"Exactly," she said. "The halo is the excuse they use afterward, when they need to explain why they did what they wanted to do anyway." A pause. "I'm just here to remind them that excuses don't work on me."
---
Some people in the corridor glanced up at her face as she passed.
They looked back down immediately. Every one of them.
Not in the way that people look down because protocol demands it — but in the way that people look down because looking up costs something they're not sure they can afford right now. She was not shouting. She was not performing. That was the thing about her fury that made it different from other people's fury: it was quiet, and it was organized, and it knew exactly where it was going.
System 427 settled in the back of her mind and watched her.
