I was being taken off America's shores to somewhere else, and who the hell knew where that was? I'd been scared before, but this thought terrified me, left me paralyzed and wordless with fear.
This quote both explains what is happening at the beginning of the book, and shows an early example of how the DHS invades the privacy of many American citizens. In fact, this quote takes place immediately after the terrorist bombs explode. Marcus and his friends have been taken captive by an, at the time, unknown organization, and Marcus is realizing that they are being transported off of the shores of the United States of America. He is understandably terrified.
This is one of the first examples in the novel of the DHS violating the privacy of its citizens. They are illegally detaining Marcus and his friends to an islands off of the coast of California, where they are held prisoner. Later, they are interrogated in an unlawful way. There are many more examples of these violations to come.
I'd written the note plainly and simply, just laying it out for her: I know you don't approve. I understand. But this is it, this is the most important favor I've ever asked of you. Please.
Please.
She'd come. I knew she would. We had a lot of history, Van and I. She didn't like what had happened to the world, either.
This quote serves as an excellent example of the theme of friendship, and how it is one of the things that enables Marcus to make the changes that he does. At this location, Marcus has written a note to Van, asking her to come and meet him so that she can be the messenger between Marcus and Barbara because she is clean and will not draw attention by doing such things. Although Van decided to stop helping Marcus for her own good reasons, she comes to help him. It is this help, this friendship, that allows Marcus to gets Darryl out pf captivity, if Darryl is still alive.
What's the big deal? Would you rather have privacy or terrorists?
In this quote, Drew, Marcus's father, presents the conflict that is at the heart of the novel: would people be willing to lose their privacy in order to make the world a safer place? It is this question that causes the conflict between the DHS and the Xnetters, which causes almost all of the events that take place int he book. The DHS believe that a safer city and world are worth more than the privacy of its citizens, and the Xnetters think the opposite.
But while this is the main conflict of the book, the events of the book make the reader wonder: is there a way, using advanced technology, that there could be a reduced number of terrorists, and a society where citizens can regain their privacy?
I prefer to inject a little randomness into my attacks on gaitrecognition: I put a handful of gravel into each shoe. Cheap and effective, and no two steps are the same. Plus you get a great reflexology foot massage in the process (I kid. Reflexology is about as scientifically useful as gaitrecognition).
This quote does a lot in establishing who the protagonist, Marcus Yallow, is. At this location, Marcus is shown sneaking out of school by fooling the gait-recognition cameras that the school uses to keeps the students in check by putting gravel in his shoes to alter the way that he walks. Marcus demonstrates his cunning here by quickly outsmarting an advanced piece of technology. Marcus also established his status of being a rebel through his breaking school rules and sneaking out of school.
And the best part as far as I was concerned was that Paranoid Xbox was paranoid. Every bit that went over the air was scrambled to within an inch of its life. You could wiretap it all you wanted, but you'd never figure out who was talking, what they were talking about, or who they were talking to. Anonymous web, email and IM. Just what I needed.
This quote chronicles one of the most important things that happens in the whole book: the creation of the Xnet. This immediately demonstrated Marcus's tech-savvy, and his position as a leader, as he is building a complex computer system, and he is creating it for many, many people to use. The Xnet comes into play throughout the rest of the book, as it is what the people who are against what the DHS are doing use to communicate and coordinate what their next move is going to be. Without the Xnet, many of the things that happened in the book would not have been possible.
