Geek Mafia by Rick Dakan Page B

institutions you were likely to find anywhere in the world back then. In a lot of ways they worked like kind of floating communes. They voted about where to go and what kind of prizes to take. And when they took down some booty, everyone got a pretty much equal share.
    The captain got maybe like a share and a half or something. It was really quite egalitarian, which only made sense, since they were all in it together - outlaws with no one to count on but each other."
    "Is that how you guys see yourselves? A band of outsiders?"
    "I suppose so. But without the scurvy."
    "How did you find all these guys anyway? Did you pick all of them up in Mexican restaurants on the day they were fired?"
    "You might be surprised how often that works," she said with a smile. "But no, most of them have a little more criminal experience than you."
    "So did you, like, go to the local thief's market and start recruiting? Or is there a chat room or something where you all hang out and sharpen your digital knives?"
    "I think you're great and all Paul. Don't get me wrong. But if the others heard you asking too many questions like this, they might take it the wrong way. You're still an unknown quantity to them and they - well, me too I guess - we're all kind of guarded about our own history."
    "Oh man," said Paul. "I'm sorry. I should've realized. It's just, well, this is all so weird for me."
    "Chill. It's cool. I'm not mad or anything. I'm just giving you a little advice by way of preface for what I'm about to tell you. And just to let you know, I'm not going to tell you anything about any of the others. About how they got into the Crew or where they came from. But I'll give you the abridged version of my story. Keep in mind though that the names have been changed to protect the innocent and that I'm probably making the whole thing up."
    "Ok. I like a good story, fact or fiction."
    "Good, because mine's got a little bit of both."

    Chapter 10
    50
    Chloe's Tale
    "Like all great stories, mine begins at the tender age of fourteen, which is the first time I ever saw a live theater production that involved real actors and sets instead of middle school kids in homemade costumes. It was a school trip to see a touring production of Macbeth, and man was it cool. I mean, the actors and stuff were probably fine, I don't really remember, but it was the costumes and the sets that blew me away. Their set designer was a miracle worker. They'd gone all out for realism - not something you see much anymore with these wacky modern dress Shakespeare productions - and they'd turned that stage into a fucking castle. It was brilliant. I just assumed it was real stone they'd used, it looked so good. But afterwards we got a backstage tour 'cause our teacher knew the stage manager or something. Anyway, I saw those stone walls up close and they were Styrofoam. It blew my little teenage mind."
    "That's when I decided theater was my new obsession. I've always been an obsession prone kinda girl. Not so much about guys or bands or any of that bullshit, but more about hobbies. Before theater it had been rock climbing and before that it had been rollerblading and before that it had been gymnastics. Always something.
    And I wouldn't just do whatever it was; I'd also learn everything there was to know about it. I'd read every book the library and the local bookstores had about mountain climbing. I'd planned out all these elaborate trips I was going to take some summer - all this even though I'd never climbed a rock outside of a climbing wall in a gym."
    "But the theater thing was different. My high school had something approaching a decent drama club, and I joined the day after we got back from the play. There weren't a ton of us in the club, so everyone got to do a little bit of everything. I acted some, made costumes, learned to run the lame ass lighting system we had. And by lighting system I mean a couple spots and not much else. But mostly I was all about working on the sets. I