CZM Book Club: "Party Discipline" by Cory Doctorow, Part Three

poisoned their water. It's like, oh, okay, like what kind of society would do such a stupid thing to destroy their own ability to sustain themselves? Like everybody, that's what all societies do. Yeah, as we drive cars as I have a truck.

This was real, uncontrolled anger that made me take a step back. We're doing it because it was important to you. She hissed so intense that other people turned to watch us. She forced herself to calm down and bent her head toward me. You tell me, linay, why are we doing this? Maybe it was the jolt of new immediate fear that I got when her fury welled up that got me past my future theoretical fear of jail and let me get back to my thoughts because now I can access them.

Because we're all so sure, there's no way to escape that. We're all going to be done too not doing, Cherrell, I'm graduating high school this year, and as far as anyone can tell, there's no reason for me to even exist once I finish. My mom would miss me, and so a teashow. But Charrell, no one needs them to exist either. We're spare humans. Do you remember economics class.

The lower the pay is, the worse the work, the more unemployed people they need to make the people with those terrible jobs feel like they can't afford to quit them. The most use the Zadas have for either of us is to be miserable and downpressed so bad that everyone else works double hard so they don't have to join us. Schrell cocked her head. You sound like a wobbly do I?

I replayed what I just said. I hadn't spent a lot of time with Wobbley's, but I'd read some of the pamphlets they left in the toilets, the darknet rants you had to click through to use their proxies. I guess I do, well. Who cares? They're right? We knew they were right all along, Schrell. But while we were in school, we could pretend that it didn't matter, that we had a purpose to go to classes and grind for grades. But now class is over and the bell's going to ring, and then what so you want to

have a communist party? It wasn't a question, and it was supposed to be sarcastic. I puffed up. Yet, damn right, I do. At least we're doing something. The whole system only works because we let it work. Don't do anything to stop it from working. She spit again. It works because doing something usually means going to jail. Girl, you're supposed to be smart. Be smart. It's not too late for all of us to go to the party tonight.

Some of Alai's friends are cute. I'll introduce you. Remembered that it had been me who'd had doubts, had went to Cherrell for reassurance. Instead, I'd got this rage and fear. Neither of us was sure about this, and it was too late. The stragglers were coming through the woods. It was time to tell them all that we were going somewhere else tonight, somewhere that all of us had bullshitted about wanting to go since freshman year, a chance to make the world do something for us for a change,

instead of to us. We're going Charrell, you and me and them. It's going to be amazing. We're going to get away with it clean. We're going to have the most amazing senior year in the history of Burbank. Hi, you believe in me, Lenai. I don't believe in you, but I like you and I trust you. She grinned. Suddenly,

I got your back. Let's do this. We told them they could go home if they didn't want to risk coming to the Communist party, but we told them after we told them that they were the only kids in the whole school we trusted enough to invite to it, and made sure they all knew that if they backed out, there'd be no hard feelings and no chance to change their mind. Later tonight, when they were at a corny party with a bunch of kids, instead of making glorious revolution,

every one of them said they'd come. I'd found an all ages show and encino that night, two miles from Steelbridge, Antoine's old job. We got piled into ubers heading for the club, chatting about inconsequentialities for the InCAR cameras and mics, and every one of us paid cover for the club, making sure to use traceable payment systems that would alibi us as having gone in for the night. Then we all met in the back alley, letting ourselves out the

fire doors and ones and twos. I did a head count to make sure we were all there, squashed together in a spot out of view of the one remaining camera back there. I'd taken out the other one the night before, wearing a hoodie and gloves, sliding along the wall so that it was out of range until I was reaching up to smear it with some old crankcase oil. We hugged the wall until we were back out into the side streets. All our phones were off and back,

and everyone had maps that used backstreets without cameras. To get to steel Bridge. We strung out in groups of two to five, at least half a block between us so no one would see a big group of kids walking while brown and call the cops. Regrouped at the head of the industrial road that led down to Steelbridge, lined with shuttered factories, empty and silent except for the distant railway thunder. And you know what else would be empty and silent is our lives.

Corey's word. Well, I guess it's Corey and that AI's word now, but I kind of like the idea of using that as a generic term for like AI generated shit, Like, yeah, there's a bunch of scop in my news feed today, Like it's really clogged up with a bunch of fucking scop. Yeah, Like it feels good to say.

