"Oh, that's just fun," she said. "I went along on a couple of dumpster runs with the gang. I found the most amazing cosmetics baskets at the Shiseido dumpster. Never would have thought that I'd go in for that girly stuff, but when you get it for free out of the trash, it feels pretty macha. Smell," she said, tilting her head and stretching her neck. He sniffed cautiously. "Very macha," he said. He realized that the other patrons in the shop were eyeballing him, a middle-aged man, with his face buried in this alterna-girl's throat. He remembered suddenly that he still hadn't put in a call to get her a job somewhere else, and was smitten with guilt. "Hey," he said. "Damn. I was supposed to call Tropicál and see about getting you a job. I'll do it right away." He pulled a little steno pad out of his pocket and started jotting down a note to himself. She put her hand out. "Oh, that's okay," she said. "I really like this job. I've been looking up all my old high school friends: You were right, everyone I ever knew has an account with Martian Signal. God, you should *see* the movies they rent." "You keep that on file, huh?" "Sure, everything. It's creepy." "Do you need that much info?" "Well, we need to know who took a tape out last if someone returns it and says that it's broken or recorded over or whatever --" "So you need, what, the last couple months' worth of rentals?" "Something like that. Maybe longer for the weirder tapes, they only get checked out once a year or so --" "So maybe you keep the last two names associated with each tape?" "That'd work." "You should do that." She snorted and drank her coffee. "I don't have any say in it." "Tell your boss," he said. "It's how good ideas happen in business -- people working at the cash register figure stuff out, and they tell their bosses." "So I should just tell my boss that I think we should change our whole rental system because it's creepy?" "Damned right. Tell him it's creepy. You're keeping information you don't need to keep, and paying to store it. You're keeping information that cops or snoops or other people could take advantage of. And you're keeping information that your customers almost certainly assume you're not keeping. All of those are good reasons *not* to keep that information. Trust me on this one. Bosses love to hear suggestions from people who work for them. It shows that you're engaged, paying attention to their business." "God, now I feel guilty for snooping." "Well, maybe you don't mention to your boss that you've been spending a lot of time looking through rental histories." She laughed. God, he liked working with young people. "So, why I'm here," he said. "Yes?" "I want to put an access point in the second-floor window and around back of the shop. Your boss owns the building, right?" "Yeah, but I really don't think I can explain all this stuff to him --" "I don't need you to -- I just need you to introduce me to him. I'll do all the explaining."