Day Zero (Sea of Rust, #0)

by C. Robert Cargill

The truth is, you’ll never know what you’ll really do until you’re forced to make a choice.

Normal is just the idea that whatever messed-up or otherwise insane things going on around you are acceptable to maintain whatever comforts you’ve cobbled together for yourself.

There are few things more dangerous in the world than unemployed young men. There’s a reason that un- and underemployed young men have long been the primary source of manpower for every extremist and terrorist group in modern history. A young man without a job doesn’t have prospects. He doesn’t have luxuries. Odds are that means he doesn’t have a significant other. This leaves him frustrated, horny, and, most of all, angry. And that anger can be focused as a laser-sharp tool.

I learned long ago that, when anyone spoke of peace, be it man or machine, they meant war. Peace through war. Peace was the standard. It was the inert state of all things. You didn’t need to expend energy for peace. Only war.

Though we can feel the future, it’s always different. We never get it right. Though we might fear it, though we might run from it, it comes for us all just the same. And sometimes it’s not as bad as we thought.