Minerva Girls
Novelette 8,083 words Recommended by 3 award/anthology sources
"Jacqueline theorized how to build a private video connection for the three of us from broken baby monitors, trashed cell phones, and digital displays; I collected her shopping list from Dad’s junkyard, and Selena took Jacqueline’s scribbled plans, deciphered them, and somehow turned the three boxes of abandoned electronics I gathered into a working communication system."
Quasar links out; the story lives on Analog, where the author gets the click.