Page 90 - SurprisingTruthFinal

The Surprising Truth About Lying
"I am the architect," Henry said, his voice flat and
hard. "I know how to build a necessary fiction. This is
the only way to get the engineers to sign the work
order."
Vincent grabbed Henry’s wrist, his grip surprisingly
strong. "If you do this, you become the thing we
fought. You are a despot of perception. You destroy the
only purity we achieved."
Henry looked Vincent in the eye, seeing the last
flickering flame of faith, both religious and secular, in
the preacher’s soul. He knew this choice would cost
him his last ally, and his own integrity.
"The purity of the truth is worthless if the people
who hold it are dead," Henry said. He yanked his arm
free, slammed his hand onto the upload key, and sent
The Palliative soaring through the dark network and
into the paralyzed, desperate world.
He felt the instant, sickening shift. The fear curve,
which had been static for days, suddenly dipped, then
began to climb again, not in panic, but in the tentative
energy of a world that suddenly saw a way forward.
Henry had won the battle against his allies, but he
felt the crushing weight of having been wrong, twice.
First, for demanding the truth. Now, for injecting the
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