In the farthest corner of the twenty-four-hour diner sat a small woman typing away at her laptop. A mass of unruly medium-brown hair formed a halo around her pale golden face, while a scattering of brown freckles played across her straight nose beneath bright hazel eyes. She was connected to the dark web, adding “classified” information under her alias as “Vassily,” a former covert Russian operative, on the run after uncovering a dangerous secret.
Two weeks ago, the Premier of Transmontia had a series of phone calls which kept her occupied for the entire day. My sources say those calls included the Russian President, the Chinese President, the British Prime Minister, and the United States President. Yesterday afternoon, the Premier of Transmontia sacked her entire cabinet, replacing them with “reformers,” even as tens of billions of dollars of national debt disappeared off their books. Those same reformers wasted no time cutting deals for: Russian oil, tech trade with China, and open borders to several NATO countries. This smells like a back-door NATO invasion into Eastern Europe while trying to keep Russia and China in the dark with their own deals.
She read over her posting and submitted it. Except for the bit about the phone calls and the over-the-top likening it to an invasion, it was, more or less, factually accurate. The disappearance of the national debt was easily explained; it was artificial debt created by members of the cabinet to their privately held companies. Cleaning up the cabinet opened the country up for previously stalled trade deals, and the open borders agreements were with the EU and the EAEU. Still, a little easily verified truth makes the rest seem plausible.
“What’s the new conspiracy?”
Eris looked up from her laptop. The woman who stood across from her had warm, olive skin, hazel eyes, and long, straight black hair. She was dressed in a bespoke suit, custom-made Louboutins, and oversized sunglasses. Eris felt a small pang comparing the woman’s too-perfect appearance to her own. She tugged at the hem of her hoodie, trying to straighten it out. “Why are you here, Laverna?”
“I just wanted to check on you.” Laverna sat opposite Eris and pushed her laptop closed. She made a point of looking over Eris’ outfit, torn jeans, a t-shirt that said, “Underestimate me, I dare you”, a black hoodie, and ratty sneakers. “You really don’t seem to be doing so well these days.”
“Why, because I like to blend in?”
“Because you look a mess.” Laverna laughed. “Let me take you in for a few days, I’ll have you looking like a goddess again.”
Eris snorted. “You don’t look like a goddess. You look like a cross between a failed actress, a banker, a pimp, and a mob boss.”
Laverna smiled, but there was no warmth behind it, her dark-brown eyes icy. “I have been some of those things,” she said. “Never tried acting, but never needed to.”
That stung. “I didn’t act in the silents because I needed to, it was just something to do.”
“How long have you been living on the investments you made with your movie money?” Laverna’s smile turned to a smirk. “Investments that I helped you make?”
Eris frowned. “Fine, I needed to then, but I don’t need to now.”
“So instead, you what? Start conspiracy theories?”
“That, and deep fakes. It keeps me amused.” Eris put her elbows on the table and leaned her chin on her hands. “And it works very well. Have you noticed the state of the world lately?”
“I have,” she said, motioning the waitress over. “Coffee, black, and whatever fresh fruit you have.” As the waitress turned to go, she added, “Fresh fruit, nothing from a can.”
“Now, if you’re done being rude, I’ll go,” Eris said. She stuffed her laptop into the backpack on the seat next to her.
“Please, stay.” The set of Laverna’s face told Eris she didn’t have a choice. “I helped you invest, and you owe me one.”
“So, you need my help.”
“I didn’t say that.” Laverna shifted, turning away from Eris toward the window. “I just said you owe me.”
“If you can’t say you need my help, you won’t get it.” Eris reached for her backpack and began to stand.
“Okay, fine. I need your help.”
“Better.” Eris settled into the booth. “Tell me what you need.”
“I assume you know what happened in Transmontia.”
“Of course. Crooked politicians got busted.”
The waitress returned with a cup of coffee and a salad plate filled with apple and pear slices, berries, grapes, and chunks of cantaloupe. Laverna smiled at her and turned back to Eris. “That happens when you get stupid.”
“They got greedy.”
“Greed,” Laverna said, “is a fine motivator, but I have no respect for anyone stupid enough to get caught.”
“Okay, fine.” Eris stole a grape off the plate. “What’s that got to do with me?”
