Kelvin could request favors within the administration easily, as those marionette strings looked remarkably like lines of ink that read 'Pay to the Order of'.

They were a paper chain of distinguished members of society, and when one caught fire, they either severed themselves or they all went up in smoke.

The large office had been deliberately designed so that the two sub-terranian levels were just the tiniest bit smaller, so that the building was proudly 51% conducting honest and open business, and only 49% not. Inkle and Kelvin had felt a boost of confidence from their manufactured technicality, similar to the comfort that survey results can provide when carefully polling groups more likely to give you comforting numbers.

He smiled at her, the same smile stapled to the mask of every career politician.

The driver had recently scraped an 'AMRAK is Love' decal from his back window, leaving a sticky residue of his former beliefs.

In fact, all of their other problems were misfiled within that problem, and red tape sealed it all shut.