"Kettlewell and Tjan aren't going to sue you," Lester said. There it was, all in a short sentence: *I've been talking to them. I've been figuring out if I'm with you or with them. I've been saving your ass. I've been deciding to be on your side.* "Good news," Perry said. "That would have really sucked." Perry waited for the rest of the drive for Lester to say something, but he didn't. It was a long drive. The whole way back, Lester talked about the Disney-in-a-Box. There'd been some alien autopsy videos of them posted online already, engineers taking them to bits, making guesses about and what they did and how. Lester had watched the videos avidly and he held his own opinions, and he was eager to get at the box and find answers for himself. It was the size of an ice-chest, too big to fit on his lap, but he kept looking over his shoulder at it. The box-art, a glossy pic of two children staring goggle-eyed at a box from which Disneoid marvels were erupting, looked a little like the Make Your Own Monster toy Perry'd had as a boy. It actually made his heart skip a beat the way that that old toy had. Really, wasn't that every kid's dream? A machine that created wonders from dull feedstock? They got back to the ride long before it was due to open and Perry asked Lester if he wanted to get a second breakfast in the tea-room in the shantytown, but Lester begged off, heading for his workshop to get to grips with the Box. So Perry alone waited for the ride to open, standing at his familiar spot behind the counter. The hawkers came and nodded hello to him. A customer showed up. Another. Perry took their money. The ticket-counter smelled of sticky beverages spilled and left to bake in the heat, a sour-sweet smell like bile. His chair was an uncomfortable bar-stool he'd gotten from a kitchen-surplus place, happy for the bargain. He'd logged a lot of hours in that chair. It had wreaked havoc on his lower spine and tenderized his ass. He and Lester had started this as a lark, but now it was a movement, and not one that was good for his mental health. He didn't want to be sitting on that stool. He might as well be working in a liquor store -- the skill-set was the same. Hilda broke his reverie by calling his phone. "Hey, gorgeous," she said. She bounded out of bed fully formed, without any intervening stages of pre-coffee, invertebrate, pre-shower, and Homo erectus. He could hear that she was ready to catch the world by the ankle and chew her way up its leg. "Hey," he said. "Uh oh. Mr Badvibes is back. You and Lester fight in the car?" "Naw," he said. "That was fine. Just..." He told her about the smell and the stool and working at a liquor store. "Get one of those home-slices running the market stalls to take over the counter, and take me to the beach, then. It's been weeks and I still haven't seen the ocean. I'm beginning to think it's an urban legend."