Laverna took a sip of her coffee, frowned at it, and set it down. “The current Premier is opening things up. This is aligned with my interests.”
“And?” Eris watched with raised eyebrows while Laverna quietly ate a few pieces of her fruit. “Why must I drag everything out of you? If you don’t tell me what you need help with, I’m leaving, and considering this annoying conversation as payment in full.”
“The current Premier is well liked, by a little more than half the population.” Laverna poured sugar into her coffee and tried another sip. “The rest, though, hate her with a passion.”
“Sounds like a riot in the making.”
“All I’m asking for is that you don’t poke around in Transmontia until after the next election.”
Eris frowned, her eyes squinting. “I don’t think you’re going to like me very much, then.”
“What have you done?”
“I may have played a little amusement in Transmontia… just seconds before you came in here.”
“Undo it. Now.” Laverna leaned forward, staring into Eris’ eyes. “You owe me, I’m calling in my debt.”
“Oh, Laverna, you know I don’t work that way,” Eris took Laverna’s hand in her own and patted it. “I just pull threads and see what happens.”
Laverna jerked her hand back. “You will undo it, or I will turn one of my lower-level organizations loose in your beloved little neighborhood.”
“That’s not a threat, dear.” Eris smiled. “I love all my neighbors, but the neighborhood does get a little… predictable after a while.”
“Eris, how many times have I stayed your hand over the last 100 years?” Laverna asked.
“Too many.”
“Do this for me, and it is debt paid in full.”
“You seem desperate, cousin.” Eris took Laverna’s hand again. “I will try, and my debt will be released.”
Laverna grabbed Eris’ hand in a bone-crushing grip. “You will do, or your debt is doubled.”
Eris considered a flippant response but knew there was no way to get through to Laverna when she was like this. “Fine, cousin.” She looked around the diner. “How far we’ve come, huh?”
“What do you mean?”
“You used to have a temple, a grove, and a gate named after you in Rome. While I,” Eris said, shaking her head in mock dismay, “never had any of those. But I’ve got my own cult now.” Her eyes lit up in a broad smile.
“It’s a fucking parody, not even a real cult,” Laverna snapped.
“Works for me. They don’t take me seriously, and I don’t take anything seriously.” Eris stood. “You, dear cousin, take everything too seriously. Now, if I’m to quell the chaos, as sickeningly boring as that sounds, I really must be leaving.” She motioned the waitress over and handed her a twenty-dollar bill which she put into her apron pocket.
Laverna rose and shook the waitress’ hand, apologizing for being rude, and presented what she thought was the twenty from the waitress’ apron. Instead, it was a slip of paper with the words “Nice try.” Laverna raised an eyebrow, then noticed her keys dangling from the waitress’ finger. She held her hand out for her keys to be returned. “You’re good.”
The waitress stared into Laverna’s piercing gaze and dropped the keys into her waiting hand. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
Laverna handed a business card and a hundred-dollar bill to the woman. “If you want a job, give me a call.”
Eris returned to her one-room apartment in Little Athens. Being surrounded by Greek neighbors was comforting, even if they butchered the language and acted just like all the other Americans.
She removed her laptop from her backpack to check on her amusements. By logging in to alternate accounts she was able to keep up with her growing conspiracies. The flat-earthers were getting more sincere, even holding international conferences while their idiocy was debunked as soon as it was released. The one about conservatives being part of a world-wide Nazi conspiracy to destroy governments so that Hitler’s secret grandchildren could take them over by proxy was growing again, but still quite slow. Her more recent conspiracy about a world-wide, Satanic, child-killing cult of liberals and elites, however, was spreading like wildfire. Some of its adherents were even being elected to major party positions.
How to stop the Transmontia game was top of her mind. One of the Russian state-run news sites was already running it as a story, it was picking up in social media, and it wouldn’t be long before the videos started showing up. She sighed. Laverna spoiled her amusement for a hundred-year-old debt. She closed her eyes, visualizing the situations as threads in a weave. It was a simple matter to find the thread to pull to make the whole thing chaotic but once that was pulled, figuring out how to reverse it was impossible.
The best Laverna could hope for, and the absolute worst as far as Eris was concerned, was that some other shiny thing would take the focus off her little game long enough for the truth to overcome the narrative. Sure, there would be people who would cling to it forever, bless their tiny little minds, but it might still be possible to save the Premier and her new agreements.
