"Your dedication to a graffiti-free Taxon is admirable," Long says with a slight, diffident smile. The conversation-- or perhaps the combination of conversation (a new slang term to use) and offensive graffiti-- is putting him in mind of Party Poison and Jet Star, the troubled and colorful brothers who had, oh, how would they have said it?

'Lit up this deadzone like a pig bomb!'

Something to that effect, anyway. He misses them both-- in his way, his dry and detached way. Poor children. From unhappy world to unhappy prison and back again.

Well, they are all of them to be pitied; he is as much prisoner of samsara as they were, and Metody Green. He draws his attention back to the immediate situation.

He is not about to offer to help you with cleaning off the wall, Metody. That is suspiciously like work. "I wonder if any of this contains a message beyond mere needling."