You're better than this. Better than whatever it is you're going to do now.

What?" I asked uneasily. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

He shook his head, the smile rueful now. "Because sometimes, a person can get so caught up in the details that they miss the whole. It's not just the dress or the hair. It's YOU. You're beautiful. So beautiful, it hurts me.

She probably gave up and started playing Minesweeper."

[...]

We reached the cafe and found Sydney bent over her laptop, with a barely eaten Danish and what was probably her fourth cup of coffee. We slid into seats beside her.
"How's it—hey! You ARE playing Minesweeper!

Okay, so. You, Belikov, the Alchemist, Sonya Karp, Victor Dashkov, and Robert Doru are all hanging out in West Virginia together.”
“No,” I said.
“No?”
“We’re, uh, not in West Virginia.

Cool,” I said. “You can IM with the Council from campus. Maybe you can command people to do your homework.

I have it on good authority there's going to be a new 'gate' opening up soon over on the south side of the wall."
The truth dawned on me. "Oh lord. You're the one who's been doling out C4."
"You make it sound easy," he said with a frown. "That stuff's hard to get a hold of.