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Part One

Flightless

“Surely this new y will free us rather than enslave us, for it is reed To that end, I hereby found Proactive Citizenry to be a stalatchdog over the ethical use of neurografting I am confident that abuses will be the exception rather than the rule”

—Janson Rheinschild

“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds”

—J Robert Oppenheimer

The Rheinschilds

“They signed it The Heartland War is over”

Janson Rheinschild closes the front door, throws his coat on the sofa, and collapses into an armchair, as if all his joints have become internally undone As if he’s been unwound from the inside out

“You can’t be serious,” Sonia says “No one in their right n that hideous Unwind Accord”

He looks at her with a bitterness that isn’t o “Who,” he asks, “has been in their right mind for the past nine years?”

She sits on the aret and takes his hand He grasps it with a sort of desperation, as if her hand is the only thing keeping him from the abyss

“The new chairman of Proactive Citizenry, that narcissistic weasel Dandrich, called me before they made any official announcened He said that I should know first ‘out of respect’ But you knoell as I do, he did it to gloat”

“There’s no sense torturing yourself, Janson It’s not your fault, and there’s nothing you can do about it”

He pulls his hand away froht—it’s not ether, Sonia”