Charles

“Witness, I thought. He wants a witness. All these men with their starched turbans and silver seals want a witness when a woman reports maltreatment. But have her walk the street, head uncovered, and preachers and counselors pour out of rat holes, a hundred recriminations in hand. Have her complain about shabby shoes or threadbare clothes and she’s a squanderer. Have her try to earn a few extra dirhams washing out men’s filth at the bathhouse and she is a harlot.”
― Charlie Jane Anders, Some of the Best from Tor.com, 2020 edition

“It’s not the kind of place Quini’s thugs would hang around in, and if they did they would stick out like scowling, vantablack-clad sore thumbs. But it pays to be paranoid in public in this day and age, what with the feds now legally able to hijack phones and implant mics. Ergo, the babelware. If I’m using ergo right.”
― Charlie Jane Anders, Some of the Best from Tor.com, 2020 edition

“Masking or turning off tech built right into the nervous system is actually a lot harder than simply hiring what our German friends call a Fleischgeist. It’s not as snappy in English: meat ghost. But it gives you the idea—someone with no implants. None. No hand chip, no cranial, no optics or aurals. Nothing with an electronic signature. In our day and age, they might as well be invisible. Ergo, the ghost part.”
― Charlie Jane Anders, Some of the Best from Tor.com, 2020 edition

“which means you’ll sit around for a year on couches in basements, watching his band get stoned. He will know two chords, then three. He will know nothing about laundry, nor birth control. All his songs will be about the girl before you, who’ll wear leather pants and also turn”
― Charlie Jane Anders, Some of the Best from Tor.com, 2020 edition