If you were damned certain you weren’t looking for something, there was a very good chance you wouldn’t see it. - Gregory Benford

Ummm," Alicia said, trying to be polite. "Still sounds like we're just making this up as we go along." "We are." Max grinned. "Invent, then check. It's really the only way to make progress.

Thing about crazies is, they’re crazy. You can’t even understand them in retrospect.

Orange County, with its signature long lines of tall palm trees, was working toward being “max-frilled,” as the slang had it, but at least it didn’t have the touches of L.A. The post office didn’t offer valet parking yet. On rainy days parking tickets weren’t slipped inside protective envelopes, as in Beverly Hills. There were no water bars, with fifty chilled varieties at two bucks a glass, with no ice because it would erase the regional subtleties. And when you called the police department and got put on hold, no classical music played.