The Walmart was like a starship that had landed in the soyabean fields
Richard felt that the Walmart was like an oddity that though different to its surroundings was extraordinarily like its other branches, so much so that it was possible to forget while inside a Walmart which city one belonged to. It could easily be an interdimensional portal through which one could never be sure where they would get out.
…. Overgrown foetuses, waiting endlessly to be born.
Zula, while in captivity, meets Csongor and observes an attraction to him owing to his independence of the traditional education system. Like her ex-boyfriend, Peter, Csongor was self-educated and managed to make a decent living by working as a freelance hacker. She felt that most of the guys who were schooled in expensive universities were immature and afraid to come out of their comfort zone even though it was more than time. She felt they were like overgrown foetuses who were waiting to be born, instead of just coming out of their shell.
Devin Skraelin is an Edgar Allen Poe character
As Devin Skraelin was to complete his tenure at Corporation 9592 as the lead writer for the game T’rain, he began to produce massive amounts of data. Long backstories of characters and histories of place in T’rain universe. This burst of unprecedented productivity led to a gap in the game timeline as he began to produce the data at a rate faster than it could be comprehended by the developers. Mails began to circulate around Corporation 9592, with the subject Devin Skraelin is an Edgar Allen Poe character implying that due to the insecurity leading his departure, he had been grappled by Graphomania, an obsessive impulsive to write
I’d have thought you were the black sheep.
Abdallah Jones, after kidnapping Zula once he learned that she was an American, makes her tell about her family and her involvement with Ivanov. On learning that his uncle, due to his involvement with marijuana smuggling, is said to be the black sheep of the family. Abdallah jokes that he thought she was the black sheep, the pun being that she was a black person adopted by a white family.
Poker Face
This term is used to create a mysterious persona around Sokolov, as Zula begins to weigh him as a person. Sokolov wouldn’t let any expression show on his face. This not just hinted at a strong character but also a training and experience in dealing with tough situations.
