Uncle Richard, …This is my first damsel-in-distress letter, so I hope I am striking the right tone… — Neal Stephenson

“I’m sorry I touched your doll,” Olivia said. “I had no idea how important Thorakks was to you.”

Silence, as none of the men knew how to cope with her tactical use of the word “doll.”

“Wow, how do you rate having a doll made of your personal character?”

“It’s called an action figure.”

“I notice you’re not referring to him as ‘the little fucker’ anymore,” said Corvallis.

“Okay, okay, he stopped being a little fucker when he raised an army of twelve hundred high-level characters and deployed them in battle array around his projected route of advance,” Richard admitted. “I have to admit I was wondering why he was taking so long to move away from that cave. I didn’t reckon that he was going to set the whole thing up like Sherman’s march to the sea.”

“Did you notice his leapfrogging cavalry screens?”

“Yes, I fucking noticed them.”

He had found an image of one of the big Western-style business hotels along the waterfront: one of those places where it was possible to be a white person without attracting one’s own personal Stonehenge of cataleptic, openmouthed gapers.