The most intimate moments in the world don't happen in nightclubs or backstage or even on the movie screen. They were moments like this: sitting silently, comfortably, holding hands on a darkened bedroom floor.

Her mouth connected with his. Everything inside her collapsed and was constructed, simultaneously.

Owning her face, unapologetically, or—even more revolutionarily—happily was the bravest thing she could possibly do.

I’m using beauty to subvert the system.

She was a professional. A professional who didn’t need five inches of makeup and f*ck-me cleavage to do her job.

What do you think Amy Poehler is doing right now?

You are a goddess. You are a catch. You are, like, the outcome of every self-help book ever written.

There’s no such thing as ugly.

I focus all my energy into become a faster, stronger, and better version of myself.

I catch movement from the corner of my eye. A tell slender boy stands near us, just a few feet away. Adrenaline bangs through my system. I shove Abel behind me and whip my knife from where I’d hidden it in my boot. “Who the hell are you?

My fingers find his. They are warm, pulsing with genetically altered blue blood, powered by mirror matter.

We’re a nonviolent collective working to undermine the Trust and free the Badlands. Once the Trust is exposed as lying and corrupt, we believe Edenites will do the right thing. Open the borders. Save the Badlands.” Ling lowers her voice with deliberate control. “Kudzu is going to destroy something called Aevum.

Technology won’t protect you from being attacked for fresh water. A badass blade will. Back in Eden where I grew up, the closest thing to knifework I’d experienced was cutting up a loaf of warm bread. Last night, I’d gutted a wild prairie chicken after scaling a rock face to find its nest and slit its throat. What a difference a year makes.

A mix of revenge, sadness and anger funnels into a decision that’s so simple and neat, it could fit in my pocket. I will help Kudzu destroy Aevum. Just like Magnus destroyed my mother.

I smile broadly, feeling as warm and full as the sun.

Out here we speak Malspeak, a mangle of English and old languages like Spanish, Mandarin, and Russian. Dialects from a time when the land was defined by many borders. Now there’s only one that matters. And I am on the wrong side of it.

I can almost see the processes whirrling clunkily in his singularix, as his excited nervous system battled with his logic circuits.

In New York, everything was permissible. No one cared what you wore, how you looked. Only you cared about those things. And if they didn’t worry you, then they didn’t matter.