Watching her pack was impressive. She was ruthless about it all. It was also freaky -- it made me realize that the next day, I was going to go away. Maybe for a long time. Maybe forever.
"Do I bring my Xbox?" she asked. "I've got a ton of stuff on the hard-drive, notes and sketches and email. I wouldn't want it to fall into the wrong hands."
"It's all encrypted," I said. "That's standard with ParanoidXbox. But leave the Xbox behind, there'll be plenty of them in LA. Just create a Pirate Party account and email an image of your hard-drive to yourself. I'm going to do the same when I get home."
She did so, and queued up the email. It was going to take a couple hours for all the data to squeeze through her neighbor's WiFi network and wing its way to Sweden.
Then she closed the flap on the bag and tightened the compression straps. She had something the size of a soccer-ball slung over her back now, and I stared admiringly at it. She could walk down the street with that under her shoulder and no one would look twice -- she looked like she was on her way to school.
"One more thing," she said, and went to her bedside table and took out the condoms. She took the strips of rubbers out of the box and opened the bag and stuck them inside, then gave me a slap on the ass.
"Now what?" I said.
"Now we go to your place and do your stuff. It's time I met your parents, no?"
She left the bag amid the piles of clothes and junk all over the floor. She was ready to turn her back on all of it, walk away, just to be with me. Just to support the cause. It made me feel brave, too.
#