started my junior year in high school, and man was I excited to be an upperclassmen. You see, juniors and seniors had special privileges at Fresno High School. They were allowed 24/7 access to the computer room. This room was shaped sort of like a lecture-hall, it was massive and contained 300 computers. Each device was chained to the floor, so as to ensure that nobody could ever steal a computer. My buddies and I would hang around there after school, playing around with programming and exploring the chat rooms. Our internet was slow, but at least it was free. Back then, there was no such thing as a home router. There were only routers at school, since the Internet was public and provided by the government. Before the 38th amendment, the Internet was never considered a “need” for every household; only schools and businesses that exceeded a certain number of people were allowed to have routers for public use. Most of our school work was done on paper and by hand, but I was told that once I became a junior we would be receiving more computer-based tasks. I was pretty intelligent for my age; even though I had only used a computer a few times, I knew enough about them from picking up old books around town. The Internet fascinated me, and I wanted to learn more.
“Wait a second. There were books… about computers?” interrupted Luke.
“There sure were, Luke. Before the government realized they were dangerous, you could read anything you wanted about computers. How they were made, how they all spoke to each other, the information was endless.” replied Max.
My best friend back then was named Ralph. We still keep in touch sometimes, but last I heard he was working for the Publinet. Ralph and I both shared the same interest in computers, so we’d meet up in the computer room every afternoon together. Our signature spot was in the back left corner of the room, because it was a bit hidden by the projector, so hardly anyone could see us back there. One day, we overheard a few seniors complaining about their assignments as they fiddled around with their keyboards.
“This is so goddamn slow. Who the heck made these things anyways? How hard can it be to get some good wifi around here?”
“Chill out, man. At least we have them… I heard that in France, only college students get to use the computers.”
The truth was, the computers were ridiculously slow. But my father had told me that when he was younger, the connection was miraculously fast, and that was because less computers existed, so the routers supported a smaller number of them. As the networks got crowded by an overflow of devices throughout the United States, things started to slow down. But the Publinet was reluctant to distribute more routers to accomodate for the number of computers, because they were worried that some places would have fast connection and other places would remain slow, and the ultimate goal was to keep all Internet access equal across the nation. We were thankful for this, too. Our technology teachers explained to us what would happen if the Internet were a private good; monopolies would form, prices would skyrocket, and nobody would be able to get on a computer without having to pay some absurd fee.
Ralph and I looked at each other, exchanged a little sideways smile, and turned back to our own computer. You see, we didn’t have any problem with the Internet speed. I’ll spare you the technical details, but Ralph and I had spent the whole summer developing an antenna that could be plugged into any computer via USB. We got the idea out of an old computer handbook that we found in an antique store, but we weren’t very confident that it would work. After a few tries, we finally had a fully functioning antenna. Ralph and I were beyond proud, as we sat in the back of the room speedily clicking from one site to the next. We could watch a Youtube video in one sitting! Any website would load in less than two seconds! Our little invention was a miracle, but we knew that if anyone found out about it we could be in serious trouble. So, we’d make sure to delete all of our history and hide the antenna whenever we left the computer room.
A few weeks later, I was sitting in the computer room by myself catching up on some Youtube when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I jumped in surprise.
“Hey, how is yours loading so fast? It’s been taking my computer hours to load that same video.” said a girl who looked about my age.
“Uhh.. I’m really not sure. Sorry—I guess I just got lucky!” I stammered back to her, and by the look on her face, I knew she could tell I was lying.
So I quickly packed up all of my things, using my back to shield her from seeing that I was unplugging the antenna and stuffing it into my backpack. I told Ralph about what happened, but he didn’t seem to be very worried. Both of us agreed that there was no way she could have possibly known that we were responsible for the speedy connection.
The next day, Ralph and I were walking over the computer room after last period, as we always do. When we walked through the door, we could immediately tell that our spot had been compromised. Back in the left corner sat that same girl, staring at her screen with an angry smirk. We thought by now that everybody in the school knew that was our spot… of course it wasn’t labeled, but come on people it’s implied! We slowly take a seat on the opposite side of her, trying not to draw attention and nonchalantly claiming the other corner as our new spot. To our surprise, she marches right up to us.
“Listen. I know you guys come in here every day, and I know there’s something weird going on with your computers. I don’t want to know how or why, just please help me to do my computer assignment. It’s due in two hours and there’s no way I’ll get it done in time. I just need a fast computer. Please! I’ll pay!”
Ralph and I look at each other out of the corner of our eye, then back at the girl. I wasn’t willing to give up our secret just yet, but I guess Ralph had other plans in mind.
“Fifty bucks per hour. Take it or leave it.” said Ralph, very matter-of-factly.
“You got it.” replied the girl.
And just like that, we were in business.