couldn't control his temper was weak--losing it almost always got you
in more trouble than it solved.
'You want to talk to me?'
He nodded.
'Yeah. Come on, we can go to my office.'
'Kind of stuffy there. How about the gym?'
He had to smile. His office, his advantage. The gym was where she was
stronger. He said, 'Why don't we go to the conference room instead?'
She smiled back at him, and he knew she understood what he'd been
thinking. What they had both been thinking.
God, he loved smart women!
Washington, D.C.
Maybe this wasn't such a good idea coming here, Jay thought.
'Here' was a kind of Army-Navy surplus store, though that wasn't
strictly true--there were odds and ends from other branches of military
surplus for sale here, too, including some stuff from what looked like
the Coast
Guard, the U.S. Marine Corps, and the Russian Air Force.
And on one scratched glass counter next to a rack of moldy uniforms
from some unrecognizable African army, there were even Net Force
buttons and insignia.
The whole place had a sour odor, like unwashed cotton socks mixed with
damp wool, and instead of air-conditioning, a pair of large and loud
metal fans mounted on seven-foot-tall posts circulated the too-warm and
fetid air without doing much to cool it, or the people inside.
Some of the patrons looked familiar--maybe Jay had seen their pictures
on the post office's Most Wanted website-and none of them were what you
would call savory.
Still, he was Jay Gridley, a master scenarist. He'd built uglier
scenarios in VR.
The guy perched on the stool behind the counter next to the old-style
mechanical cash register was the least appetizing character in the
place. He was fat, bald, and wore an eyepatch made of what looked like
rattlesnake skin over his right eye, and vaguely green Army-style
fatigues that had probably been unwashed since the Spanish American
War.
As Jay watched, a customer who looked old enough to have been a veteran
of that same war shuffled to the register.
The old man was in baggy green parachute pants and a stained and ratty
green T-shirt over untied combat boots, the laces dragging along the
floor. The man plunked a bayonet onto the counter.
'How much for this here baloney slicer?' the old man said. He
cackled, amused at his own poor joke, a laugh that ended in a dry
wheeze.
Jay took a step backward, so he wouldn't have to share too much of the
man's air. Surely the guy must have something contagious.
'That's for an '03 Springfield,' Eyepatch behind the counter said. His
raspy voice sounded as if it had been pickled in high-proof whiskey,
then left out in the desert to bleach for a few years.
