After a three-second pause, the mule suddenly whipped its tripod shut and fired itself into the air. "If it were up to you and your friends," Alex said, watching it bounce madly away, "I’d be wearing plastic toilet paper the rest of my life. I’m not a weather refugee, and I’m not gonna pretend to be one. And if they don’t like what I’m wearing, they can make me ride point again, if they’re too goddamned timid to do it themselves." He watched the machine bounding off southward, as he carefully buttoned his shirt cuffs. "I am what I am. If you want to stop me, then shoot me."