Crux

They were a tribal species. They’d evolved in a world where a few dozen men and women made up a tribe, and virtually all others were enemies, threats. They lacked the cognitive capabilities necessary to collaborate on this scale.

His brain was a neurochemical witch’s brew.

Ten years since the firebomb had ripped through his parents’ fertility clinic. Since they’d been murdered for the crime of reversing genetic diseases, of boosting a few points of IQ, of entirely benign actions that had nothing to do with the Aryan Rising.
Ten years since fear had turned America into a police state, since the priests and the politicians had decided that they could control who you were, what you were, what genes you carried, what tech you put in your brain.