Amish

Bill looks a little out of place at the Umbrella Corporation. He has a tattoo of a woman on one arm and a sword on the other. He has more, but I never get a full view of the pictures since they disappear into his sleeves.

Bill in a previous life worked in a humanities field with a complicated name which meant he studied cultures of people. In his case this meant he spent some time living with the Amish in the absolute middle of nowhere.

They had one phone. It was used in the most dire of emergencies, such as once to call a medical helicopter to get a sick child to the hospital so they could do robotic surgery on him. When asked if they had an issue with that, they told Bill he was totally nuts. "It is a kid's life," they said, "Why would we make somebody die for our cultural preferences?"

Amish people probably vary, but Bill's crowd seemed on the whole pretty reasonable about most things. One once accepted a ride in Bill's car when stranded, "It isn't about following the letter of the law," he said, "it is about deciding to live simply and focus on what is really important."

"I locked my keys in my car once," Bill laughed. "They were such dicks about it.

'Oh hey Bill! How's that fantastic new technology improving your life?'

There was quite a crowd and I'm just standing there. We didn't have cell phones then so I had to pop the lock.

'Hey,' they're calling to each other, 'Do you remember that time I locked my keys in my buggy? No? Maybe because it doesn't happen!'"