And Shall Machines Surrender (Machine Mandate, #1)

by Benjanun Sriduangkaew

Conspiracy theorists make their own pathways from bizarre materials, from hypotheses balanced on the head of a pin.

Cream floor and pastel sheets: like any other hospital it is decorated with the assumption the patient is very young, very fragile, or both. Flowery ceramics in a corner, in various hues of pink. Krissana wonders if there’s ever been behavioral research on how the effect is murderous on the soul, weaponized blandness, but perhaps the point of hospitals is to preserve the flesh to the exclusion of all else.

“The human condition is one of compromise. Liberty and security are balanced on a scale; there’s no such thing as total freedom, and even freedom halfway is paid for in blood.