Paco’s number is ringing and ringing, and I’m left with nothing to do but mutter, "C’mon, c’mon, c’mon" under my breath like some fragging mantra. The phone booth leaks, but at least all the parts of the phone itself are still where they’re supposed to be, another thing which separates this part of Tacoma from Ravenna. As a sop to my rampant paranoia, I’ve stuck a wad of chewing gum over the optical pickup. (Yeah, yeah, I know: Paco’s got a portable cel phone, audio only, so why bother? Here’s why. I don’t know what happens to the phone’s video feed when a call is made to an audio-only unit. Maybe the feed just gets spewed off into oblivion, another data stream pouring into the old bit bucket. But maybe, just maybe, it’s on the circuit somewhere, accessible to someone who’s tapping into the call with a phone that does have a vidscreen. And maybe some feature in the vid image will let that tapper figure my physical location faster than he can actually trace the call. Yeah, I know, I’m a paranoid slot, and I admit it gladly. But I’m a live paranoid slot, which is the way I want to stay.)