ter of a South Indian
place for a businessmen's lunch of thali and thick mango lassi, which coated
their tongues in alkaline sweetness that put out the flames from the spiced
veggies. Both men were sweating by the time they ordered their second round of
lassi and Art had his hands on his belly, amazed as ever that something as
insubstantial as the little platter's complement of veggies and naan could fill
him as efficiently as it had.

"What are you working on now?" Fede asked, suppressing a curry-whiffing belch.

"Same shit," Art said. "There are a million ways to make the service work. The
rights-societies want lots of accounting and lots of pay-per-use. MassPike hates
that. It's a pain in the ass to manage, and the clickthrough licenses and
warnings they want to slap on are heinous. People are going to crash their cars
fucking around with the 'I Agree' buttons. Not to mention they want to require a
firmware check on every stereo system that gets a song, make sure that this
week's copy-protection is installed. So I'm coopering up all these user studies
with weasels from the legal departments at the studios, where they just slaver
all over this stuff, talking about how warm it all makes them feel to make sure
that they're compensating artists and how grateful they are for the reminders to
keep their software up to date and shit. I'm modeling a system that has a
clickthrough every time you cue up a new song, too. It's going to be perfect:
the rights-societies are going to love it, and I've handpicked the peer review
group at V/DT, stacked it up with total assholes who love manuals and following
rules. It's going to sail through approval."

Fede grunted. "You don't think it'll be too obvious?"

Art laughed. "There is no such thing as too obvious in this context, man. These
guys, they hate the end user, and for years they've been getting away with it
because all their users are already used to being treated like shit at the post
office and the tube station. I mean, these people grew up with *coin-operated
stoves*, for chrissakes! They pay television tax! Feed 'em shit and they'll ask
you for second helpings. Beg you for 'em! So no, I don't think it'll be too
obvious. They'll mock up the whole system and march right into MassPike with it,
grinning like idiots. Don't worry about a thing."

"OK, OK. I get it. I won't worry."

Art signalled the counterman for their bill. The counterman waved distractedly
in the manner of a