"Not a vacation, Jimmy. Six months leave of absence, without pay." Her savings could cover it. She could put some banner ads on her blog. Florida was cheap. She could rent out her place in California. She was six steps into the plan and it had only taken ten seconds and she had no doubts whatsoever. She could talk to that book-agent who'd pinged her last year, see about getting an advance on a book about Kodacell. "Are you quitting?" "No, Jimmy -- well, not unless you make me. But I need to stay here." "The work you're doing there is fine, Suzanne, but I worked really hard to protect your job here and this isn't going to help make that happen." "What are you saying?" "If you want to work for the Merc, you need to fly back to San Jose, where the Merc is published. I can't make it any clearer than that." No, he couldn't. She sympathized with him. She was really well paid by the Merc. Keeping her on would mean firing two junior writers. He'd cut her a lot of breaks along the way, too -- let her feel out the Valley in her own way. It had paid off for both of them, but he'd taken the risk when a lot of people wouldn't have. She'd be a fool to walk away from all that. She opened her mouth to tell him that she'd be on the plane in the morning, and what came out was, "Jimmy, I really appreciate all the work you've done for me, but this is the story I need to write. I'm sorry about that." "Suzanne," he said. "Thank you, Jimmy," she said. "I'll get back to California when I get a lull and sort out the details -- my employee card and stuff." "You know what you're doing, right?" "Yeah," she said. "I do." When she unscrewed her earpiece, she discovered that her neck was killing her. That made her realize that she was a forty-five-year-old woman in America without health insurance. Or regular income. She was a journalist without a journalistic organ. She'd have to tell Kettlewell, who would no doubt offer to put her on the payroll. She couldn't do that, of course. Neutrality was hard enough to maintain, never mind being financially compromised. She stepped out of the coffin and sniffed the salty air. Living in the coffin was expensive. She'd need to get a condo or something. A place with a kitchen where she could prep meals. She figured that Perry's building would probably have a vacancy or two. #