34856893457934

proudly look at her son, the hero of the libertarian movement, a movement that had first been planted
in Ross’s mind as a tiny seedling at his parents’ dinner-table discussions back in Austin.
Though Ross and VJ knew that wasn’t going to happen just yet.
As Ross sprung out of the water in Costa Rica, he rinsed the sand off his body and scarfed down
breakfast before scurrying away to work on his laptop in private, hidden from prying eyes. “I’m in a
magical place right now to be sure,” he told Variety Jones when he logged into their chat window.
“I’m stoned on oxygen and the sea breeze.”
But that now-familiar specter of something bad was looming again, and VJ had something else to
talk about.
“Dude, I’m worried about our winner,” Variety Jones said, referring to the person who had won
the 4/20 contest and was about to be awarded the all-expenses-paid vacation and a few thousand
dollars in cash.
“Whasamatta?” DPR replied.
“He’s trying to dry out; Heroin; it’s not working, and I think his recent influx of cash didn’t help.”
“Oh geez. Fuck, what are we doing,” DPR said, then joked: “Shoulda thought more carefully
about dropping $4k on an addict; maybe our next prize will be 3 months in rehab.”
“Yeah,” VJ said. “It does show we’ve got problems Gillette doesn’t have in their promos.”
Variety Jones then joked that their next promotion should be “Win 3 months in Rehab! The more drugs
you buy, the more chances you have to win!”
As Ross changed the subject of the conversation to more pressing issues, specifically how to
expand the Silk Road and grow the business so he could reach that special ten-digit number, the calm
Costa Rica sky was starting to turn a deeper gray. A violent storm was on the horizon, ominously
moving closer to land.