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“She shushed him with a hand. “Don’t. I know who I am and that all my talk about droid rights and everything else makes people uncomfortable. The Maker didn’t put me in this galaxy to make organics feel good about themselves, though.” “Well, that much is clear.” “And I’m okay with that. When you know what you’re here to do, everything that’s not that matters much less.”

“And Lando had calmed, settled back down, and without even having placed his lips against hers or felt her in the thrall of passion, he had felt a strange kind of peacefulness flood over him. It wasn’t the reeling outburst of excitement that came with victory at the card table, had none of the smugness that would rise in him at that blissfull culmination of a con. No, this was something much more long lasting and delicious. This was joy.”

“And anyway,” L3 went on, “who is the Maker but our own selves, really? Sure, some guy in a factory probably pieced me together originally, and someone else programmed me, so to speak. But then the galaxy itself forged me into who I am. Because we learn, Lando. We’re programmed to learn. Which means we grow. We grow away from that singular moment of creation, become something new with each changing moment of our lives—yes, lives— and look at me: these parts” — she ran her hand along the mesh wiring and the rebranded astromech of her midsection—“I did this. So maybe when we say The Maker we’re referring to the whole galaxy, or maybe we just mean ourselves. Maybe we’re our own makers, no matter who put the parts together.”

“Bennie's corner of Brooklyn looked different every time Sierra passed through it. She stopped at the corner of Washington Avenue and St. John's Place to take in the changing scenery. A half block from where she stood, she'd skinned her knee playing hopscotch while juiced up on iceys and sugar drinks. Bennie's brother, Vincent, had been killed by the cops on the adjacent corner, just a few steps from his own front door. Now her best friend's neighborhood felt like another planet. The place Sierra and Bennie used to get their hair done had turned into a fancy bakery of some kind, and yes, the coffee was good, but you couldn't get a cup for less than three dollars. Plus, every time Sierra went in, the hip, young white kid behind the counter gave her either the don't-cause-no-trouble look or the I-want-to-adopt-you look. The Takeover (as Bennie had dubbed it once) had been going on for a few years now, but tonight its pace seemed to have accelerated tenfold. Sierra couldn't find a single brown face on the block. It looked like a late-night frat party had just let out; she was getting funny stares from all sides--as if she was the out-of-place one, she thought. And then, sadly, she realized she was the out-of-place one.”

“So, sure – maybe I don’t know how I’m going to change the world yet… but whatever it is, it begins with what we’re doing right now… helping one person at a time, and learning more about ourselves along the way.”

“Seems Commander 110 finally came to his senses too, because then he says: "We don't need to see his identification." "Bless!" I almost yelled, but I kept it contained. "These are not the droids you're looking for," Old Guy says. And he was right. He was so right. It was like, of course they're not! 110 agreed and then Old Guy says he can go about his business, and I'm like Yes! Yes, Old Guy! Say that! And 110 agrees again! Word for word in fact! "Move along," this remarkable little geezer says. Commander 110 nods. "Move along." And then, because he's 110 and he can't help himself, he repeats it for good measure.”

“Very like the wind, our feelings are," Yoda said. It was something he'd repeated many times over the years Kantam had been training with him, and Kantam had never totally known what to do with it. "The wind touches us. We experience it," Kantam said, finishing the teaching. "It is real. But it passes. So, too, do our feelings." Yoda nodded. "But sometimes, there is a hurricane. The winds are so strong, they lift us. Carried away, we can be. Everything we know and trust, gone, hm? Then easy it becomes to give in to anger, aggression, hm? Fear." "So I should stay?" Kantam knew that wasn't the right answer, that there wasn't one. But all these poems and metaphors just seemed a million light-years away, even as they hit home to what Kantam felt. Yoda opened his eyes, met Kantam's worried gaze. "You must choose the Force. One does not fall into being a Jedi Knight by mistake, hm? Or because it is convenient! You must choose the Force, with your whole heart. To do this, you must learn, again, to listen. To hear the world, the world outside of your own emotions. Even when they are very, very loud, heh, a hurricane.”