Freedom is overrated. You can be completely free and starving in an igloo in Antarctica. Business is what makes people’s lives better, not democracy.… - Daniel Suarez

No, it’s better than alchemy — it’s science.

Humanity had always trafficked in oppression. Before the corporate marketing department got ahold of it, it was called conquest. Now it was regional development. Vikings and Mongols were big on revenue targets, too — but Leland had dispensed with all the tedious invading, and had taken a page out of the Roman playbook by hiring the locals to enslave each other as franchisees.

Cheryl Lanthrop was the most beautiful woman he had ever been with. Her predatory sexuality made it even harder to resist. It was unfair that he should be expected to resist a woman like her. He had convinced himself that even his wife would understand.