"Look," Lester said, prodding at the printer. "This thing is its own thing. We're about more than the ride here. I know you really like it, and that's very cool, but there's no way that everything I do from now on is going to be about that fucking thing. It was a lark, it's cool, it's got its own momentum. But these boxes are going to be their own thing. I want to show people how to take control of the stuff in their living rooms, not advertise my little commercial project to them." Death couldn't make sense out of this. It sounded like Lester didn't *like* the ride. How was that possible? "I don't get it," he said at last. Lester was making him look like an idiot in front of Lacey, too. He didn't like how this was going at all. Lester picked up a screwdriver. "You see this? It's a tool. You can pick it up and you can unscrew stuff or screw stuff in. You can use the handle for a hammer. You can use the blade to open paint cans. You can throw it away, loan it out, or paint it purple and frame it." He thumped the printer. "This thing is a tool, too, but it's not *your* tool. It belongs to someone else -- Disney. It isn't interested in listening to you or obeying you. It doesn't want to give you more control over your life. "This thing reminds me of life before fatkins. It was my very own personal body, but it wasn't under my control. What's the word the academics use? 'Agency.' I didn't have any agency. It didn't matter what I did, I was just this fat thing that my brain had to lug around behind it, listening to its never-ending complaints and aches and pains. "If you don't control your life, you're miserable. Think of the people who don't get to run their own lives: prisoners, reform-school kids, mental patients. There's something inherently awful about living like that. Autonomy makes us happy." He thumped the top of the printer again. "So here's this stupid thing, which Disney gives you for free. It looks like a tool, like a thing that you use to better your life, but in reality, it's a tool that Disney uses to control your life. You can't program it. You can't change the channel. It doesn't even have an *off switch*. That's what gets me exercised. I want to redesign this thing so it gets converted from something that controls to something that gives you control." Lester's eyes shone. Death hurt from head to toe, from the climb and the aftermath of the beating, and the life he'd lived. Lester was telling him that the ride wasn't important to him anymore, that he'd be doing this other thing with the printer next, and then something else, and then something else. He felt a great, unexpected upwelling of bitterness at the thought. "So what about the ride?" "The ride? I told you. I'm done with it. It's time to do the next thing. You said you wanted to help out, right?" "With the ride," Death said patiently, with the manner of someone talking to a child. Lester turned his back on Death.