Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

by Cory Doctorow

that I'm going to have to cancel because this is goingoff-schedule."

  I made soothing apologetic gestures with my hands. "Suneep, believe me,I'm just as upset about this as you are. We don't like this one littlebit."

  He harrumphed. "We had a deal, Julius," he said, hotly. "I would do therehab for you and you would keep the ad-hocs off my back. I've beenholding up my end of the bargain, but where the hell have you been? Ifthey replan the rehab now, I'll _have_ to go along with them. I can'tjust leave the Mansion half-done -- they'll murder me."

  The kernel of a plan formed in my mind. "Suneep, we don't like the newrehab plan, and we're going to stop it. You can help. Just stonewallthem -- tell them they'll have to find other Imagineering support ifthey want to go through with it, that you're booked solid."

  Dan gave me one of his long, considering looks, then nodded a minuteapproval. "Yeah," he drawled. "That'll help all right. Just tell 'emthat they're welcome to make any changes they want to the plan, _if_they can find someone else to execute them."

  Suneep looked unhappy. "Fine -- so then they go and find someone else todo it, and that person gets all the credit for the work my team's doneso far. I just flush my time down the toilet."

  "It won't come to that," I said quickly. "If you can just keep saying nofor a couple days, we'll do the rest."

  Suneep looked doubtful.

  "I promise," I said.

  Suneep ran his stubby fingers through his already crazed hair. "Allright," he said, morosely.

  Dan slapped him on the back. "Good man," he said.

  #

  It should have worked. It almost did.

  I sat in the back of the Adventureland conference room while Danexhorted.

  "Look, you don't have to roll over for Debra and her people! This is_your_ garden, and you've tended it responsibly for years. She's got noright to move in on you -- you've got all the Whuffie you need to defendthe place, if you all work together."

  No castmember likes confrontation, and the Liberty Square bunch weretough to rouse to action. Dan had turned down the air conditioning anhour before the meeting and closed up all the windows, so that the roomwas a kiln for hard-firing irritation into rage. I stood meekly in theback, as far as possible from Dan. He was working his magic on mybehalf, and I was content to let him do his thing.

  When Lil had arrived, she'd sized up the situation with a sourexpression: sit in the front, near Dan, or in the back, near me. She'dchosen the middle, and to concentrate on Dan I had to tear my eyes awayfrom the sweat glistening on her long, pale neck.

  Dan stalked the aisles like a preacher, eyes blazing. "They're_stealing_ your future! They're _stealing_ your _past_! They claimthey've got your support!"

  He lowered his tone. "I don't think that's true." He grabbed acastmember by her hand and looked into her eyes. "Is it true?" he saidso low it was almost a whisper.

  "No," the castmember said.

  He dropped her hand and whirled to face another castmember. "Is ittrue?" he demanded, raising his voice, slightly.

  "No!" the castmember said, his voice unnaturally loud after thewhispers. A nervous chuckle rippled through the crowd.

  "Is it true?" he said, striding to the podium, shouting now.

  "No!" the crowd roared.

  "NO!" he shouted back.

  "You don't _have to_ roll over and take it! You can fight back, carry onwith the plan, send them packing. They're only taking over becauseyou're letting them. Are you going to let them?"

  "NO!"

  #

  Bitchun wars are rare. Long before anyone tries a takeover of anything,they've done the arithmetic and ensured themselves that the ad-hocthey're displacing doesn't have a hope of fighting back.

  For the defenders, it's a simple decision: step down gracefully andsalvage some reputation out of the thing -- fighting back will surelyburn away even that meager reward.

  No one benefits from fighting back -- least of all the thing everyone'sfighting over. For example:

  It was the second year of my undergrad, taking a double-major in notmaking trouble for my profs and keeping my mouth shut. It was the earlydays of Bitchun, and most of us were still a little unclear on theconcept.

