Extracurricular Activities

Jedao had a reputation for, as one of his former aides had put it, being expendable enough to send into no-win situations but too stubborn to die.

Teshet then produced a set of restraints from his pockets and gestured at Meng. Meng sighed deeply and submitted to being trussed up.
“Don’t look so disappointed,” Teshet said into Jedao’s ear. “I’ve another set just for you.”

He did consider that he could make his mother happy by stealing some pretty little microbes for her, but with his luck they’d turn his testicles inside out.

The cards were just to give his hands something to do. He had considered taking up crochet, but thanks to an incident earlier in the term, crochet hooks, knitting needles, and fountain pens were no longer permitted in class.

Their operating systems are so different from ours that you’d have better luck getting a magpie and a turnip to have a baby.

“I don’t fuck people deadlier than I am, sorry,” Jedao said demurely.
“Wrong answer,” Haval said, still not looking at either of them. “Now he’s going to think of you as a challenge.”

One of his instructors had explained that “You will spend hours in front of a terminal developing posture problems” was far less effective at recruiting potential cadets than “Join the Shuos for an exciting future as a secret agent, assuming your classmates don’t kill you before you graduate.”