"She thought about it and nodded slightly. "Yes, the darknet economy was seeded by real world wealth. Wealth that was questionable in origin to begin… - Daniel Suarez

Synthetic biology was the transistor of the twenty-first century. Yet political realities in America made it increasingly unfeasible for entrepreneurs there to tinker with the building blocks of life. Every cluster of human cells was viewed as a baby in America. A quarter of the population wasn’t vaccinated. A majority of Americans didn’t believe in evolution. Social-media-powered opinions carried more influence than peer-reviewed scientific research.

Food is the very heart of freedom. How can people be free if they can’t feed themselves without getting sued for patent violations?

Perfect replication is the enemy of any robust system... Lacking a central nervous system — much less a brain — the parasite is a simple system designed to compromise a very specific target host. The more uniform the host, the more effective the infestation.