Lester nodded vigorously. "Of course I do. I just thought that you'd be a little less enthusiastic about it, you know, because so much of the New Work stuff is being de-emphasized." "You kidding? This is what the New Work was all about: group creation! I couldn't be happier about it. Seriously -- this is so much cooler than anything that I could have built. And now with the network coming online soon -- wow. Imagine it. It's going to be so fucking weird, bro." "Amen," Lester said. He looked at his watch and yelped. "Shit, late for a date! Can you get yourself home?" "Sure," Perry said. "Brought my wheels. See you later -- have a good one." "She's amazing," Lester said. "Used to weigh 900 pounds and was shut in for ten years. Man has she got an imagination on her. She can do this thing --" Perry put his hands over his ears. "La la la I'm not listening to you. TMI, Lester. Seriously. Way way TMI." Lester shook his head. "You are such a prude, dude." Perry thought about Hilda for a fleeting moment, and then grinned. "That's me, a total puritan. Go. Be safe." "Safe, sound, and slippery," Lester said, and got in his car. Perry looked around at the shuttered market, rooftops glinting in the rosy tropical sunset. Man he'd missed those sunsets. He snorted up damp lungsful of the tropical air and smelled dinners cooking at the shantytown across the street. It was different and bigger and more elaborate every time he visited it, which was always less often than he wished. There was a good barbecue place there, Dirty Max's, just a hole in the wall with a pit out back and the friendliest people. There was always a mob scene around there, locals greasy from the ribs in their hands, a big bucket overflowing with discarded bones. Wandering towards it, he was amazed by how much bigger it had grown since his last visit. Most buildings had had two stories, though a few had three. Now almost all had four, leaning drunkenly toward each other across the streets. Power cables, network cables and clotheslines gave the overhead spaces the look of a carelessly spun spider's web. The new stories were most remarkable because of what Francis had explained to him about the way that additional stories got added: most people rented out or sold the right to build on top of their buildings, and then the new upstairs neighbors in turn sold *their* rights on. Sometimes you'd get a third-storey dweller who'd want to build atop two adjacent buildings to make an extra-wide apartment for a big family, and that required negotiating with all of the "owners" of each floor of both buildings.