Hob Gadling

"And if you think of the lives ruined, you just thank God it's them, instead of you, right? And that you and yours are never going hungry again. And you dismiss concerns -- if you have any; I'm just guessing here -- by saying if you hadn't taken that market share, someone else would've. I used to tell myself that, but it isn't true. Not for people like us. We're innovators. And when you use just another patch of human misery to fuel a bigger money-making machine, you create new markets for misery."

"Because let me explain. I've killed a lot of people. And the ones I did with my own hands don't bother me much. That's war; they signed up, too. The ones that wake me screaming in the night are the ones I killed with a ledger. You see, I was Jack Hawkins's business partner. You don't even know who he was. That's okay. But it's still more than any human living knows about me. So you know why I'm telling you? I don't have a ledger tonight."

The thing about sins you'll never be clean of, no matter how tiny a fraction of your lifespan they make up? Is you get so much done with the guilt.

Case in point was Hob's latest investment. Robbie Gadling had just bought up block after ravaged block of 'Alphabet City' in Manhattan. And he was rebuilding them. He had the technology -- well, the vast amounts of carefully-squirrelled-away money, sometimes involved in buying technology. He could make them better, cleaner, more up to those building codes that were all the rage these days. And sustainably affordable? Oh, he could do that. Not like he needed to turn a profit on this.

Sir Robert Gadling still owed civilization and decency that much. He'd never stop owing, and though he'd moved on well enough most days, the nightmares kept Hob remembering.