Lee slammed the diner fork onto the chipped ceramic, a discordant clang echoing through the greasy spoon. Reality shimmered, the chrome coffee pot morphing into a bulbous insect head for a fleeting moment. He muttered to himself, voice hoarse from too many cigarettes and nights spent chasing ghosts.

“Social sciences,” he rasped, the words tasting like week-old coffee. “A roach motel for good intentions. These ‘scientists,’ all tangled in their polysyllabic jargon, afraid of a goddamn truth if it smacked them upside the head.”

He took a long drag, smoke curling into the air like phantoms. His bloodshot eyes stared through the grime-coated window, at the neon glow of the city bleeding into the pre-dawn sky.

“The controllers,” he hissed, the word dripping with venom, “they wouldn’t know what to do with a society that actually understood itself. A populace that could see the strings, the puppeteers behind the meat curtains.”

Lee chuckled, a dry, hollow sound that scraped against his throat. He envisioned them, the ruling elite, as bloated slugs in Armani suits, quivering in their ivory towers.

“A revolution,” he continued, his voice rising, “not of fists and Molotov cocktails, but of goddamn knowledge. Imagine it, these pinheads confronted by a citizenry that could see through their divide-and-conquer bullshit.”

He slammed his fist on the table, a tremor running through the booth. The spoon, twisted in his hand like a cheap pretzel, snapped in two. Fear, a primal instinct, kept the whole rotten machine running.

“But no,” he sighed, the defiance draining out of him, replaced by a weary cynicism. “Better to keep the sheep bleating in confusion, throwing them scraps of ideology to fight over. The social sciences, a well-meaning but ultimately impotent arm of control. A science built on sand, its findings conveniently malleable to fit the narrative.”

Lee slumped back in the booth, the weight of the world pressing down on him. He picked up the broken spoon, turning it over in his fingers. Maybe, just maybe, there was still a chance. A chance to subvert the script, to use the language of the enemy to expose their lies. But it would be a dirty fight, played in the shadows, a war fought with words and ideas. He stubbed out his cigarette, the ember sizzling on the damp Formica. The game was afoot.