David Kersten > Quotes

“Jack, I need to tell you some things that will be difficult to hear, and your first reaction will be disbelief, but bear with me please. Once I have told you these things, hopefully I will be able to answer some of the questions you have. In the meantime, I want you to spend some time trying to move your fingers and toes. You need to teach your brain how to move again. Now before I get started, are you hungry?”
― David Kersten, The Freezer

“Usually we use a modified virus if we need to change something, but the research to get to that point took many years and required very specialized equipment to create.”
― David Kersten, The Freezer

“He already had his rifle trained and he eased into the trigger. A small burst burped out of the gun and a cloud of dirt was kicked up in front of the person lying prone on the hill.”
― David Kersten, The Freezer

“The memory faded out one last time. It no longer felt distant and disconnected. It actually felt like he was beginning to wake from a dream. He blinked and the world flashed dark. This was new. He closed his eyes, and darkness settled in. Perhaps he wasn’t dead. For the first time since awareness came to him, he began to feel. The realization that he was still in a body was a relief, and he settled back into sleep. ~~~~”
― David Kersten, The Freezer

“Immortality and absolute power do not mix. The longer we live, the more we believe the conclusions we have drawn over time are not just opinions or ideals – we begin to see them as unwavering facts. This limits us, and when we have ultimate authority over others, we create a culture that cannot adapt to changes in the environment. When any culture cannot adapt, it will eventually self-destruct”
― David Kersten, Immortal

“But then he noticed how... good he felt. There was no other word to describe it. He felt good. There was no pain, no upset stomach. It wasn’t until that moment that he realized how much pain he had suffered the last few months. The sore back, the indigestion, the sudden spasms of pain during normal tasks – all were symptoms of the cancer eating away at him, but they had come on so gradually that he hadn’t even noticed when the symptoms started. Only in the absence of the pain did he realize how much he had been suffering. Why was the pain gone? “Well,”
― David Kersten, The Freezer

“The veil of unconsciousness slowly lifted and Jack opened his eyes. He blinked a few times in an attempt to clear away the foggy haze that not only covered his mind, but also seemed to surround everything in his line of sight. As his mind cleared, the confusion built. He became aware of somebody next to his bed. “Jenny, is that you?” “Just relax; your vision will take time to start working right. How do you feel?” A man’s voice. Why did I think it was Jenny? He tried to will himself to think clearly. The sharp memory of Jenny’s death came back to him and faded just as quickly. “Where”
― David Kersten, The Freezer

“Jack recognized the name from the conversation with Emmet the day before. She was somewhat attractive, more because of youth than anything else.”
― David Kersten, The Freezer

“When cloning a person, you take a fertilized egg, remove the DNA, and replace it with the DNA of the person you want to clone.”
― David Kersten, The Freezer

“About one hundred percent, actually.” Jack was caught off guard by the response. He had expected some spiel about the dangers of the wasteland, or maybe that he wasn’t physically prepared yet to venture out. “You are already scheduled to go out with a small crew tomorrow. Uh, if you feel up to it that is.” “Of”
― David Kersten, The Freezer

“Dave pulled out a small pry bar and gently pried the face off the keypad. He then took out a small drill and drilled out the brackets holding the keypad in place. This exposed the wiring behind, and he unplugged the wire harness from the keypad and set it aside. He took out his datapad and a new wire harness, which he plugged into the datapad and then into the harness he had unplugged from the keypad. After punching a few buttons on the datapad, he looked at Thomas and said, “Should only take a few minutes. The computer in my datapad is logging in to the main computer system right now and requesting that it open the door for us.” “Requesting?”
― David Kersten, The Freezer

“Caleb had the opinion that every war starts when you have two factions of equal strength vying for ultimate power. Everyone in the room more or less agreed with him, but not everyone shared his opinion of keeping New Hope isolated from the rest of the world. William”
― David Kersten, The Freezer

“What is the problem here? Did something go wrong with the surgery and put me in a coma for a while? He had read an article in Life magazine about a lady coming out of a coma after ten years and not being able to move. Something about muscle atrophy. That would explain a lot. But”
― David Kersten, The Freezer

“Memories threaded their way into his consciousness, and he tried to grab hold of one that would explain where he was. The cancer, the biopsy, the surgery... Surgery! “Bill?? I can’t see shit here.” He tried to sit up but his arms didn’t seem to respond to his commands. “It will take some time for your eyes to work properly. Your muscles too. Just relax and try to get some sleep.” A hand patted his shoulder.”
― David Kersten, The Freezer

“Jack dropped his own pack from his shoulders, reached in and grabbed the medical kit. He opened it and took a quick inventory. Much of it he didn’t recognize, but he saw what looked like big band aids and grabbed two of those, a roll of gauze, a tube that said antibacterial, and a tube that said coagulant. He glanced at the instructions on the tube of coagulant. It said ‘squeeze liberal amount into wound, cover wound with skin patch.’ Jack opened the tube and shoved the tube nozzle into the small hole and squeezed.”
― David Kersten, The Freezer