It was time for “R,” her former NSA agent alias to produce a video. She couldn’t upload it to social media herself but posting it on the dark web and on one of the -chan sites would see it hit the major social media within a matter of hours.
Eris wrote a script and memorized it. In one corner of her apartment, a sheet hung over the wall, bright lights behind it. In front of it sat a camera and microphone. She stuffed her hair into her hoodie and put a baseball cap over it. She added a jacket with padded shoulders to change her profile, and a long, full, false beard to be captured in profile. With the backlights on full and the camera running she sat down and recited her lines.
“Several hours ago, I received word from ‘Vassily,’ a former FSB agent and long-time source, that his family was captured by criminal elements in Transmontia. Those same criminals that the Premier ousted for the billions of fraudulent charges to their companies. That message was composed by the ousted cabinet. The truth is that all the debt that ‘disappeared’ was the fraudulent debt to those cabinet member’s pockets. The trade deals were already in the works but stalled by the corruption in the politburo. In regard to the open borders, NATO has nothing to do with it. It’s open borders with both the EU and EAEU. By the time you hear this, our operatives, working in concert with Vassily’s, will have freed his family and he will be out of Transmontia, headed to a safe-house somewhere else.”
Eris logged in to five different Twitter accounts, one logged in from Brazil, one from the UK, and three from Transmontia. Over the course of the next hour, she posted just a few tweets.
IamR: Op status go #savevassily
R-naught: On the ground #savevassily
Ribocop: In place #savevassily
R-naught: ten on mark #savevassily
Lil’bro: tango down #savevassily
R-naught: success #savevassily
Ribocop: en route #savevassily #howwedo
VassilyActual: with family en route to safehouse much thanks @IamR
She edited the video, darkening her image to a silhouette, and altering her voice to be unidentifiable. After editing she posted it on the dark web, and as “R” to starchan.
After she waited another two hours, she posted another Tweet from “VassilyActual” saying that he and his family were safe, and to ignore his earlier post. She watched as #savevassily trended briefly then trailed off. Finally, she posted a follow-up message on the dark web from “Vassily.”
Family safe, thanks to assist from R-anon and others. Former cabinet members Varislov, Lebedev, Kuznetsov, and Oblonsky directly involved in kidnapping of my family. They stand to gain the most by keeping Transmontia closed off from EU and EAEU. Premier Yeltsina is watching out for her country, these crooks are watching out for their wallets.
By morning her new conspiracy was growing more quickly in Eastern Europe than any other she had started and was gaining support in the US as well. It was a simple matter of time before it turned into protests against the former cabinet members, and possibly their arrest, if the mob didn’t get to them first.
As evening rolled around Eris returned to the diner to troll social media, right-wing and left-wing specialized media, and major news sites. Her “usual,” a random selection from the menu made by the waitress shuffling and drawing cards, arrived: a salad with olive oil, tater tots, a pork chop and unsweetened iced tea today. This time she heard the clack of Laverna’s heels as she approached.
“Twice in two days,” she said. “I’d think you’re starting to like me.”
Laverna said something to the waitress as she passed her and sat down. “You really can’t help yourself, can you?”
Eris popped a tater-tot in her mouth and raised an eyebrow in question.
“I told you I didn’t want you fucking around in Transmontia!”
Eris shrugged. “And then you told me to undo what I’d already done before you said that. Make up your mind, would you?”
“I told you to undo it.” Laverna’s cheeks flushed with contained rage. “I did not tell you to start a protest and send an angry mob into the streets.”
“It was already going to happen,” Eris said, biting into another tater-tot. “Best I could do was change the target.”
The waitress set down a plate of fruit and a glass of sweet tea for Laverna, giving her a wink as she did so.
“Looks like you made a friend,” Eris said.
“And you are trying to make me an enemy.”
“If you want to calm the mob, give them what they want.” Eris sipped her iced tea. “Help the Premier arrest the former cabinet members and they’ll calm down.”
“I don’t… that’s not…,” Laverna sighed. “I guess it’s no different than trying to get you to bring order to chaos.”
“It’s not,” Eris said, “but if I know you, you’ll figure out a way to make money on it anyway.”
Laverna thought for a moment and nodded, a small smile crawling across her face. “I think I will at that.”
