Summer 2012
Rohan walked over to his sole patron and gave him a hug. “Well I’ll be damned. The fuck are you doing out here, Gavin?”
Rohan knew better than to ask him to put his cigarette out.
Ignoring the question, he said, “Interesting décor.”
“Thanks, it’s a work in progress.”
“What isn’t?” replied Gavin in his usual abrupt fashion.
The bar had originally been done in a saloon style, with lassos, horse shoes and other miscellaneous rancher nic-nacs on the original oak-paneled walls. Rohan decided to stick with the theme and added photos and memorabilia from Hollywood Westerns. He liked the theme because to him, the wild west epitomized the ideals of freedom and liberty. Contrary to the popular view of regular gunfights, outlaws battling Indians and public executions, the West was actually a land of liberty and opportunity throughout the 1800s, at least according to a book Rohan had read called: The Not So Wild, Wild West: Property Rights on the Frontier.
“Well Gavin, not that I’m not delighted to see you, but seriously. What brings you to Medellín?”
“You, obviously.”
Gavin turned over a beer glass that was drying and dropped his cigarette butt inside.
“Quite the life you’ve got here, nice little bar in a beautiful neighborhood. I see the ladies here don’t leave much to be desired either.”
“I can’t complain,” Rohan replied with a grin.
“I didn’t imagine it would be easy to get you to leave this all behind, but after seeing what you’ve got going on here, I almost feel I shouldn’t have even bothered… I read your book by the way. Not bad. You should hire an editor that can recognize your borrowed ideas though. A few citations never hurt anybody,” he finished with a laugh, “or don’t you Buddhists care about that stuff?”
Rohan couldn’t resist responding to the critique even though what he really cared about was what Gavin meant when he said: get him to leave it all behind.
“There’s no such thing as a new idea, we just take old ideas and put them in our own mental kaleidoscope. Who’s to say what’s truly original?”
“I’m just messing with you, man. It was good. Especially the bitcoin stuff, though you did soften it up quite a bit for mass consumption. You haven’t forsaken us altogether, have you?”
Rohan shrugged, “We did what we could. In the end, I just couldn’t live my whole life jousting windmills. I wish we could have made more of an impact… but for me it was just time to move on.”
Gavin got up from the stool and walked around the bar to pour himself a finger of The Famous Grouse, forgoing the many more expensive bottles of Scotch on hand.
“No, no you’re right. Like you said, we did what we could. But all of us couldn’t just walk away and write a book about it.”
“I suppose.” Motioning to the cigar humidor, Rohan ventured, “What do you say I cut us up a couple of Cubans and we enjoy them on the roof? Not so bad eh, living in a country that doesn’t embargo hapless island nations.”
Gavin accepted and they moved the conversation upstairs where Rohan asked, “So where’s Viktor? He’s usually by your side.”
Before answering, Gavin leaned back in his seat and admired the view. Medellín was blessed with beautiful weather year round, but spring was particularly glorious. A cool breeze rustled the lush greenery below as they bathed in warm sunshine.
Gavin let out a sigh and said simply “Well, I expected it would happen sooner or later. They got him.”
“Who got him?”
“The feds. They busted him for downloading some journal articles from MIT’s network. Of all the damned things…” he trailed off.
Gavin reached into his weekender and pulled out a page torn from Wired Magazine and held it out for Rohan, who read silently, “Well-known coder and activist Viktor Osmanovic was arrested Tuesday…”