Then I remembered and reached into my pocket and got my gloves. Glove up. I turned around and watched them all do it, because of any of them left prints behind they could lead to me. We were all in this together. I put my earbuds on the factory network and got the music tuned in, kicking in the pass through so that i'd still hear conversation around me. It was fast, crazy salsa from Russia, thunderbeats and hard wrapping over big horns, and we all nodded in time. As

we passed through the door. The light swirled in amazing patterns. Projection mapped onto huge masses on the factory floor, turning them into stone or wood, or water or smoke as the beamers hanging down from the ceiling played over them. They were at least a hundred people there already, the giant building's far edges lost in shadow. I spotted a keg and headed for it, threading through some weirdly dressed dancers who were dancing even weirder, though not badly at all,

Like their dance moves were from another timeline. I would have stopped to admire them if I hadn't seen Antoine by the keg, and if he hadn't seen me and beckoned up close. He looked like he was about to throw his head back and start speaking in tongues, that churchy look of someone right on the edge of something too big to contain in a single human body. He grabbed my hand and squeezed it like a drowning man. Linney,

it's happening, it really is, Antoine. What about the machines, He used his free hand a gesture at them, the men and women working on them, just getting started. We hit some snags with the power meters. Didn't want them to snitch us out. But he gestured at the dancers. We got some skilled assistance. I looked at the dancers again. They were weird in some way that I couldn't quite put my finger on. I couldn't remember ever seeing anyone

dressed quite like them before. Printer clothes that crinkled and rustled like thermal blankets the homeless people used, cut in boxy lines like a child's drawing, right down to the thick piping that ran around the edges like crayon lines. It looked a little like the stuff you saw refugees wearing in the videos where they washed up on a beach or bobbed in the sea, or crowded against a

fence in a camp somewhere. But they were also party clothes, definitely sparkly and bright, and I never heard of party cut refugee wear or had I. I stood up on my toes and whispered in his ear one word, walk aways. He nodded, and I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. I'd seen documentaries about them, and sometimes you heard about

them in the news. Terrorists, thieves, pirates, people who'd walked away from it all, living in the forgotten and empty places, were cycling toxic waste and their own tailings into weird funhouse versions of civilization, like horror movie sets. If wobblies were exciting radicals walkaways or orcs and ghouls, the dancer seemed a lot scarier. All of a sudden, I knew that walkaways got mentioned in the same breaths as communist parties,

but I always figured that was a scarce story. I thought communist parties were about wearing fake beards that hung off of fake glasses, not rotting civilization from within. What's more, I'd brought all my friends along for this. If the cops got word that Walkaways were here, there'd be no mercy. Just being in the same building as them could land us all in prison for a long long time. No Wonder Detective no name, had such a heart on to figure out what was going on. He wasn't trying to

stop a party. He was trying to catch terrorists, Antwine. I could tell he'd seen the expression on my face and had an idea of what was going through my head. He put a hand on my shoulder and steered me into a private room to one side of the factory floor, some kind of supply closet with high shelves under the ancient fluorescent tube lights, the shelves bare and showing the dusty outlines of the stuff that had been piled on them when Steelbridge had been running as a real factory.

I know what you're gonna say. He had beer on his breath. Was he drunk? How drunk walk aways?

knew all along that they'd be here. He made a pained face, and I knew I'd caught him. Yeah, I knew it. You should have known it too. Who do you think started the communist parties? Who do you think makes them possible? Helena? What do you think the point of them is that shut me up? An hour before, I'd been dedicated to making something happen in the world instead of letting the world happen to me. I'd been willing to risk everything to prove that I had a

place here. What was the point of communist parties to push back? To write fifty foot tall graffiti in the form of stolen machines and furniture and cars and vehicles, shopping carts for homeless people? The walkaways? We ah caught in the same place as those dudes. There's going to be a terrorism bus. You know that those dudes are the reason we're not going to get caught. They're the

real deal the resistance. You know, they're out there all the time, keeping low and getting away with it every day. They're good people to know. A thing I've noticed about Cherrelle and her family is that they can always find the bright side, even when they really have to dig for it. My family was a lot better at worrying about the downside, which was why, even though I was the one who wanted to have a communist party, she

was the one who ended up making it happen. I tried to look at it like Cherelle Wood, like Antoine would. I had brought thirty kids to a communist party where there was free beer, dangerous and amazing machines and walk aways. I was going to be a living legend, assuming none of them ratted me out. Shut up, eh, Okay, Antoine, Okay, But if we all end up getting rendered too Tajikistan, I'm going to blame you, I'll slip you a hack saw. He was still a handsome fool. Get me a beer, fool, yes, ma'am.