They ate in silence, only speaking again once their plates were empty. “I miss her,” Eris said.
“Who?”
“Tacita. She never said much, or anything, really, but she was always so calming.”
Laverna nodded. “She did make it easier for the two of us to get along. Where has she gone?”
“Last I heard she was a monk in Tibet.” Eris finished off her iced tea. “But that was, what, fifty-odd years ago?”
“Same.” Laverna stared at her drink as if searching for answers. “Hey, did you hear about the anti-Greek protests in Russia? Or did you start that, too?”
“No, I was too busy trying to fix things for you in Transmontia.”
“A Russian Orthodox priest was killed while visiting Greece. It’s getting ugly.”
“Not the way I do things,” Eris said. “I prefer to dangle half-truths and whole lies and watch what kind of insanity rolls out of the little minds of the humans. I don’t do assassination. Well, except for character assassination.”
Laverna grunted a non-reply.
“I may just have to sit back and see how well the humans spin this one out of control on their own,” Eris said. “After all, I shouldn’t be forced to make all my own entertainment.”
“I gave up on entertainment long ago.”
“But you run the largest international criminal organization in history. That’s got to account for something.”
Laverna sighed. “Even the few in the company that do pray, they’re praying to St. Dismas, not me. At least you have a cult, even if it’s a parody. Th—that’s not the point! I’m flying out to Transmontia tonight, so I won’t be around for a week or so.”
Eris was about to ask what, exactly, was the point when she was interrupted by sirens passing by the diner. “They’re playing my song,” she said. “Sounds like they’re heading to Little Athens.” She grabbed her backpack and handed a twenty to the waitress as she ran out the door to follow the noise.
Eris ran toward her neighborhood, her backpack slapping against her shoulder blades with every footfall. She turned the corner and saw it. Angry mobs facing off in the middle of the street, Greeks and Russians. Slurs and epithets were flying in a mishmash of English, Russian, and Greek. Those were quickly followed with fists, then stones, then Molotov cocktails. Her building was on fire.
Eris strode through the fracas to get to the other side. She threw her hood back and laughed. “This. Is. GLORIOUS!”
A rioter ran up to her from behind and hit her in the head with a baseball bat at full swing. He faltered when she laughed. Eris turned to him, smiled, and whispered in his ear. He wet himself, dropped the bat, and fell to the ground, curled in a fetal position. She could do the same to everyone there if she wished, but the chaos was just too beautiful to stop.
The fire trucks and ambulances were prevented from entering by the mob, and the police were doing their best not to get overwhelmed while they waited for SWAT to arrive. A late police car pulled in behind her, stopping at the gibbering man in the road. One officer checked on him while the other questioned Eris.
“Ma’am, it’s not safe here, you should probably go home.”
Eris pointed at the building, flames now licking up the outside to the top floor. “That’s where I live.” She did her best to hide her glee.
“I see,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“Eris Dichonoia,” she held out her hand. “Pleased to meet you, Officer…”
“Blake.” The officer shook her hand. “Do you have any ID?”
Eris pointed at the building. “In there. Didn’t think I’d need it.”
“What’s in the backpack?”
“Laptop, phone, a notebook and some pens,” she said. “I was just out doing some writing.”
“Do you know what happened to him?” she asked, pointing at the man paramedics were loading on to a stretcher.
“No,” Eris replied. She made a sweeping gesture toward the tumult in the street. “It was all probably just too much for him.”
“You don’t seem too concerned by it.”
“I grew up in the middle of a war,” she said, “this is nothing. When your entire life is unpredictable, you learn to roll with anything.”
SWAT troops poured past them, lobbing smoke grenades and firing pepper bullets. The crowds were quickly driven back enough for the fire trucks to get in, although the fire had well and truly taken hold of the building by that point.
“I’ll need to get a witness statement from you. We can do it now, or… do you have somewhere to go?” Blake asked.
“Not really,” she replied.
“In that case, would you mind coming to the station to give your witness statement while it’s fresh in your mind? We’ll help you find a room for tonight.”
“In the jail?” she asked. “I’ve never been to one.”
Blake laughed. “No, I meant we’d find you a motel room.”
