“Did you try to leave me, just then? Did you try to abandon me and then come back because you decided you needed my help or whatever?”
“No! No. Abbott, even if I was a terrible person, why would I do that? If I didn’t need a driver, I wouldn’t have hired one.”
“You’d have gotten a free hundred-thousand-dollar SUV and a loaded gun.”
Ether suddenly got serious, turning to face him.
“Okay. Abbott. Look at me. Hey. Are you listening? You know those postapocalyptic zombie shows where they have to cross the wastelands and they’re like, ‘We can’t trust anybody out here! We’re on our own!’ Well, that’s a geek fantasy for indoor kids. Out here, in the real world, in the actual desert, this is when you have to be willing to trust people. You don’t have a chance otherwise. Trust is the only advantage humans have as a species, that millions of us can all get together and trust one another. Yes, including weird people you just met earlier in the day.
[…] That’s what you’ll find out here in the wastelands. Almost all of these people are just like you. They want to do the right thing, and every morning, they wake up and go do it. Every. Single. Day.”