- Marcus's dad rants about being pulled over. He's shocked that they had information about places he'd been that didn't have a toll plaza.
- Mom says that he owes Marcus an apology. Guess your son wasn't being overly paranoid after all, huh dad?
- Marcus goes to play some mindless computer games on Xnet. He's not as excited about the multiplayer clockwork pirate game as Harajuku Fun Madness, but he's resigned.
- Another player asks Marcus where he's located and he gets a bad vibe when she keeps pressing for details. He logs off.
- The next morning there's an article in the Chronicle about DHS operations asking for a 300% budget increase. They say the jamming and false alarms are terrorists trying to disguise real attacks.
- Marcus's dad thinks DHS will win if they just keep throwing resources at the problem. Guess what Marcus thinks?
- Ding ding ding: if you guessed Marcus starts talking about privacy, you're right. Dad seems to have reconsidered his anger from the night before. Now Marcus is angry.
- The Xnetters are also angry. Some guy calls from a pay phone (yeah, a pay phone) into a radio show and sounds pretty crazy. He says they're not terrorists, they just hate Homeland Security (9.47).
- Marcus keeps track of what's going on by the number of emails sent to M1k3y (naturally). There's a blog post that talks about four kids who were jamming and got caught by police. They ended up in a truck jammed full of people.
- The police couldn't deal with the volume, so when a new shift came in, they let everyone go.
- Marcus feels guilty that people almost got locked up because of something he told them to do.
- The DHS gets their budget request approved the next day. At school they have to watch the President and the Governor say that "no price was too high for security" (9.62).
- Marcus reflects on the differences between the United States and the United Kingdom. For one, Britain doesn't have a constitution. We also learn that his mom is a freelance relocation specialist who helps British people settle in the US.
- Mom explains that Marcus's parents thought he was dead when he disappeared. They were pretty upset.
- Turns out that his parents were going to divorce when he was ten, but they both love him so much they stayed together and worked things out. Aww.
- She adds that she and Marcus need to be patient with Dad until he comes back to them. He's having a rough time and isn't really himself.
- That night Marcus can't sleep. He looks out the window and sees an unmarked white van with lots of antennas on top slowly cruising down the street. Creepy.
- It stops and a guy in a DHS uniform gets out. Marcus realizes he's using a wifinder and quickly shuts down his Xbox.
- Marcus blogs about the van, telling people that they're looking for Xnet users and to be careful. He can't sleep, so it's time to play windup pirates. We learn the game's name is Clockwork Plunder.
- Marcus tries to get wound up so he can play, but it's another person asking where he lives in San Francisco. This feels fishy, so Marcus logs out.
- Cruising around LiveJournal blogs, Marcus finds a quiz that freaks him out.
- The quiz looks harmless, but asks enough details that the answers could quickly pinpoint people who use Xnet. There are spies online.
- Marcus gets ahold of Jolu and sends him the quiz through their secure chat session. Jolu's shocked and scared.
- Marcus thinks it's time to build a web of trust, but you need to have people physically gather together to start one. Jolu hits on the solution: time to plan party at Sutro Baths.