Lester laughed, and so did Tjan. "Yeah, yeah -- OK. Point taken. But these RFID things, they're so frigging cheap and potentially useful. I just can't believe that they've never found a single really compelling use in all this time. It just seems like an opportunity that's going to waste." "Maybe it's a dead end. Maybe it's an ornithopter. Inventors spent hundreds of years trying to build an airplane that flew by flapping its wings, and it was all a rat-hole." "I guess," Lester said. "But I don't like the idea." "Like it or don't, " Perry said, "doesn't affect whether it's true or not." But Lester had a sparkle in his eye, and he disappeared into his workshop for a week, and wouldn't let them in, which was unheard of for the big, gregarious giant. He liked to drag the others in whenever he accomplished anything of note, show it off to them like a big kid. That was Sunday. Monday, Suzanne got a call from her realtor. "Your tenants have vanished," she said. "Vanished?" The couple who'd rented her place had been as reliable as anyone she'd ever met in the Valley. He worked at a PR agency, she worked in marketing at Google. Or maybe he worked in marketing and she was in PR at Google -- whatever, they were affluent, well-spoken, and had paid the extortionate rent she'd charged without batting an eye. "They normally paypal the rent to me on the first, but not this month. I called and left voicemail the next day, then followed up with an email. Yesterday I went by the house and it was empty. All their stuff was gone. No food in the fridge. I think they might have taken your home theater stuff, too." "You're fucking kidding me," Suzanne said. It was 11AM in Florida and she was into her second glass of lemonade as the sun began to superheat the air. Back in California, it was 8AM. Her realtor was pulling long hours, and it wasn't her fault. "Sorry. Right. OK, what about the deposit?" "You waived it." She had. It hadn't seemed like a big deal at the time. The distant owner of the condo she was renting in Florida hadn't asked for one. "So I did. Now what?" "You want to swear out a complaint against them?" "With the police?" "Yeah. Breach of contract. Theft, if they took the home theater. We can take them to collections, too." Goddamned marketing people had the collective morals of a snake. All of them useless, conniving, shallow -- she never should have... "Yeah, OK. And what about the house?" "We can find you another tenant by the end of the month, I'm sure. Maybe a little earlier. Have you thought any more about selling it?" She hadn't, though the realtor brought it up every time they spoke. "Is now a good time?" "Lot of new millionaires in the Valley shopping for houses, Suzanne. More than I've seen in years." She named a sum that was a third higher than the last time they'd talked it over. "Is it peaking?"