Scroogled
The following is an excerpt from Cory Doctorow’s short story “Scroogled,” published in Radar Magazine.
“Evening,” Greg said, handing the man his sweaty passport. The officer grunted and swiped it, then stared at his screen, tapping. A lot. He had a little bit of dried food at the corner of his mouth and his tongue crept out and licked at it.
“Want to tell me about June 1998?” Greg looked up from his Departures.
“I’m sorry?”
“You posted a message to alt.burningman on June 17, 1998, about your plan to attend a festival. You asked, ‘Are shrooms really such a bad idea?’”
The interrogator in the secondary screening room was an older man, so skinny he looked like he’d been carved out of wood. His questions went a lot deeper than shrooms.
“Tell me about your hobbies. Are you into model rocketry?”
“What?”
“Model rocketry.”
“No,” Greg said, “No, I’m not.” He sensed where this was going. The man made a note, did some clicking.
“You see, I ask because I see a heavy spike in ads for rocketry supplies showing up alongside your search results and Google mail.”
Greg felt a spasm in his guts.
“You’re looking at my searches and email?” He hadn’t touched a keyboard in a month, but he knew what he put into that search bar was likely more revealing than what he told his shrink.
4 years ago