Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits (Zoey Ashe, #1)

by Jason Pargin

“Well … yeah. This suit is Hugo Boss. That’s not just the name of a brand, it’s the name of a dude—a German dude who got his start making uniforms for the Nazis. Ferdinand Porsche—as in, the fancy sports cars—same thing. I could take you back home to South Carolina and show you the fancy homes of rich folk who got rich six generations ago off slave labor. And guess what—they’re still rich.”

“When a billionaire makes a career scumbag disappear, no one goes to jail. A man like that, I could do him in the parking lot of the police station and they would send me a fruit basket at Christmas.”

She talked about what her father had done to her, and what he had promised he would do to her if she ever tried to leave. None of that mattered, of course. The market is a machine, and these are just the noises the gears make when they turn.

There is no ‘chosen one,’ there is no destiny, nobody wakes up one day and finds out they’re amazing at something. There’s just slamming your head into the wall, refusing to take no for an answer. Being relentless, until either the wall or your head breaks. You want to be a hero? You don’t have to make some grand decision. There’s no inspirational music, there’s no montage. You just don’t quit.”

You’ll know that humans aren’t cut out for anything. We cut ourselves out. Slowly, with a rusty knife. Because otherwise, here’s what’s going to happen: you’re going to die and you’re going to stand at the gates of judgment and you’re going to ask God what was the meaning of it all, and God will say, ‘I created the universe, you little shit. It was up to you to give it meaning.’”

“This is why people get obsessed with the apocalypse. They want the world to die with them. We’re all selfish, we hate the thought of everyone just … moving on.”

No! I’m not trying to predict the future. If I had that ability, I wouldn’t constantly be blindsided by, you know, every single thing that happens in my life.

actually have little tolerance for scaremongering about new technology. It’s not because I think every advance is good (it should be illegal for cars to have touch screens instead of physical buttons, damn it) but because fearmongers tend to monger the wrong fears.

Suddenly, everyone is a celebrity in a world in which celebrities aren’t exactly known for being emotionally well adjusted.