Cherelle's side eye. When Antoine and I got out of the closet, could have cut steel. I crossed my eyes at her and stuck out my tongue and got antoine to fill me up a second red cup for her. I handed it to her and clicked cups as we drank. The software that was djaying kicked into a song we both loved, but a mix neither of us had ever heard, and Charell started to bop her head a little, and then I did it too, And then we drank up and hit the floor, and a space opened for us,

and we started to dance for real. I'm a good dancer, and Cherell is a great dancer. I got good by paying attention to her, and the other partygoers paid us the highest compliment. They danced too. For a while, it was just like any party, dancing, grinning faces the crazy lights. Now the software was picking out people and projection mapping them, turning them into shimmering fish creatures or stone statues or

red skin devils. The Walkaway's crazy party clothes made an especially great canvas for the painted light, and when one of them got lit up, the rest of us formed a circle around them while they busted out their best moves. Trying to see if they could outpace lightning fast reflexes of the projection mapping program. The software was good, and it spun track after track, seamlessly matching beats but speeding up, daring us to keep up with it. On the floor,

humans and machines locked together in a musical battle. Charrelle and I busted at her best moves, and when she spun away to dance with an older guy, a steel worker, not a walk away, you could easily tell him apart. She danced like he was a nineteen year old at a club in New York City, not a middle aged guy in a stolen factory in the San Fernando Valley.

Then I was whirled off by a pair of walkaways, and one of them was white, and she and her friend, a Mexican looking guy, these freaked out moves that would have looked corny if anyone else had tried them, something like a war dance from an old cowboy in Indians movie, or something like a Lindy hop. But with them it worked. I tried out some of their steps, and they smiled and encouraged me, and soon we were all grinning like fools,

much like you'll be grinning like a fool. If you purchase new product from product store.

doing it. But more and more of the dancers were drifting over to the machines, first the steel workers, then the walkaways, then the rest of us, grabbing more beers, forming semicircles around the lines where the machines were doing their things. The sheet metal workers moved smoothly passing parts from one machine to the next, transferring wire grid works to huge beds where they were stamped and folded, then to a bed where a writhing nest of robot arms

made a series of precise, high speed welds. The shopping carts took shape before our eyes, moving to finishing steps where water jets cleared off snags of metal and then polished the steel, then into a coating bath tended by workers and masks. One of the walkaways was unstacking plastic tubs from a pile that was leaning on a column and hauling them over to the area where the upside down carts were being muscled into place in long, precise rows.

The walk away, a woman the same color as me and not much older, I realized with a surprise, pulled something out of her crate and snapped it onto a cart. It was a wheel. She went back for more. The walkaways had brought wheels. I had even thought about how a steel factory would produce rubber wheels. Someone else had, though, someone who'd thrown more than one Communist party. It wasn't a game for amateurs. I joined her. She gave me a pretty smile. One crooked tooth and a lopsided dimple.

Her hair was in short braids streaked with silver. It looked amazing, nice hair, I said. As we met at the wheel tub. It was nearly empty. We had help now three more people clicking the wheels into place. Thank you.

I like your shoes. I'd worn my coolest kicks, covered in tiny relief sculptures of hundreds of famous athletes twined around each other, every pair unique and printed by Goldman Nike, designed so that the rubber deformed to make them dance and move when I walked, ribbed with high contrast piping that glowed bright enough to show every feature even in the factory light. They were the most expensive thing I owned, and I nearly died when Mamma gave them to me

for my birthday. So I was proud that she noticed. Thank you, Mind if I scan them so I can print some later. She was already moving around them, holding out a bead that she passed over them for several passes. For a second, I felt like she was taking something from me, picturing her and her friends wearing identical shoes by lunchtime the next day. Then I told myself I was like the assholes who insisted that this factory and all its feedstock just rot until the roof caved in.

