Molly Fitzgerald’s entire family is made up of makers. She spends every summer with her uncle and cousin, building robots, playing old arcade games, and hanging out in their local hackerspace.

This year, however, is different. In an effort to crack down on copyright infringement, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is being fully enforced, with no exemptions to its anti-circumvention provisions -- not even for personal or educational use. The definition of fair use becomes unclear. Without a loophole, and with steep fines in place for breaking digital locks, the denizens of the hackerspace mostly drift off to other hobbies, and the owner of the property turns the space into a computer shop.

When Molly comes to visit her uncle this summer, she takes a job in the shop. Small bits of the old hackerspace remain -- the old arcade cabinet, art on the walls, the workbenches -- but it’s just not the same. When the arcade cabinet breaks down, Molly and her cousin come up with a plan, replacing the guts of the cabinet with an emulator.

It’s legally risky, so in true hacker tradition, the shop goes all out and hosts an interactive retrocomputing arcade.