"They both work for Disney, Lester," Suzanne said. "This is Sammy and
Herve." *Herve doesn't do much talking,* she mentally added, *but he
seems to be in charge*.
"That's right," Sammy said, seeming to come to himself at last. "And
it's an honor to formally meet you at last. I run the DiaB program. I
see you're a fan. I've read quite a bit about you, of course, thanks
to Ms Church here."
Lester's hands closed and opened, closed and opened. "You were, what,
you were sneaking around here?"
"Have I mentioned that I'm a great fan of *your work*? Not just the
ride, either. This DiaBolical, well, it's --"
"What are you doing here?"
Suzanne had expected something like this. Lester wasn't like Perry, he
wouldn't go off the deep-end with this guy, but he wasn't going to be
his best buddy, either. Still, someone needed to intervene before this
melted down altogether.
"Lester," she said, putting her hand on his warm shoulder. "Do you
want to show these guys what you're working on?"
He blew air through his nose a couple times, then settled down. He
even smiled.
"This one," he said, pointing to a DiaBolical, "I've got it running an
experimental firmware that lets it print out hollow
components. They're a lot lighter and they don't last as long. But
they're also way less consumptive on goop. You get about ten times as
much printing out of them."
Suzanne noted that this bit of news turned both of the Disney execs a
little green. They made a lot of money selling goop, she knew.
"This one," Lester continued, patting a DiaB that was open to the
elements, its imps lounging in its guts, "we mix some serious epoxy in
with it, some carbon fibers. The printouts are practically
indestructible. There are some kids around here who've been using it
to print parts for bicycles --"
"Those were printed on *this*?" Sammy said.
"We ran into Francis and his gang," Suzanne explained.
Lester nodded. "Yeah, it's not perfect, though. The epoxy clogs up the
works and the imps really don't like it. I only get two or three days
out of a printer after I convert it. I'm working on changing the mix
to fix that, though."
"After all," Guignol noted sourly, "it's not as if you have to pay for
new DiaBs when you break one."
Lester smiled nastily at him. "Exactly," he said. "We've got a great
research subsidy around here."
Guignol looked away, lips pursed.
"This one," Lester said, choosing not to notice, "this one is the
realization of an age-old project." He pointed to the table next to
it, where its imps were carefully fitting together some very fine
parts.
Sammy leaned in close, inspecting their work. After a second, he
hissed like a teakettle, then slapped his knee.
Now Lester's smile was more genuine. He loved it when people
appreciated his work. "You figured it out?"
"You're printing DiaBs!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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