Perry's head swam. He hated conversations like this. He didn't have any good answer for Kettlewell's objections, but it was ridiculous. No one from a ride was going to sue him. Or maybe they would, if he got all grabby and went MINE MINE MINE and incorporated everything with him at the top. Hilda said he was the one they all looked to, but that was because he would never try to hijack their projects. "No." "No what?" "No to all of it. We have to defend this thing, but we're not going to do it by trying to tie everyone down to contracts and agreements where I get to control everything. Maybe a co-op is the right way to go, but we can't just declare a co-op and force everyone to be members. We have to get everyone to agree, everyone who's involved, and then they can elect a council or something and work out some kind of uniform agreement. I mean, that's how all the good free software projects work. There's authority, but it's not all unilateral and imperious. I'm not interested in that. I'd rather shut this down than declare myself pope-emperor of ride-land." Kettlewell scrubbed his eyes with his fists. Up close, the lines in his face were deep-sunk, his eyeballs bloodshot and hung over. "You're killing me, you know that? What good is principle going to do when they knock this fucking thing down and slap you with a gigantic lawsuit?" Perry shrugged. "I really appreciate what you've done, but I'd rather lose it than fuck it up." They stared at each other for a long time. Cars whizzed past. Perry felt like a big jerk. Kettlewell had done amazing work for him this morning, just out of the goodness of his own heart, and Perry had repaid him by being a stiff-necked dickwad. He felt an overwhelming desire to take it back, just put Kettlewell in charge and let him run the whole show. Just shrug his shoulders and abdicate. He looked down at the ground and up into the straggly palms, then heaved a sigh. "Landon, I'm sorry, OK, but that's just how it is. I totally dig that you're saying that we're risking everything by not doing it your way, but from my seat, doing it your way will kill it anyway. So we need a better answer." Kettlewell scrubbed his eyes some more. "You and my wife sound like you'd get along." Perry waited for him to go on, but it became clear he had nothing more to say. Perry went back to the cop cars just as the first gang of goths showed up to take a ride. $$$$ PART III Sammy had filled a cooler and stuck it in the back-seat of his car the night before, programmed his coffee-maker, and when his alarm roused him at 3AM, he hit the road. First he guzzled his thermos of lethal coffee, then reached around in back for bottles of icy distilled water. He kept the windows rolled down and breathed in the swampy, cool morning air, the most promising air of the Florida day, before it all turned to steam and sizzle.