Carla climbed hurriedly into the car, thumbing the volume key beside the tiny trideo screen. Pita’s voice crackled from the speaker and her image wavered. At first Carla thought it was just the trideo unit acting up, but then she saw the channel display. The broadcast was coming in on Channel 115—a channel that should have been carrying nothing but a blank blue field. This was clearly a pirate broadcast, fed illegally through a cable booster into a "dead" channel. The pirates were probably transmitting via remote feed to avoid getting caught, should their input be traced. The resulting distortion had caused the color to shift; Pita’s face was distinctly green. But her voice was coming through, loud and clear, despite the occasional pop of static.