Quicksilver

by Dean Koontz

“When you fill yourself with knowledge about any subject, it plumps you.”

“De nada. Anyway, I had a plan. If some ISA types pulled us over, I’d have taken a pistol from under my seat, shot you dead, then claimed you kidnapped me and I took the weapon away from you.” I did not know what to say to that, so I said, “Huh.”

Lol awww

“What if a cop stops me because I don’t have a plate?” “Then you’re a burnt burrito. Still sure you don’t want to take a trip to Mexico?” “No, I’ve got to stay here and clear my name. This is all some terrible mistake.”

Awww he's so cute and innocent

I have always been an optimist, because pessimists seldom have any fun and usually fret their way into one of the horrible fates they spend their lives worrying about.

But the optimist, unlike the pessimist, believes that life has meaning, that there is something to learn from every adversity, and even that the absurdity of such an excess of misfortune will likely seem at least somewhat amusing after enough time has passed. That is why, years after they have lost everything, optimists are frequently richer and happier than ever, while pessimists often had nothing to lose in the first place.

Food for thought.

the ranch—they explained the situation to us. I’m sure you were targeted for the same reason.” “What reason?” When she turned those sea-green eyes on me, the instrument-panel light tinted them a color that I couldn’t name. She said, “Several sequences in my genome are not human.”

Interesting

He leaned over the table, drilling me with that sharp gray stare. “Are you well balanced, Quinn? Are you psychologically and emotionally stable?” “I like to think I am, sir. Except for this recent magnetism business.” He studied me in silence for maybe ten seconds. “It’s damn important to me that you’re psychologically and emotionally stable.” “I understand,” I assured him. “This strange situation we’re in, the ISA on our tails, you need to know you can rely on me in a crisis.” He dismissed that idea with a wave of his hand. “No, that’s not it. I need to know you’re fit to marry Bridget.”

Lol okay ?

I swallowed twice and then said, “I’m nonplussed.” “That’s a word I’d never use in a romance novel. Too fancy. You shouldn’t use it in a magazine article, either. Just say perplexed or bewildered, even confused, but never nonplussed.

Lol agreed. I had to look it up

“You and Bridget have a lot in common. Wanted by government thugs, on the run, maybe alien DNA. Don’t you like her?” “Of course I like her. What’s not to like? I love her attitude. And she’s funny, witty.” “That’s it? Funny, witty, attitude?” “I’m talking to her grandfather.” “You’re blushing,” he said. “That’s sweet.”

Lol awww it IS!

Grief should drive you to your knees, but if you stay there forever, you’re saying you know better than God how the world should work. And you don’t.”

Interesting perspective.

“Quinn is sure. It’s just that he hasn’t had much luck with girls, so he lacks confidence when it comes to romance. Daphne Larkrise knows his type. He’s rather like Kenny Talbot in Love Insurance.” “I adored that character,” Bridget said. “He’s shy like Kenny,” Sparky said, “unsure of himself, perhaps too humble for his own good, but he’s got great potential.” I said, “You know, I’m right here.”

Lol poor Quinn.

It is human nature to know we die and still to disbelieve it; otherwise, we might not carry on.

Very true.

Throughout history, whole societies that seemed stable have imploded when self-righteous narcissists, enflamed by insane ideologies, so threatened the larger population of the sane that soon everyone feared to stand against the violence, whereupon madness accelerated. No one seemed to remember the lessons of history—or cared to learn them.

Hard fact to swallow!

They say that ignorance is bliss. I think ignorance is the mother of extreme behavior, ensuring either a colorless and tedious life or one of passionate commitment to foolishness of one kind or another.

Hah. Good point.

“They’re just ants,” I said with a note of indifference. “And to an ant, you’re just a foot.” I frowned. “A foot?” “That’s all they see of you, if they see even that when you step on them. But there’s more to you than a foot, isn’t there?”

Hmmm. I like that.

Perhaps beginning with ants, I came to realize that everything in the world, regardless of how humble it might seem to be, is more complex and fascinating than it at first appears.

Hear, hear.

To the back of her grandfather’s head, I said, “Did you learn everything about weapons when you were something or when you were something else, or when you were another something that you don’t talk about?” “Exactly,” he said, as I’d known he would.

*Snort*

“But a really bad dog—” “There are no bad dogs, Quinn, only dogs that people have taught to do bad things.”

Hear hear

I said, “You seem to have reformed Winston, but somewhere down inside he’s still the attack dog that was. Should you really leave your grandfather alone with him?” Leading me out to the Buick, she said, “Grandpa would never hurt him.”

Lol I'm sure that's not what he meant but ok.

“A lot of people these days are the opposite of what they say they are, and a lot of them probably don’t even realize it. They’re opposed to racism even as they act like racists. They’re opposed to fascism, even as they act like fascists. The world’s gone weird.”

That is has.

“There’s nothing so bad in life that a good little cake can’t make it better.”

Heck yeah lol

How can a just world be shapen to allow such outrages? Why aren’t we designed to be unable to harm one another? Why aren’t our brains wired so that we can’t kill or rape or steal or lie or deceive? Why are we formed with the capacity to hate and envy? They say that this world and life in it are a gift, but how can it be a gift when it so often subjects us to fear or even terror, and to unbearable sadness?

The fall of man.

“Nature is a place of constant competition between individuals in a species, and between one species and another. In this broken world, animals aren’t able to rise above violence. But people have the ability to forsake it. People should. People must. But that is our work, Quinn. Not nature’s and not God’s.”

Ooh I like that.

“Yes, but Panthea sees.” “Sees what?” “What a seer sees when a seer dreams.” “Well, of course. Silly of me not to understand.”

Hehehe

When feverish politics and demented ideology entwine, those who are not well anchored to the beliefs that allow a civil society can be swept away, becoming part of the storm of madness that lays waste to everything.

Super thought-provoking.

“Increasingly, everywhere in the world, people are not governed by those who wish to serve them, but ruled by those mad with power and determined to have total submission. They seem ever more fiercely inspired to greater ruthlessness. They call their hatred justice and see it as a virtue.

Exactlyyyy

“We aren’t puppets,” I said, recalling her brief dissertation on that subject at the end of dinner in her Quonset hut. “Indeed, we are not,” Panthea said. “Nor would we want to be even if that assured our triumph. It’s by our choices and actions that we succeed or fail. Without the freedom of choices, we would have no dignity.”

Good points all around.

My Quinn can handle himself—you know he can—but he looks like a big goof, a whiffet, about as threatening as Mary Poppins, which is just the kind of backup I need for this.” I thought Sparky might come to my defense and insist that I looked at least as threatening as Tinker Bell, but he said, “Okay, yeah, I get your point.”

Lol poor Quinn

Remaining in his armchair, Erskine combed one hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, which was when for a moment it ceased being a hand and became an utterly alien appendage of six tentacles, each tipped with a wickedly sharp talon.

How'd you guys not sense that?

“It’s a package deal,” she said. “Free will and freedom itself require the problem of evil. People who are truly grown up, not just in years but also in their minds and hearts, understand that freedom can’t exist without the choice between right and wrong. To be free, we accept the problem of evil—and then resist it.”

Yes exactly!

Anger and the action it inspires must be reserved for those whose hearts will not relent from the idolatry of power.

Food for thought.