“He was fitted with skin tight gloves and socks, lightweight boots that were surprisingly comfortable, and finally a helmet. The clear shield on the helmet had a heads up display that showed him a small view of what was behind him in the top right. There was an overlay display that showed night vision over the top of what he was looking at, and he could switch back and forth on the fly. There was a button on the M74 that fed the video and ammunition count to the helmet so he could see it without using the screen on the gun. He”
― David Kersten, The Freezer

“With ten feet of empty space around each machine, and the large desks, workbenches, and other equipment taking even more room between them, the room had to be at least one hundred feet long in each direction and not a single supporting column anywhere. Jack’s experience in building underground bunkers told him this just wasn’t possible, at least not with the technology he had available in 1966 Teague”
― David Kersten, The Freezer

“He went through sort of a mental checklist of his body parts. Toes? Check. Fingers? Check. Legs? Check. Arms? Check. Body? Check. He wiggled his toes, or at least he thought he did... it felt right. He wiggled his fingers and felt something on his forehead. His hand was still there from when he tried to rub his eyes, and his fingers were wiggling. “Okay, that’s a little odd.” He said it to himself, out loud again. He tried to move his arm, and it flopped off his head back to his side, feeling numb as if he had been laying on it all night, but without the pins and needles. He could control individual joints like his fingers or his elbow but when he tried to coordinate more than one thing he felt... disconnected.”
― David Kersten, The Freezer

“This is the M74 assault weapon. Developed during the war, in about 2025, near as we could tell, it is by far the most advanced infantry weapon ever made. The weapon itself is incredibly impressive, but it is the platform that really makes it incredible. It fires a .202 caliber round that has a small bundle of titanium flechettes imbedded in soft lead and jacketed in a copper alloy. While the caliber sounds small, the Muzzle velocity is fifty eight hundred feet per second, which gives it more kinetic energy than the rounds you fired with your M1.” He handed Jack one of the rounds. It looked like just a bullet, not an entire round. “When the round hits a target, the lead mushrooms like the ammo you are used to, but the flechettes spread out and continue on, tearing through just about any kind of armor you can imagine. Soft targets just cause the flechettes to sprawl through the body and cause maximum damage. The ammunition magazine holds two hundred rounds and weighs less than the twenty round magazine of the M14. The casing is only three quarters of an inch long and the entire round is a little over an inch. It uses a chemical that burns eight times faster than gunpowder and expands over fifteen times more. The reason the round is so small is because the chemical propellant is solid and doesn’t need a shell. It is completely consumed when firing, so nothing to eject. The gun uses a hybrid closed bolt system that completely contains the explosion, routing the excess energy to power the action, and even to help counter the recoil.” “Fifty eight hundred feet per second? Even a bullet that small needs a heck of a lot of energy to get moving that fast. This thing must kick like a mule.” “Actually, the action on the weapon uses a shock absorber filled with a magnetic fluid that changes viscosity depending on what the fire rate is set to. If you fire a single round, it softens up to make recoil almost nonexistent. If you go automatic, it stiffens up to increase the cyclic rate. The weapon itself is made of composite carbon fiber and titanium alloys, with a frictionless surface in the barrel and on all moving components. It’s a bitch to clean because each piece is like wet ice, but it almost never needs cleaning because nothing will stick to any part that matters.” He”
― David Kersten, The Freezer

“This way.” Chuck gestured toward a door on the opposite end of the room. The two men were like teens who had just purchased a bag of fireworks. When they got to the door, Chuck handed Jack a set of very small ear plugs. “Put these in, they are electronic and they cancel out the noise from the weapon but let everything else through. We could hold a whispering conversation while firing the weapon fully automatic.” Jack felt like a kid on Christmas. The”
― David Kersten, The Freezer

“The barrel has a built in suppressor so it can’t be heard more than a half mile away over the flattest land and doesn’t need hearing protection to fire safely outdoors. The sight is a green laser that is invisible without the filter, so you look through the lens and you see the dot – wherever the dot is, that is where the bullet goes. The weapon has a computer processor on board that controls the recoil and adjusts the laser sight dependent on the range of the target in your sites as well as environmental variables like wind, humidity, and temperature. On the side of the weapon is a display you can flip up showing whatever the weapon is aimed at. You have a choice of regular, thermal, or night vision. The screen can also flip to the side so you can hold the weapon around a corner and still see what you are aiming at.” Jack”
― David Kersten, The Freezer

“Time can’t be stopped. It is a part of the fabric of the universe. And it is relative. Even if time could stop for one person, it wouldn’t for everyone else.” “But that wouldn’t change the buildup of dark matter.”
― David Kersten, The Paradox Cycle

“Large machines made it difficult to judge the scale of the room, which at first glance appeared to be about fifty feet square.”
― David Kersten, The Freezer

“He didn’t appear to be focusing on anything in particular, but Jack didn’t think for a second that there wasn’t a detail in the room Chuck hadn’t noticed. “Yes,”
― David Kersten, The Freezer

“Second, we have a need, and the fate of humanity may very well ride on it. We simply can’t fail here or in another hundred years, humans might just be a part of the Earth’s history, not a part of its future.” They”
― David Kersten, The Freezer

“Marcus intervened and said, “Please Theodore, let’s let Jack speak his piece. The way I see it, today’s events were not his fault. We have been attacked by Mutes many times in the past, usually when scavenging for resources.” He signaled for Jack to go on. “As”
― David Kersten, The Freezer