"There is also widespread disagreement in Cascadia about what makes a person have good character."

"I suppose that does not surprise me."

The conversation is interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Who is it?" Lev calls. 

"Francis."

Lev looks around the office, quickly closes two tabs on his computer, then says, "you can come in."

Who might Francis be?

Francis is a black teenager wearing a leather jacket and boots which are covered in mud. (He does not step on the papers.) He has three piercings in his left ear and he's wearing brightly colored eyeshadow. 

"Didn't know you were coming to visit today."

"Dad said I could. --Who's that?"

"It's secret."

"You and Dad always say it's secret like you're James Bond or some shit and then it turns out that you're trying to figure out the effect of a hundred-dollar increase in the child allowance on the work incentives of single moms with two years of high school education."

"How do you know that if it's secret?"

"I eavesdrop."

Is Kyeo meant to not introduce himself, if he's a secret? He looks uncertainly between the others.

"This is Kyeo and he can't tell you anything else about himself," Lev says, for Kyeo's benefit as much as Francis's. "How was JROTC today?"

"We learned to build IEDs," Francis says, in the bored manner of teenagers being questioned by adults everywhere. "What's for dinner?"

"You'll have to scrounge for yourself but Juanita made cookies."

"Nice!" Francis says, distracted by cookies.

"Save some for everyone else!" Lev calls to Francis's retreating back. "--He won't," Lev says to Kyeo as the door slams.

"He won't?"

"I mean, you know teenage boys. They'll eat everything."

"Not if they have been brought up to share responsibly."

"I guess? The kids already had theirs, though, and in the worst case I can get Juanita to make more tomorrow. --I guess you might want some."

"I have eaten, thank you."

"On Ibyabek the teenage boys don't end up devouring all the cookies?"

"I have not heard it said and do not recall it happening when I was a teenager."

"Wonder how you guys got that to happen."