To take the choice of another … to forget their concrete reality, to abstract them, to forget that you are a node in a matrix, that actions have cons… - China Miéville

To cross-love openly would be a quick route to pariah status, rather than the bad-boy chic he had assiduously courted. What scared him was not that the editors of the journals and the chairs of the conferences and the publishers would find out about Lin and him. What scared him was that he be seen not trying to hide it. If he went through the motions of a cover-up, they could not denounce him as beyond the pale.

She probably used proxies and a cleaner-upper online too, because there was bugger-all of interest in her cache." "You have no idea what you're saying, do you, boss?" "None at all. I had the techies write it all out phonetically for me.

Koning’s skills were adequate, her calculations plausible enough, that the plans were hubristic but not quite mad.