Going Zero: A Novel

Sam, while still sick with fear, is aware that there’s something new in her as well: feels high from a certain piquancy that perhaps only comes when you know someone wants to take your life. Every moment is just that little bit more precious now that your life may be far more finite than you ever imagined.

she knows already that it will only be some unsatisfactory fraction of what had existed before. In the end, some things—air, avocados, railroad tracks, a note on a violin, silence, trust between lovers—need to be perfect.

And why? Wanna know why? Ms. Day? Because being watched . . . it feels a little like being loved.”

If anything went wrong I was to leave a classified ad in the Washington Post—physical paper, mind you—addressed to Lonely Girl. But nothing went wrong, so I never had to leave an emergency SOS. Now, are you people sure you don’t want any soup? It’s pea and ham. My mother’s recipe. She’s dead. We didn’t get along, but what can you do? The bitch coul

If she hadn’t done all that, Fusion would’ve concentrated more resources on archive photos, probably discovered this cute little switcheroo days earlier.

the unseen shift by the state from monitoring to control, the last chapter of the long tale of democracy, free will deformed into willing compliance.

Lakshmi explains that the term was coined when they looked through the lurid material all the candidates actually watched on their screens. “Erika, wasn’t it actually you who said it was enough to make the angels weep? Anyway, it stuck.”

Thus, with each passing day, each slipping hour, he grows in confidence. Sure of his concealment, it’s just a waiting game. He’s basically won already.

sepulcher,