[...] Letting people die because saving their lives would erode profits was a wicked act, and people who endorsed that act were wicked people. Blowing them up or shooting them wasn't right, but a world in which the wicked went about their days frightened of retribution was a more just one than a world where the wicked held their head high.

BlueCross BlueShield of Minneapolis broke ground on a new building in an industrial park at the end of its own gated cul-de-sac, with high guard towers, automated license plate recognition systems in a one-mile radius, panic rooms on every floor, and a large staff of 24/7 armed guards. Their shareholder disclosures costed this out and amortized the capital over five years, explaining how the running costs would be covered by a combination of a "security surcharge" on all premiums and a tiny per-share dividend hit. After a short bobble when the shorts moved onto the market, the share price closed up and some shorts took a big hit.

The billing guy seemed like a decent fellow stuck with a shitty job [...] He was embarrassed and apologetic, but he had a job to do. It wasn't his fault the system was so totally fucked up. There was nothing that one guy could do about it.

Martin knew that The Event was coming. The fact was the world just didn't need all those people anymore, and the market had revealed that fact, squeezing them into tinier, more uncomfortable places. He wouldn't tolerate it if he was in their shoes. He'd be the first one to build a guillotine [...]

[...] the semi-employed, semi-employable dimbulbs who lucked into a prime piece of location would soon find themselves gently ushered to a place that was better matched with their worth to society and the human race.

[...] the smartest and best had figured out how to improve even the most marginal assets, well beyond the capacity of the 99 percent, and now the 99 percent had found themselves relieved of all their worldly goods and lacking the sums to rent anywhere to perch while they waited to die.

[...] Martin didn't let himself feel empathy for her. It was the grasshopper and the ants: he'd done all the work to make himself a cozy shelter from the blowing winter and she had done whatever she'd done instead---made a bunch of babies, watched reality TV, taken drugs, or crocheted. People who didn't think ahead were self-correcting problems. She was correcting herself, and it wasn't pretty, but it wasn't his problem, either.

[...] Martin couldn't help but brag that each of those little shot glasses held $100 worth of liquor at pre-collapse prices. Who knew what it would fetch in the marketplaces of the new world when it emerged? [...]

[...] the people there were willing to trade eggs and cheese for gemstones. Martin loved that: he had a lot of gemstones stockpiled, and in the wee hours of the night he wondered if he was kidding himself about whether anyone would want them. You can't eat gems, and converting them to useful goods required something like a functioning civilization. The fact that these stoic Latino farmers were willing to take a little bag of rubies and sapphires for five big wheels of cheese and a promise of four dozen eggs per week for the next month meant that they, too, thought that civilization would come back.

Civilizations had risen and fallen before. Humanity needed to work together, but hell was other people. When the best people were on top, things worked: they convinced the rational, cajoled the stubborn, and, frankly, forced the rest. It was for the greater good. Put one of the losers, the takers, at the top of the pile, and they'd lead the rest into catastrophe. [...]

[...] Martin was glad that gemstones were still acceptable trade goods. He looked forward to the day when he could get his thumb drives out of his floor safe and start mobilizing his cryptocurrency assets again.