24
" They did not chain or hogtie him in any way, which was a wonder, until Smith attended to the faces of everybody they passed. For in truth, he did not really see their faces. The great mass of people turned or dropped their heads and averted their gaze, and the three Gestapo men moved through the crowds thronging the main concourse of Haus Vaterland as though their long, black leather coats made them invisible… and Smith along with them. He had been some hours in the peculiar environs of the Wild West Bar, and during that time it appeared as though all of Berlin had gussied themselves up to take in the night airs. Many thousands of them strolled to and from their dinners, or shows, or to the innumerable nightclubs such as Smith had just left. The summer night, now late, had come upon the city without any appreciable glooming. Indeed, Haus Vaterland "
― John Birmingham , The Golden Minute (A Girl in Time #2)
28
" The female marine had beaten Hidaka senseless while singing along to the radio. It had been an entirely punitive retribution with the primary purpose of humiliating the man and breaking his spirit. A level three sanction. They had assumed, correctly, that he would never speak of it, shamed into silence, but even if he had, it was within their accepted rules of engagement. “Something funny?” Jones asked. “Not really,” Kolhammer said as he fitted his powered shades in place. “I was just thinking of serendipity. Do you remember the exact song that was playing?” “Not really,” Jones said, looking nonplussed. “Well, I don’t know whether you heard or not. I think you were talking to Chief Rogas at the time. But Hidaka, he was sort of whimpering after she broke his arm, begging De Marco to tell him what she was going to do.” “And?” “And so she leaned into him and told him they were going to boogie-oogie-oogie until they simply could not boogie no more.” Jones’s rich baritone laughter rolled out over the naval base. Kolhammer allowed himself a chuckle, too, now that they were out of earshot of the typing pool "
― John Birmingham , Final Impact (Axis of Time, #3)
39
" Yes,” he said in return, and his voice cracked somewhat. “Yes, Comrade General Secretary.” “And now,” Stalin said, “let’s have some soup, shall we?” Beria’s heart sank. He still had too much work to do. “Oh, not you, Beria,” the Vozhd said. “You are excused. Get the hell out of here and go do your job for a change. No soup for you. "
― John Birmingham , Final Impact (Axis of Time, #3)
40
" And so you cannot back up. You go into harm’s way as true human beings. Just like our foe. Think now, if you should die, all of the words you have read, the places you’ve been, the knowledge and the wisdom you have gained, it will altogether vanish like a dream. Every note of music, every brushstroke of every painting, every q-bit, every sim, all that laughter, so many tears, and suddenly…nothing. Perhaps an earlier backup of another you does remain safely stored in some remote offline facility. Your memories of the Beijing Opera, the candomblé in Bahía, the dunes of al-Qudd, a walk down the grand avenues of Cupertino, the white nights of Putingrad, the call to prayer on the Habitat of Peace, a red supermoon over the Armadalen Sea, the crumbs of a pastry and the last mouthful of coffee in a tiny café in Trastevere, everything you have ever known, remembered, talked about, and everything you have left unspoken—it could all live again, I suppose. But would that be you, Doctor Saito? The you here with me? Right now?” The color had drained from her face. That was better. That was how people should react to encountering the "
― John Birmingham , The Cruel Stars (The Cruel Stars, #1)