Chapter 12, Construction. In the second half of August 1999, Dan has finished his assignment at the kids camp upstate New York and he now works on a construction site in Manhattan. He works from 7:30AM to 3:30PM, for 32 dollars per hour. In three days he makes more than he made in…

Chapter 11, The Chief Walking Horse. In the summer of 1999 Dan enrolled in a U.S. student work exchange program. He goes to the U.S. for two and a half months between July and September, the first six weeks as “support staff” in a children summer camp upstate New York, and the remaining one month planning…

Chapter 10, The Education. Dan sits at the Intro Internet Café server behind the bar watching the time counters for the occupied stations. He thinks about a new customer group he’s been observing. Besides the chatters, the gamers, the browsers, the hackers, the occasional emailers and the girls looking for romance, there are more…

Chapter 9, The Neighbor. Dan enters Intro Internet Café on a late April weekday afternoon, to drop off some boxes of instant powder cappuccino. As he walks through the door, he sees his business partner Manu sitting on the couch facing an angry man. It is Mr. Erlacu, the neighbor. The father of Cabe…

Chapter 8, The Floods. Very busy winter evening at Intro. Way below freezing point outside. Intro’s gas heater gives its everything and spreads a lot of pleasant, mellowing heat inside. All 11 Internet stations are taken. Same for all waiting spots on the couch and the bar stools. Four people are even standing, with…

Chapter 7, The Thief. The 6 Coca Cola bottles displayed since Intro Internet Café’s opening on the top shelf of the bar are long past their expiration dates. Dan has been observing for months the optical evolution of their content. First the color turned into a dark sunset orange that then changed slowly towards…

Chapter 6, The Internet Emailer. Friday morning, 10AM. The Intro Internet Café cleaning lady wraps up, rolling up the electrical cord of her vacuum cleaner. The latest Bucharest Underground Mafia album comes out from the speakers much louder than usual. Because the vacuum cleaner was just on. Dan and Lucky help to finish off the…

Chapter 5, The Dream Girls. They are Intro Internet Café’s best customers. They smoke rare cigarettes, don’t talk much and are well dressed. They stay online 3–4–5 hours at a time, use minimal bandwidth, almost never ask for help and happily pay for extra stuff like photo scanning and printing, and lots of cappuccinos. So…

Chapter 4, The Stars. Dan and Cris are on the night shift in Intro. Four stations are occupied. Two mIRC-ers and two online gamers. Three online gamers including Cris. He plays Warcraft online. Dan sits at the server behind the bar and checks for free domain names. He just read that business.com …