"I know." His voice is soft. "I go back to the war, and no matter what I do, I'll get a Section 8. An insanity discharge. And when I land back in the States, I will..."

He thinks about a world of electricity and advertisements, malls and missiles and global politics, the draft, and a culture of money so ferocious that anyone who cannot afford to break their body in labor cannot afford to live at all.

"... Many veterans don't make it, Nyx, and I have no doubt that I will be one. It's simply not a world that I can live in anymore."

He sips his wine again. "It's fortunate, then, that we have this one."