Location 5193:

Real power comes from the mind. When someone wants to keep you powerless, the first thing they do is try to control what it is permissible for you to think. They write your story for you without your consent and tell you this is how you must believe until even your own thoughts seem like alien things in your head. They hem you in so there is no escape or relief, until in desperation you step off the page, out of the story, into a place their narrative cannot find you.



Location 7021:

He contemplated lifting his head, but he was not entirely sure it was still attached to his body. Inconvenient if it had rolled away. He had a brief weird vision of his headless body groping around in the rubble, trying on different rocks for size. But no. Many of the parts of him that hurt were well south of his neck, which indicated that there was at least some nominal communication with the outlying provinces. Perhaps a treaty was being worked out.