Contingency time is useless wasted time, right until you need it. - Charles Stross

I’m not one hundred percent clear on the clinical definition of death, but I’m pretty sure that lying trapped in my own unbreathing body meets some of the requirements.

Mhari consults her conscience and takes another step into the twilight borderland between bending the rules and breaking them.

The HomeSec's focus group will take one look at this and tell you to sex it up."...
"Why do you think that'll be a priority?" she asks.
"You know perfectly well why—...For the same reason they want a balanced team rather than a competent one. It doesn't fit the cultural agenda they're trying to impose."