The Peripheral Quotes
"They said it was like phantom limb, ghosts of the tattoos he’d worn in the war, put there to tell him when to run, when to be still, when to do the bad-ass dance."
"Burton took her hand, squeezed, pulling her up and in."
"Just a game." Telling herself, more than him."
"She managed to get off the phone with Shaylene without mentioning Burton."
"You could see stubs of burnt matches down inside that, or the cork-patterned paper on the squashed filter of a legally sold cigarette, older than she was."
"He looked at her. 'Where’s the job?' she asked. 'No idea.'"
"She’d forgotten to pee. Had to leave the copter autopiloting a perimeter, fifteen feet out from the client building, and run out to Burton’s new composting toilet."
"‘Easy Ice,’ he answered, her gamer tag, one hand bumping the door open, the other tugging a new white t-shirt down."
"The uncle had gooped this one over with white expansion foam, gone gray and dirty now, to stop it leaking and for insulation."
"She swung her phone through the display, checking Badger’s map of the county."
"Cultural. Semigovernmental. It would originally have been about your project, in fact."
"Eat." His fork, neatly loaded with both eggs and tomato now, was almost to his mouth when he stopped, frowned."
"The red Lego, spherical, now rolled slowly from behind the bowl of oranges."
"It was like meeting in an antique phone box in which a psychic had set up shop."
"The server is the platonic black box. In the visualization, they appear to emerge directly beside us."
"The spheres glowed, expanded, grew transparent. Two hair-thin arcs of lightning shot down."
"Why don’t more people know about it? Once you’re in, you don’t want just anyone involved."
"The drone, the size of a robin, had a single rotor."
"Leon came home from a swap meet with a big roll of the stuff, about the time Burton moved into the trailer."
"The grandfather’s displays, which Ossian had located in storage on some lower level, then brought up on an electric cart, were rectangular black mirrors."
"You don’t think that that lottery business casts the whole thing as a Faustian bargain?"
"I had to tell them about you. Because they want to know what happened, on the shift."
"It’s an extremely complex construct, part of some much larger system."
"Hyena," Netherton greeted it unenthusiastically."
"The peripheral looked at whichever of them was currently speaking."
"The tea tasted burnt. Not as if anything in particular had burned, but like the ghost of the taste of something burnt."
"You desire company? Exactly. And in the course of speaking with Lev."
"Her hair and eyes were brown. She looked at Lev, then at Netherton, then back to Lev."
"You’re riding in it? No, it’s in a garage. No idea how they brought it in."
"This is truly foul, said Netherton, impressed."
"The peripheral took it. Its hand was warm, entirely handlike."
"Shaylene offered Edward the cronuts. He shook his head."
"The peripheral was looking at him. "Sleep," not sure this last would work. It closed its eyes."
"The car that had driven them was piloted by a small peripheral, a homunculus seated in a cockpit."
"The floor was covered with a faded, barely legible carpet, its traditional pattern of tanks and helicopters worn to colorless patterns of weft."
"The peripheral took his hand. He led the peripheral up the gangway and into the yacht."
"She was leaning back against the railing," she said, "and it started to roll down, retract."
"The grandfather’s displays were rectangular black mirrors, framed in matte titanium."
""It’s not that much, but if he does, we’re onto something."
"I don’t want you blaming me. Why would you take this on?"
"This isn’t like we’re taking money from people we know are builders."
"They think they’re bullying him. I’m supposed to give them points for being stupid?"
"It’s not cancer. But you know what I mean. And Tommy, he’s keeping this county together the best he can."
"I was permitted to resign. But merely from the project. I’m a career bureaucrat."
"Terror should remain the sole prerogative of the state."
"When you’re rich as me, everybody’s always after your money."
"Actually, I’ve been drinking considerably less. Why would Daedra be angry with me?"
"Wish I knew. Nobody’s supposed to be able to do that. Some security company in Colombia?"
"Welcome to the county, hon. You want more coffee?"
"All I’ve done, today, is help get people around here to pay their damn stupidity tax, next lottery."
"I’m not sure it would be best, strategically."
"Someone has made an attempt on your life. It may also have been intended to intimidate any associates who might survive you."
"We prefer not to use that term, if only because terror should remain the sole prerogative of the state."
"Nobody’s going to kick the one they got you out of bed for eating crackers."
"True, but Anton couldn’t be arsed. Not his way."
"Thing to remember is to cut him slack, okay? He gets excited, you better back off, fast."
""Fifteen," said Ash, Flynne presumed to Macon."
""It’s not a dream," Flynne said. "I don’t know what it is, but it’s not a dream."
""It’s like I’m okay," it said, "then I decide it’s a dream and I’m not okay."
""You’re boots on the ground, Mr. Penske, as we said in my youth," Lowbeer said."
""Are you and Burton building some kind of drugs out here?""
""I’m too annoyed to be sick," Netherton said."
""I hate this," said Netherton, closing his eyes."
"Faked it most complexly. The peripheral’s DNA is that of an imaginary individual, albeit with a now highly documented past."
"We carve history from totalities beyond our grasp. Bolt labels on the result. Handles. Then speak of the handles as though they were things in themselves."
"If you fancy resenting the tedious, I recommend intentional communities, particularly those led by charismatics."
"I personally recall that world, which you can only imagine was preferable to this one."
"Try not to get damaged. Let it go where it’s going, otherwise, because we can’t stop it anyway."
"I sometimes feel like an antibody, Mr. Netherton. One protecting a disease."
"She’s an artist. I wouldn’t expect you to understand."
"With everything stumbling deeper into a ditch of shit, science had started popping."
"They’ve had a head start, at how the world would work, after the jackpot."
"What you’d expect with marble, or metal, but weird with old red brick, or wood."
"The bark was like the skin of elephants, finer-textured on the twisted roots."
"The one whose party we’re going to, she’s your ex?"
"The tattoos aren’t the product. She herself is the product. Her life."
"Reality television. It merged with politics. Then with performance art."
"We’re all poor, except Pickett, who’s maybe dead now, and one or two others."
"An official of the City. I don’t think I could explain to you what his traditional function was."
"Removal and replacement are conterminous, virtually a single operation."
"She doesn’t," he said. "I made that up, to tell Daedra."
"Neoprimitives either survived the jackpot on their own or have opted out of the global system."
"The antidote for party time," Clovis said, "but I’ll let Griff explain that."
"It’s a tradition," he said, and led her along a smooth gravel path.
"Your mother’s garden, in the moonlight . . ."
"I suppose you could call it fecal transplant therapy."
"I’ve got paper for you to sign when we get back, taking your brother’s little militia from cult of personality to state-registered private security firm."
"They project self-limiting, single-purpose assemblers. Range a little under ten meters. Do nothing whatever but disintegrate soft animal tissue."
"I don’t understand why a pram would have been equipped with these in the first place."
"Otherwise, you can’t know who’s on the other side of the nearest tarp."
"I break a finger on your Tin Woodman ass, you’re in deep shit."
"I think it’s actually a good idea, in our situation. Best you get upstairs."