Be my guest, because what else could I say, seeing as she was already nearly done, except whoops. She needed me to lift up each soul, So I did that, holding on to her shoulder muscily while she finished up. I think I can redo them with the faces of all my friends. She pocketed the bead. Be fun to try. My name's Mercenne, call me mayor you want linee. Her handshake was rough, strong, calloused. She was Hella strong. No wonder she could throw around those tubs like they were

full of cotton balls instead of heavy duty wheels. Looks like there's more needs doing. She shoved a tub my way and I staggered under it, got it balanced, and crouched walked it to an empty spot. The assembly line was really tearing now, so much rolling stock on the factory floor that we are in danger of running out of space. Someone realized that the shopping carts were shopping carts, so you could push one into the back of another and it would nest inside it, making long segmented rolling

snakes out of them. Even with that measure. We were soon filled to the doors, but it was okay. The feedstock was done and the dancers were starting to look a little glazed with the heat of their bodies and the machines. It was two am. Antoine came over and high fived me. Where's Charelle? I looked around. She'd helped out in spells, but had been more of a dancer than a maker. I had stayed with cart constructional logistics

straight through, pausing only for beer and water. There had been three of us who took the lead on the carts, Mare the walk Away, and a guy I figured out was a wobbly. Being part of their trio made me feel fucking badass. I have to admit, there she is. She was with a group of the kids that we'd brought along with us. I'd known those kids most of my life, and it struck me that in a month I'd stop seeing them every day, and I'd probably never see a lot of them again. That was a weird feeling,

but not into entirely a bad one. More enormous Chuell spotted us and toasted us with her red cup. She was grinning like a fool, looking for all the world like Antoine. Antoine put his hands on his hips and looked at the tight packed shopping carts. Now what I was exhausted, exhilarated, and exactly exceedingly exalted. I had an all over tingle of danger. The cops could still show up an accomplishment. We did all this. Everyone with a

truck brought it. We load them up, tarp them over, dump them downtown near the market where the homeless are. They do the rest. That made sense. I mean, we weren't going to push them through the streets all night, were we? But it was such an anti climax. I got a better idea. Some of the steel workers use sheets of metal to make ramps that helped us roll the carts into the collection of pickup trucks and the

factories sheltered loading area. Once they were loaded, the walk away spread out and visited each truck's cab, doing something to them to keep them from knowing where they'd been, giving them plausible new geography in case someone ever pulled their log files. Most of the steel workers were going to walk home, and the walkaways were going to head into the night and ghost, of course, with laps sitting and squashing all the kids we'd brought would fit into

the cabs of the trucks. They were just sorting that out, led by Cherrell. When Mayor found me and stuck her hand out, just wanted to say goodbye before we all went back to our corners. I shook her hand and then on impulse, gave her a hug, which was all muscles and bone. Damn walk away at life must be for real. Take care of yourself, which was a funny thing for her to say to me, since I lived in civilization and she was a criminal who lived in the bad lands. Uh, you too, She held me out

at arm's length. I mean it, it's scary here, lots scarier than when we have out there. She jerked her head towards the hills. We stay out of their way and they stay out of ours. You staying here in default, You're a problem they have to solve. We're self deporting to nowhere poof out of say, out of mind. The word default leapt out at me, and it was what they called us here in the real world, the people who just did what they were supposed to do. School

was default. Family was default. Even parties like Alas were default. The shit we just done not default, the sort of thing that the cops would pull a fake lockdown to get inside of. Not being default. Felt good. Thank you. I hope I see you again. You want to make that happen, Just message me. She passed me a slip of paper that trickles into walk Away net. You send it a message, it'll bounce, and that bounce message will get logged and I'll see the log eventually. Cool. I

meant it. Walkaways were super spied ninjas, of course, but getting a glimpse into how they were able to operate without getting hammered was cool and impressive. And that is the end of part three. Because if you want to know what happens to the shopping carts, you're gonna have to wait unless you've read the book on your own. But you wouldn't do that. You wouldn't do that to me.