“Having reached the summit of his vengeance by the slow and tortuous route that he had followed, he had looked over the far side of the mountain and into the abyss of doubt.”

“He had reached his goal. He had climbed the unclimbable mountain”

“When he was preparing for a big fight, his trainer would take him mountain climbing to build up his hand strength and endurance. Max’s favorite piece of advice? Don’t look down until you reach the summit. Galen had asked why, thinking Max would give him some inspirational shit about the satisfaction of seeing how far he’d come at the end or something. Instead, Max had snorted, “Because it’s fucking scary.”

“Over the white curve he had looked into incredible space; abysses of intelligence lay beyond it.”

“A final stand, then. One last battle. At least he could say that he had fought. When he met his brothers and sisters on the far side of death, he would tell them that he had not yielded. He might have betrayed everything that they had been bred for, but he had never yielded.”

“I had never climbed a mountain, but standing at the bottom, looking at the summit, thinking, “How the fuck am I going to make it?” was pointless.”