#
The motel room was an extended stay suite with a small living room and kitchenette. It was similar in size to the apartment she’d lost in the fire, so Eris stayed. Two days after a phone call to the lawyer Laverna insisted she keep on retainer, she had a new ID and passport, and had changed her permanent address to the motel. Her lawyer also drew up a contract that gave her three years residency in exchange for payment up-front at ten percent below the current rate.
The rioting in Little Athens and elsewhere died down as the story came out. The priest wasn’t killed, he died of a previously unknown allergy to peanuts after having a candy bar containing the legume for the first time in his life.
Eris read the news articles about the incident and the subsequent calls for forgiveness and unity. “Boring.” She trolled the -chan boards to see what new sorts of mischief were afoot. When nothing caught her interest, she returned to the diner.
She was just about to sit down when two police officers approached. “Ms. Dichonoia, you’re under arrest for the assault and battery of Sergei Kozmelov.” One officer grabbed her backpack while the other cuffed her hands behind her back.
“Excuse, me, officer,” she said, “I have a twenty-dollar bill in my hoodie pocket that was for dinner. Could you please give it to the waitress for her trouble?” She smiled at the waitress who was standing dumbfounded, holding her order.
The officer pulled the twenty out of her pocket, examined it, and handed it to the waitress. “Your money, if you wanna throw it away,” he said. He patted her down, and content that her pockets were empty, led her out to their car.
When she entered the station, she saw Blake walking by with a cup of coffee. “Hi, Blake!”
“Oh, hi,” she said. “I forgot your name.”
“Eris,” she called over her shoulder as they marched her to an interrogation room. Once they were in the room one of the officers removed her cuffs and told her to sit in the chair at the table. “Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Soda?”
“Water would be fine, thanks,” she said.
Blake entered with a plain-clothes officer and they sat in the chairs opposite her. “I’m officer Blake, this is detective Adamson. He’ll be asking the questions, I’ll be observing.”
Adamson read from his clipboard. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you?”
“Sure, I guess,” Eris said.
“With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?”
“I don’t know. Are you a good conversationalist?” Turning to face Blake she smiled openly and asked, “Does this mean I’ll get to see what a jail looks like?”
Blake raised an eyebrow and looked at Adamson. “See?”
Adamson cleared his throat. “Ms. Dichonoia,” he started before she cut him off.
“Please, Eris.”
“Eris, my colleague thinks you’ve got a screw loose. But I’ve got a guy in the hospital with brain damage, and the only thing he can say is ‘Eris Dichonoia did this.’”
“How odd.” Eris tilted her head. “How did he get brain damaged? Or was he born that way? And what does he say I did?”
“Why don’t you tell me about what happened the night of the riot in Little Athens?”
“Well, I was having dinner with my cousin at the diner over on Lake and 115th when I heard the sirens heading toward Little Athens.” Eris leaned forward. “I ran home as fast as I could, but by the time I got there my building was on fire.”
“We have reports that you were laughing and yelling about it being glorious.”
“Look, Adamson, I was born in a war-zone. I grew up in war. If you don’t have a sense of humor everything will tear you down. When you can’t control what’s going on you have to decide whether to enjoy the chaos or suffer it. Either way, the only thing you can control is how you react.” Eris sat up straighter. “I choose to enjoy chaos. There’s already too much suffering in the world.”
He slid a photo across the table. “Do you recognize this man?” It was the man who had hit her with a bat.
“I’ve seen him around the bodega on 119th,” she said. “I don’t remember his name, but he was always hitting on me. Not my type, though.”
Blake held up a hand to stop Adamson. “Listen, Ms. Dichonoia… Eris. I have witnesses that say he hit you with a bat and you didn’t flinch. Instead, you whispered in his ear and he collapsed.”
“That sounds a little loony to me,” Eris said. Leaning over the table she whispered, “Are you feeling okay, Blake?”
“Enough of the crazy talk.” Adamson pointed at the photo. “What did you do to him?”
“I explained how rushing into a mob with a bat was a bad idea,” she said.
“You didn’t tell me you talked to him,” Blake said.
“No,” Eris said. “You didn’t ask. You asked what was wrong with him, and I told you that it was all probably a bit too much for him.”
“What did you say to him?” Adamson had the practiced look of cool indifference.
“I just explained how big and chaotic the universe is and how tiny he was in comparison.” Eris shrugged.
