Suzanne nodded solemnly. "She's right. The two of you, you and Lester, you're so into that thing, you're the biggest fanboys in the world. You know what they call it, the fans, when they get together to chat about the stuff they love? Drooling. As in, 'Did you see the drool I posted this morning about the new girl's bedroom scene?' You drool like no one's business when you talk about that thing. It's a holy thing for you." "You guys sound like you've been comparing notes," Perry said, making his funny eyebrow dance. Eva arched one of her fine, high eyebrows in response. In some ways, she was the most beautiful of all of them, the most self-assured and poised. "Of course we were, sonny. Your young lady here needed to know that you aren't an axe-murderer." The women's camaraderie was almost palpable. Suzanne and Eva had clearly patched up whatever differences they'd had, which was probably bad news for Kettlewell. "Where is Lester, anyway?" He hadn't planned on asking, but Suzanne's mention of his name led him to believe he could probably get away with it. "He's talking to Brazil," Suzanne said. "It's all he's done, all day long." Talking to Brazil. Wow. Perry'd thought of Brazil as a kind of abstract thing, fifty rogue nodes on the network that had necessitated a hurried software patch. Not as a bunch of people. But of course, there they were, in Brazil, real people by the dozens, maybe even hundreds, building rides. "He doesn't speak Spanish, though," Perry said. "Neither do they, dork," Hilda said, giving him an elbow in the ribs. "Portuguese." "They all speak some English and he's using automated translation stuff for the hard concepts." "Does that work? I mean, any time I've tried to translate a web-page in Japanese or Hebrew, it's kind of read like noun noun noun noun verb noun random." Suzanne shook her head. "That's how most of the world experiences most of the net, Perry. Anglos are just about the only people on earth who don't read the net in languages other than their own." "Well, good for Lester then," he said. Suzanne made a sour face that let him know that whatever peace prevailed between her and Lester, it was fragile. "Good for him," she said. "Where are the boys?" "Landon and Tjan have them," Eva said. "They've been holed up with your lawyers going over strategy with them. When I walked out, they were trying to get the firm's partners to take shares in the corporation that owns the settlement in lieu of cash up front." "Man that's all too weird for me," Perry said. "I wish we could just run this thing like a business: make stuff people want to give us money for, collect the money, and spend it." "You are such a nerd fatalist," Suzanne said. "Getting involved in the more abstract elements of commerce doesn't make you into a suit. If you don't participate and take an interest, you'll always be out-competed by those who do."