Shift (Silo, #2)

by Hugh Howey

A typhoon kills a few hundred people, does a few billion in damage, and what do we do?’ Erskine interlocked his fingers. ‘We come together. We put the pieces back. But a terrorist’s bomb.’ He frowned. ‘A terrorist’s bomb does the same damage, and it throws the world into turmoil.’ He spread his hands open. ‘When there’s only God to blame, we forgive him. When it’s our fellow man, we destroy him.’

Amazing that he could live under the rules of a document he’d never read. He just assumed others had, all the people in charge, and that they were operating by its codes in good faith.