Fall; or, Dodge in Hell: A Novel

one of the engineers at Corporation 9592—a classic liberal-arts-major-turned-coder-so-he-could-make-a-decent-living—had

if he can get you to believe Moab was nuked by spending a million bucks, just imagine what the Russians and the big Internet companies are doing to your mind every day with much larger budgets.

"Oh, god, please don't read the Wikipedia entry," Enoch said, showing more emotion than when he had been literally crucified. "I have an edit overlay that filters out most of the garbage," said Julian, mildly offended that Enoch had taken him for the kind of person who would actually take Wikipedia at face value. "But, Julian, I am sitting right next to you and so you don't have to consult an online source."

Enoch's answers tended to be vague, brief, and self-deprecating. He had a knack for segueing into some other topic that was invariably more interesting than whatever had just been asked of him. Consequently you could ask him questions all day long. But at the end of that day, you'd have spent three minutes getting answers and many hours talking about other things—and you'd prefer it that way.

"You are speaking," Enoch said, "of the man whose brain was the first to be scanned using a fully modern procedure." Which of course Sophia knew perfectly well. So the same words could have come across as mansplaining. But Enoch managed to deliver them in a mild tone and with respectful, inquiring glances at Sophia, making it clear that he was in fact working with her to move the conversation forward.

"As an undergraduate in your last week," Solly said, "this is the last time in your life you'll be able to get away with being presumptuous. I recommend you make the most of it."