She watched as Trooper pulled out a pack of cigarettes and fumbled in his pocket for a lighter, an expensive-looking Zippo with the number 88 engraved on the front plate – each eight standing for the eighth letter of the alphabet, the two Hs together shorthanding the phrase 'Heil Hitler'.

Over the years she'd tried to tell himself that his uptown girl was just another lay.

The things I previously seen as life's necessities—proper running water to drink and wash with, sanitary restrooms, and local medical help—were nowhere to be found in this God-forsaken little town.

In contrast, a bioconservative might stipulate the definition of an existential risk as “one that either (a) threatens the extinction of Homo sapiens—that is, through total annihilation or the creation of a replacement posthuman population—or (b) causes a permanent and drastic reduction in our quality of life."