"No, man, no, not like that," Jason said to one of the small gang of boys he was bossing. "Gently, or you'll snap it off." The boy snapped it off and Jason pulled another replacement part out of a tub and said, "See, like *this*," and snapped it on. The small gang of boys regarded him with something like awe. "How come no girls?" Suzanne said as she interviewed him while he took a smoke-break. Perry had banned cigarettes from all indoor workshops, nominally to keep flames away from the various industrial chemicals and such, but really just to encourage the shantytowners to give up the habit that they couldn't afford anyway. He'd also leaned on the shantytowners who'd opened up small shops in their houses to keep cigs out of the town, without a lot of success. "Girls aren't interested in this stuff, lady." "You think?" There was a time when she would have objected, but it was better to let these guys say it out loud, hear themselves say it. "No. Maybe where you come from, OK? Don't know. But here girls are different. They do good in school but when they have babies they're done. I mean, hey, it's not like I don't *want* girls in the team, they'd be great. I love girls. They fuckin' *work*, you know. No bullshit, no screwing around. But I know every girl in this place and none of 'em are even interested, OK?" Suzanne cocked one eyebrow just a little and Jason shifted uncomfortably. He scratched his bare midriff and shuffled. "I do, all of them. Why would they? One girl, a roomful of boys, it'd be gross. They'd act like jerks. There's no way we'd get anything done." Suzanne lifted her eyebrow one hair higher. He squirmed harder. "So all right, that's not their fault. But I got enough work, all right? Too much to do without spending time on that. It's not like any girls have *asked* to join up. I'm not keeping them out." Suzanne jotted a couple of notes, keeping perfectly mum. "Well, I'd like to have them in the workshop, OK? Maybe I should ask some of them if they'd come. Shit, if I can teach these apes, I can teach a girl. They're smart. Girls'd make this place a little better to work in. Lots of them trying to support their families, so they need the money, too." There was a girl there by the afternoon. The next day, there were two more. They seemed like quick studies, despite their youth and their lip-gloss. Suzanne approved. # Lester stayed long enough to see the first prototype printer-printers running, then he lit out with a duffel bag jammed into the back of his modded Smart car. "Where are you going?" Suzanne said as Perry looked on gloomily. "I'll come and visit you. I want to follow your story." Truth be told, she was sorry to see him go, very sorry. He was such a rock, such an anchor for Perry's new crazy pirate energy and for the madness around them. He hadn't given much notice (not to her -- Perry didn't seem that surprised). "I can't really talk about it," he said. "Nondisclosure."