  Not all of us, though: a group of campus shit-disturbers, grad studentsin the Sociology Department, were on the bleeding edge of therevolution, and they knew what they wanted: control of the Department,oustering of the tyrannical, stodgy profs, a bully pulpit from which topreach the Bitchun gospel to a generation of impressionable undergradswho were too cowed by their workloads to realize what a load of shitthey were being fed by the University.

  At least, that's what the intense, heavyset woman who seized the mic atmy Soc 200 course said, that sleepy morning mid-semester at ConvocationHall. Nineteen hundred students filled the hall, a capacity crowd ofbleary, coffee-sipping time-markers, and they woke up in a hurry whenthe woman's strident harangue burst over their heads.

  I saw it happen from the very start. The prof was down there on thestage, a speck with a tie-mic, droning over his slides, and then therewas a blur as half a dozen grad students rushed the stage. They weredressed in University poverty-chic, wrinkled slacks and tattered sportscoats, and five of them formed a human wall in front of the prof whilethe sixth, the heavyset one with the dark hair and the prominent mole onher cheek, unclipped his mic and clipped it to her lapel.

  "Wakey wakey!" she called, and the reality of the moment hit home forme: this wasn't on the lesson-plan.

  "Come on, heads up! This is _not_ a drill. The University of TorontoDepartment of Sociology is under new management. If you'll set yourhandhelds to 'receive,' we'll be beaming out new lesson-plansmomentarily. If you've forgotten your handhelds, you can download theplans later on. I'm going to run it down for you right now, anyway.

  "Before I start though, I have a prepared statement for you. You'llprobably hear this a couple times more today, in your other classes.It's worth repeating. Here goes:

  "We reject the stodgy, tyrannical rule of the profs at this Department.We demand bully pulpits from which to preach the Bitchun gospel.Effective immediately, the University of Toronto Ad-Hoc SociologyDepartment is _in charge_. We promise high-relevance curriculum with anemphasis on reputation economies, post-scarcity social dynamics, and thesocial theory of infinite life-extension. No more Durkheim, kids, justdeadheading! This will be _fun_."

  She taught the course like a pro -- you could tell she'd been drillingher lecture for a while. Periodically, the human wall behind hershuddered as the prof made a break for it and was restrained.

  At precisely 9:50 a.m. she dismissed the class, which had hung on herevery word. Instead of trudging out and ambling to our next class, thewhole nineteen hundred of us rose, and, as one, started buzzing to ourneighbors, a roar of "Can you believe it?" that followed us out the doorand to our next encounter with the Ad-Hoc Sociology Department.

  It was cool, that day. I had another soc class, Constructing SocialDeviance, and we got the same drill there, the same stirring propaganda,the same comical sight of a tenured prof battering himself against ahuman wall of ad-hocs.

  Reporters pounced on us when we left the class, jabbing at us with micsand peppering us with questions. I gave them a big thumbs-up and said,"Bitchun!" in classic undergrad eloquence.

  The profs struck back the next morning. I got a heads-up from thenewscast as I brushed my teeth: the Dean of the Department of Sociologytold a reporter that the ad-hocs' courses would not be credited, thatthey were a gang of thugs who were totally unqualified to teach. Acounterpoint interview from a spokesperson for the ad-hocs establishedthat all of the new lecturers had been writing course-plans and lecturenotes for the profs they replaced for years, and that they'd alsowritten most of their journal articles.

  The profs brought University security out to help them regain theirlecterns, only to be repelled by ad-hoc security guards in homemadeuniforms. University security got the message -- anyone could bereplaced -- and stayed away.

  The profs p
icketed. They held classes out front attended by grade-conscious brown-nosers who worried that the ad-hocs' classes wouldn'tcount towards their degrees. Fools like me alternated between theoutdoor and indoor classes, not learning much of anything.

  No one did. The profs spent their course-times whoring for Whuffie,leading the seminars like encounter groups instead of lectures. Thead-hocs spent their time badmouthing the profs and tearing apart theircoursework.

  At the end of the semester, everyone got a credit and the UniversitySenate disbanded the Sociology program in favor of a distance-edoffering from Concordia in Montreal. Forty years later, the fight wassettled forever. Once