"Why can women worry about global warming and still leave the lights on in broad daylight?" O'Sullivan glanced back at the cleaner, who had switched on every light in the office. She seemed well practiced at it, rattling off a string of button presses before pushing her cart away.
"Who filmed the video?" Mills asked lifelessly.
The person on screen was Angela. The camera followed her movements the whole time, so it was clearly not from a fixed position.
"Her friend, Scott Davis." O'Sullivan took a bite of his donut and read from the file.
"They were a couple?"
"No, just friends. Scott's parents didn't approve of him associating with Angela."
"Really? Why?"
"Scott was the kind of person destined for the Ivy League. Angela would need luck just to get into a state university. But you can see why. She was beautiful. What boy could refuse her request?"
Angela wore a dazzling smile on television. She was filming plants growing inside an abandoned church, going on at length about the miraculous power of nature.
In short, humanity had lost and nature had won. Environmental protection was not for the public good, but for protecting the environment humans themselves depended on for survival, and so on. This was Mills's second time watching it, and he had not spotted anything strange throughout.
A Stanford University study found that women were twice as likely as men to suffer from anxiety disorders. Why were they anxious? Because they tended to overthink.
Women had more anxious thoughts about health, body image, socializing, and all sorts of things. Atlas was holding up the sky if it fell, so what was the point of being so tense?
How nice it would be to be as innocent and carefree as Angela.
Angela was the typical "American sweetheart."