People said that video games were bad because they made you numb to death, made you register entrails splattering across a screen as a sign of success. In that moment, Val thought that the real problem with games was that the player was suppossed to try everything. If there was a cave, you went in it. If there was a mysterious stranger, you talked to him. If there was a map, you followed it. But in games, you had a hundred million billion lives and Val only had this one.

Buying a car used to be an experience so soul-scorching so confidence-splattering so existentially rattling that an entire car company was based on the promise that you wouldn't have to come in contact with it.