Little Brother

Ange is Marcus’s girlfriend and Jolu’s friend. She is “short and geeky” (161) with Buddy Holly glasses and large brown eyes. Marcus describes her as smart, passionate, and committed, and she is his first love. Doctorow’s choice of her surname is significant; Carvelli in Italian means dear or beautiful, and she is both to Marcus, in part because she shares his love of technology and freedom. The two are linked together early in the novel when he is accused of the techno-crime she committed: stealing the standardized tests and distributing them online. She is outgoing and self-confident; after they meet at the key signing party, she texts Marcus and invites him on their first date at the Dolores Park concert, and she usually initiates their make-out sessions. She acts as a coach to Marcus, urging him to take action. Besides Jolu and Van, she is the only other person who knows that Marcus is M1k3y, and she becomes M1k3y as well, collaborating with Marcus on M1k3y’s blogs and emails. It is her idea to run the press conference through the Clockwork Plunder game and to team up with Masha to escape the city when Marcus faces arrest.

As a static sidekick, Ange does not change, but she is complex and therefore a round character. She provides moral support to Marcus, but she also calls him out when he loses his nerve in the fight to bring the DHS down. While her motivations are fueled by her love for Marcus, she is zealous about preserving her freedoms and ardent as Marcus about waging war against the government. Her bravery and tenacity are her defining characteristics. When Marcus and Jolu explain the idea of private keys, she is the first to step forward. She upbraids Marcus when he becomes terrified that Xnetters might be arrested and implicate him. She is also completely loyal to Marcus; she holds out against the DHS when they arrest her at the VampMob, never giving up what she knows. When they find her in a cell on Treasure Island, she has been drugged because she “wouldn’t stop screaming for a lawyer” (352). At the end of the book, Ange is still fighting for basic rights alongside Marcus. She is a foil for Van, as they are both into technology and attend the same private school, but where Van’s love for Marcus drives her away because she won’t see him hurt, Ange’s love leads her to wholeheartedly support his war against the DHS.

Carrie is the antagonist in the novel. Her defining physical characteristic is her severe haircut, and Marcus doesn’t know her name until the end of the novel, referring to her simply as “severe haircut lady.” She is cruel and heartless, her expression robotic and dispassionate. Her motivation to persecute Marcus begins when he refuses to give up his phone password on the day of the bombing despite her threats. She harbors a grudge against him, singling him out for repeated interrogations until she destroys his self-image. Clearly, Marcus is not a terrorist, yet she maintains the fiction that he is a person of interest until he is reduced to begging her for release. She is responsible for the DHS’s counterterrorism campaign in San Francisco, but she is also in charge of a clandestine site on Treasure Island where she has incarcerated teenagers and a disproportionate number of non-white residents. Carrie’s cruelty is demonstrated when she orders the guards to waterboard Marcus to get his email password, a torture technique so extreme that it is considered a war crime.

Carrie is as frightening and cruel at the end as in the beginning of the novel, and she undergoes no change. Although she is only physically present in the beginning chapters and the last, she is the face of the DHS for Marcus, driving his motivation for revenge against the government agency. She is tried by a closed military tribunal and cleared of wrongdoing, suggesting that her use of torture was sanctioned by the government.

Drew is Marcus’s father. He is characterized by his stubbornness and his love for Marcus. As a consultant for technology companies specializing in archives and data practices, as well as a professor in library science, he is especially sensitive to security issues and savvy about computerized tracking practices. Oftentimes his contrary opinions propel Marcus to new solutions in his campaign against the DHS. For instance, when Jolu and Marcus design a way to hide the abnormal amounts of encrypted packets that Xnetters are receiving and sending, it is because Marcus argued with his father about the legality of the heightened surveillance DHS has instituted in San Francisco. Drew also is guilty of logical fallacies in his arguments with Marcus, demonstrating the prevalence of faulty reasoning in arguments that favor safety over basic rights.

Drew’s intractable support of the DHS’s tactics is based on his trauma from the five days that Marcus was presumed killed by terrorists. Doctorow characterizes Drew as intelligent but driven by his need to keep his family safe. Only when Marcus tells him about his imprisonment by the DHS does Drew admit that he was wrong about the counterterrorism tactics they employ. However, he is quick to act once he realizes the agency is corrupt. His recognition of the pain that Darryl’s father must be feeling is immediate and clearly derives from Drew’s own anguish when he thought Marcus had died. His secondary concern is getting Marcus’s story out to the public where it can do the most good. It is his connection to Barbara that allows Marcus fair treatment by the press and moves the plot forward to its climax. Although Drew does reevaluate his opinions regarding security, he does not undergo significant change, as his stance on the DHS’s methods was an aberration from his normal character. 

Lillian is Marcus’s mother. She is British and fiercely protective of Marcus. Her stance is against heavy-handed law enforcement and surveillance, but she demonstrates her support by siding with Marcus privately rather than taking his side against his father. However, when the police escort Marcus home to discuss his abnormal travel usage, she calls them out on their authoritarian methods and asks them to leave.

Lillian is a consultant who explains Americans and their culture to UK citizens who have relocated to the United States. As such, she is adept at analyzing the reasons behind cultural practices objectively. Doctorow employs Lillian’s character to examine the rationales of people like Drew, who view the security issue as an issue of freedom versus terrorism. She explains to Marcus what drives Drew to be so fearful—the trauma from losing his son to terrorists—and she humanizes his irrational, rigid viewpoints. 

Jolu is one of Marcus’s closest friends and a member of the Harajuku Fun Madness team. He attends a strict Catholic high school, which he can exfiltrate with ease. Out of the four friends, Jolu is known as the programmer; he was hired to work at an indienet website when he was only 12, and he’s known for his out-of-the-box solutions to technology problems. When Marcus creates Xnet without consulting him, he is angry with Marcus, but he helps him with the Xnet security problems as they come up anyway.

Jolu provides Marcus with a much-needed perspective of how dissent against the government and law enforcement is riskier for people of color. When Marcus wonders why Van will not support him in his campaign against the authoritarian DHS, Jolu reminds him that Van’s family narrowly escaped death at the hands of an authoritarian regime in North Korea. Jolu also clarifies why he cannot continue supporting Marcus’s efforts; he is Hispanic, and if he is caught by the DHS, the repercussions will be far greater for him than for Marcus, who is white. This insight helps Marcus evolve into a better leader, as he is at times blinded by his own privilege.

Van is on the Harajuku Fun Madness team and is a close friend to Marcus, Darryl, and Jolu. She is the brains of the group, and though Darryl is “secretly” in love with her, she pretends not to notice. Van is in love with Marcus, and she becomes angry when he risks recapture by the DHS by creating Xnet. She repeatedly tries to dissuade him from what she views is a hopeless crusade. As Marcus continues with his campaign, she distances herself from him to protect herself. Her lack of support for his vision, however, does not preclude her from helping him in the end. When Marcus needs to get the video and picture of Darryl to Barbara, Van delivers the information to Barbara for him. Van is a foil to Ange; she is realistic, as opposed to Ange’s idealism, and unsupportive, where Ange actively encourages Marcus’s war against the DHS. However, she is a stalwart friend and remains so throughout the novel.