Lock In (Lock In, #1)

by John Scalzi

“Two ways,” I said. “One, you guys are basically meat stuffed into skin. So are hot dogs. Two, hot dogs are mostly lips and assholes, and so are you guys.”

“Rich people show their appreciation through favors,” I said. “When everyone you know has more money than they know what to do with, money stops being a useful transactional tool. So instead you offer favors. Deals. Quid pro quos. Things that involve personal involvement rather than money. Because when you’re that rich, your personal time is your limiting factor.” “Speaking from experience?” Vann asked. “Speaking from very close observation, yes,” I said.

“Everything all right?” she asked. “I have a bedsore,” I said. “You going to be all right?” “I’ll be fine,” I said. “My nurse is rotating me.” “There’s an image,” Vann said. “Welcome to the Haden life,” I said.

But wherever there’s a less-than-legal demand, there’s a black market.

I nodded and went over to my body—to me. I looked as I always did, like someone sleeping. My body was neat and clean, which was not always a guarantee with a Haden.

I felt that sensation unique to Hadens, the vertigo that comes from perceptually being in two places at once. It’s much more noticeable when your body and your threep are in the same room at the same time. The technical term for it is “polyproprioception.”

Marcus Shane isn’t the kind of person to tell you he’s more important than you. He’s happy to let his hardware make the point for him.

the image of a child-sized threep offering an Easter lily to the Bishop of Rome being an iconic juxtaposition of modern technology and traditional theology, one presenting a peace offering to the other, who is reaching out, smiling, to take it.

My father deals with millionaires and billionaires on a daily basis, the sort of people who have egos just this side (and sometimes way over the edge) of sociopathy. The sort of person who thinks he’s the apex predator wading through a universe of sheep.

Which is why Mom, when she’s being indiscreet, refers to the trophy room as the “vet’s office.” Because that’s where Dad brings people to take their balls.

If he’s Navajo and he lived on a reservation, then all his records would be on the reservation’s databases. They’re not automatically tied into the U.S. databases because the Navajo Nation is autonomous. And strangely distrustful of the United States government!”

She was old and crankily conservative in the way only old liberals could be.

“Making people change because you can’t deal with who they are isn’t how it’s supposed to be done. What needs to be done is for people to pull their heads out of their asses. You say ‘cure.’ I hear ‘you’re not human enough.’”

“Looks like you had an exciting day.” “You have no idea.” “Well, then, let me end it with a bit of good news,” Tony said. “The group tried you in absentia and found you guilty of being a probably worthy flatmate. You are hereby sentenced to the nicest room in the brownstone. May God have mercy on your soul.”

Explaining how the Agora works to someone who is not a Haden is like explaining the color green to someone who is colorblind. They get a sense of it, but have no way to appreciate the richness and complexity of it because their brains literally don’t work that way.

“You might be a militia,” I said. “But I don’t think waving your firearms around in a coffee shop accurately describes ‘well-regulated.’”

Your threeps are here, but each of your physical bodies are in a different state. That makes you the FBI’s problem. Which means you are my problem. And I say five jackasses dressed up like the back of a two-dollar bill, claiming to be a militia and waving around rifles in a goddamn Georgetown coffee shop violates Title Eighteen of the U.S. Criminal Code, chapters twenty-six, forty-three, and one hundred two.”

“He better not be. I’d hate to have to kill him and frame you for it.” “That reminds me,” I said. “Me threatening to kill someone reminds you of something?” Vann asked, surprised. “We haven’t known each other that long, Shane.”

“A wheelchair,” I said. “Yes,” Ibanez said. “A threep in a wheelchair.” “Yes,” Ibanez repeated.

“You understand the irony, right?”

It was then I realized that my rental threep’s pain receptors were dialed up really high. Some part of my brain recognized this made sense, since the rental place wanted to keep its customers from doing anything stupid with the threep, and dialing up the sensation of pain would certainly do that. The rest of my brain was going ow jesus fuck ow ow.

“Is it always like this?” Tayla asked. “My job?” “Yes.” “This is my first week on the job,” I said. “So, so far? Yes.”

“That’s the way. Better to light a candle than curse the darkness, Agent Shane,” Bell said.

“Soon,” I said. “There are whole paragraphs lurking behind that single syllable,” Bell said. “Or perhaps you merely meant to say ‘soon, but not yet.’”