Children wear their natures like brightly-colored clothes; that’s why they lie so transparently. Adulthood is the art of deceit. - Robert Charles Wilson

Life invented it first, Zoe thought, like so many other things. Like eyes: Turning photon impacts into neurochemical events with such subtlety that a frog can target a fly and a man can admire a rose.

His sympathy (that is, for a caterpillar parasitized by a wasp) was an anthropomorphism, a projection. The caterpillar was hardly more than a protein engine enacting a suite of encoded behaviors. A meat robot. As am I, except that in the case of Ethan’s species evolution had conjured a knowing self out of chemistry and contingency. I feel, therefore I abhor.

Sometimes the conscience makes demands that are non-negotiable. Courage has nothing to do with it. We weren’t here because we were brave. We were here because we had to be here.