“And that gave him brain damage?”
“How could that give anyone brain damage?” Eris asked.
“When did he collapse?” Blake asked.
“Right after I talked to him.”
“And you didn’t try to administer any assistance?” Adamson asked.
“No,” Eris said. “I’m not a doctor and I’m not getting sued for trying to be helpful. Besides, I was busy watching my apartment go up in flames.”
Someone knocked on the door and Adamson got up and slipped outside. A moment later he came back in. “We’re done for now; your attorney is here.” He and Blake left, and the attorney Eris had on retainer but had never seen entered.
“Hello, Eris,” she said. “I’m your attorney, and you are not to answer any more questions without my approval.”
Eris scowled. “Themis, how did you get here? Or are you calling yourself Justitia again?”
“Actually, my current name is Julia,” she said. “Besides, none of the current effigies of me are flattering, are they?”
“Well, Julia, since it seems our cousin has saddled me with you, what are you doing here?”
“You’re in a bad spot, cousin.” Julia pulled out her cell phone and showed the video to Eris.
“Decent deep fake, but not great,” she said. “What’s that supposed to be in my hand?”
“Supposedly some sort of poison you administered.”
“Let me guess, Transmontia is safe for Laverna now, and she needs new leverage.”
“You never were stupid.” Julia switched to another video. This one showed the man swinging the bat at her, Eris turning and talking to him, and the man nodding and then slowly lying down on the road.
“So, I get back on the hook with Laverna and she releases the second video. I decide to go it alone and she releases the first.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“I’d never make it to prison, you know.” Eris smiled. “If I wanted to, I could walk out of here right now.”
“But your face would be plastered all over. You wouldn’t find a place to blend in, for at least a generation.” Julia put up her phone and shrugged. “If that’s what you want to do, that’s your call.”
“I’m no good with this kind of decision,” Eris said. “Not enough variables visible to find the right thread to pull. Have you got a coin?”
Julia pulled a quarter out of her pocket. “Planning on making a call?”
“No,” Eris said, “you are.” She flipped the coin high overhead. “Call it.”
“Heads,” Julia said.
They watched the coin clatter to the table. It landed tails. “I guess I’m not playing this round. Tell Laverna to release her weak deep fake and we’ll see where it leads.”
Julia narrowed her eyes. “You’ve already seen where it will lead, and you’re ready to pull at the threads.”
“You and your foresight,” Eris sighed. “You always were a spoil-sport. I thought I’d get the chance for her to owe me a debt for a century.”
Julia texted Laverna and waited for a response. When it showed up, she knocked on the door. “Bring the officers back in.”
The officers entered and Julia showed them the second video. “Do you see any attack here, other than the man barely missing her with the bat?” she asked.
“Where did you get this?” Blake asked.
“I’ll send you the link. It’s spreading on social media,” Julia said.
Adamson sighed. “The video seems to match your story, but why didn’t you say anything about Mr. Kozmelov trying to hit you with a bat?”
Eris looked Julia, who nodded. “Because,” Eris said, “it seemed like he was in a bad enough place already without me getting him in trouble.”
“Do you want to press charges?”
“No,” she replied, then turned to Julia. “Sorry, spoke without your okay.”
“Quite all right, Eris.” Julia looked at Adamson. “So, is my client free to go?”
“Yes,” Adamson said. “Just don’t leave town any time soon. We may need more information from you.”
“Thank you.” Julia rose and led Eris out of the interrogation room.
“Laverna’s pissed, huh?” Eris asked.
“No,” Julia said, “but she is disappointed, I’m sure.”
#
Eris and Laverna sat at the diner, eating a quiet supper. Laverna looked at Eris, opened her mouth to say something, then stopped. Finally, she caved. “I feel ashamed. It’s not something I’m used to. You caught me and I can’t fathom how to feel about that.”
“Never mind that. Good try anyway, cousin,” Eris said, “but deep fakes are not your strong suit.”
Laverna pushed her plate aside. “I worry when you’re not in my debt. You’re too unhinged for my tastes to be running wild. It’s discomforting to know I have no way to rein you in.”
“Life is unpredictable,” Eris said, “or at least I work to keep it that way. I’m sure you’ll find something else to hold over my head one day. Not that it’s ever slowed me down before.”