Tsu'na's exercise in community-building served a couple purposes. It exposed her to people who hadn't seen her but were nevertheless talking about her, and it gave us a propagation metric. That very evening, mere hours after she'd served the pies with sugar topping, half the diner crowd wanted sugar-topped pies. We didn't know if it was word of mouth or social media, but the kids communicated fast. We might need to try more targeted messages to see how they spread.

The sugar topping wasn't hard to do, once Tsu'na showed me what Mr. Hartman did (and what kind of diner cook has a basting brush in his kitchen?), but it was manual effort. We might make a hundred pies at a time and they're all the same; unless we make a sugar-topped apple pie recipe, we need to custom-top each pie on demand. Gotta work on recipe templates, or, God help us, actually cook.

Yesterday morning we took some painting trays, a bottle of corn oil and the Hartmans' gas can over to the Pit and set up outside the shed. Corn oil went in one tray, gasoline in another. I stuck a short piece of rope in the oil.

"So, gasoline is made from oil. For a while now, it's been made from petroleum which is pumped out of underground deposits, but it can be made from plant oils too. The important part is that it burns."

I lit a match and held it to the end of the rope. In a moment there was a steady flame. "What burns is fumes. Stable oil like this doesn't normally give off fumes unless it's heated up, which is why you need a wick. On the other hand..." I tossed a lit match into the gasoline tray. "...Gasoline is sort of all fumes, so it burns fast. In fact, leave gasoline out for a bit, and the fumes will escape and leave you with liquid that doesn't burn."

Tsu'na studied the gasoline flames. "And you want liquid that does this?"

"Yeah. It's used in Earth engines, like cars and the lawnmower."

"We do not have a car. Did you want to make one? Or is this for your winnebago?"

"Our winnebago. And yeah, among other things."

"Would magitek not be easier?"

"Sure would. Let's just go find Cid or Nero and ask them how it works. Oh, wait...they're in Eorzea."

She sighed softly and looked back and forth between the corn oil flame and the gasoline fire. "So, because they both burn, you think we can make one into the other?"

"Because of the hydrocarbons, yeah. My understanding is that refineries take stuff out of oil leaving purified hydrocarbons behind. Less purified stuff is called kerosene, which doesn't burn as hot. More purified stuff is jet fuel, which burns too hot. This here is what we want."

She nodded slowly. We contemplated the flames. It was quiet. We really should have heard Sam coming.

"Y'all tryin' to barbecue?"

I tensed, and managed a smile as I turned to look at him. "Hey, Sam. No, we're, uh...working on alternative fuels."

"Do what, now?"

"Husband thinks we can make gasoline from corn oil."

"Oh...like corn ethanol? Thought that was made outta corn mash."

I brightened. "Is it? That could mean we can start with corn and not have to worry about oil."

Sam nodded. "So...why?"

"Gas is three fifty a gallon."

"Y'all got a car?"

Tsu'na smiled. "He is asking if we have a car, Husband."

"Hartmans have a lawn mower."

"An' that's, what, a quarter gallon tank? Gallon every couple months?"

"Yeah, well, we just like to be self-sufficient. Out in the field when supply lines got screwed up we sometimes had to macgyver fuel out of homemade booze and detergent."

"Uh huh. So...you're playin' with flammable liquids in a wooden shed?"

"No, we're playing with flammable liquids outside a wooden shed."

Sam nodded, meeting my eye. "Rather ya didn't."

His shed. His bat and ball. "...Okay...well, we'll just wait for this to burn down and then...not do it any more?"

"Sounds like a plan." He looked at the fire, looked back at me, and headed back to the bar, shaking his head.

We watched him go, then turned back to the flames. "And we came here because you did not want to do this at the house?" asked Tsu'na.

"This demonstration, yeah. The actual work we probably shouldn't do anywhere near a building or anything that can burn. Probably some place with bare rock."

"There is no place like that near town."

"Yeah, we're probably talking a camping trip."

She nodded. "I shall look for a place tonight. Can you feed sugar to the children without me?"

"I can, but...there's no real hurry on this."

"I would like to get it done. Your list is always growing."

"Our list. You can add stuff to it too."

"Then I shall add finding kukuri beans."

We spent the afternoon learning how to make chocolate (since it was easier and safer than gasoline). She's got an idea for a chocolate cream pie. We're gonna get a good solid start on introducing diabetes to this town.

After dinner at the diner she headed off to explore, and I settled in with sugar-hungry teens. Not sure if it energized them, or if they were just more lively for some reason, but my plans for playing Tangerine Dream were dashed by their noise level, so I went with Bon Jovi instead.

Some of the kids asked about Miz Tsu'na and were disappointed to hear she wouldn't be in that evening. I guess she's making an impression. Or maybe they like rebelling against their parents, and are happy to use her as a reason. Which will also make an impression.