was the way his father had taught him, and that was how he'd lived his
life. Wailing and wringing your hands was not what a man did. You
screwed up, then you took the heat, and you got on with your life,
period, end of story. What was that old saying: You can't do the time,
don't do the crime? That was pretty much it.
In theory, anyway.
Thursday Sperryville, Virginia
'Ow,' Jay Gridley said. He slapped at his bare arm, and when he pulled
his hand away, there was a splotch of liquid red surrounding the
crushed body of a mosquito.
At least he thought it was a mosquito--it was hard to tell.
'Murderer,' Soji said. She smiled.
'Self-defense,' he said.
'If I'd known I was gonna be attacked by all these itty-bitty vampires,
I'd have thought twice about going for a walk in the woods with you. Or
maybe brought a bunch of matches I could carve into wooden stakes. This
would be so much more pleasant in
VR.'
'My father used to say that God made two mistakes,' she said.
'Mosquitoes and politicians. Of course, he was an alderman, so he
could say that. But he was wrong-both mosquitoes and politicians have
their places.'
Jay shook his head.
'Sounds like more Buddhistic smoke and mirrors to me. You got to go
some to justify mosquitoes.'
'Really? Tell that to the bats who eat them.'
'They could eat something else. Plenty of bugs that don't bite people.
They could double up on gnats or something.'
'Come on. Jay. If you take away everything that causes you
discomfort, there's no way to measure your pleasure.'
They were on a narrow dirt trail that wound through a section of mostly
hardwood forest. There was enough shade so the day's heat didn't lay
too heavy a hand on them, and the air was rich in oxygen, the smells of
warm summer vegetation, and decades of damp humus. The backpack was a
lot heavier than anything Jay was used' to carrying, but since Soji's
was every bit as heavy, he could hardly complain. He had the tent, but
she had the cooking gear.
He shook his head. He couldn't successfully argue philosophy or
religion with Sojan Rinpoche. She could talk circles around him.
Though only in her twenties, she was much more educated in such things
than he was. They had met after the on-line injury he'd got stalking
the creator of a quantum computer that had caused Net Force all kinds
of problems. Since they had come together initially in VR--virtual
reality--via the internet, they had been in persona, and hers had been
that of an aged Tibetan monk.
She was a lot better looking as a young woman than. she had been as an
old man. And she had been instrumental in helping him recover from a
brain injury that theoretically wasn't even possible.
'See, that's the problem with you. Jay. You spend too much time
