"That's lucky," she said wistfully. "You know, you'd be a hit with the Irwin crowd. You could get right up close to the zombies and they'd never know what hit them."
More rolling of her eyes. "Oh yeah. Did you have 9/11 where you came from? The Patriot Act, all that crap? Think that but on steroids and dialed up to about a million. Which turned out pretty well for my parents, since they went into the medical technology business right at the ground floor, but pretty much blows for everyone else. Culturally-instilled paranoia, everyone going around armed, security measures like you wouldn't believe... and some of them are perfectly reasonable, that's the killer." She chewed on her upper lip, glaring ahead of them at nothing in particular. "But everyone got so used to being afraid that they became scared of not being afraid, and the people in charge like them that way."
She glanced up at him, suddenly suspicious. "Politics here aren't so incredibly shitty, are they? Because I just got done with one gigantic government conspiracy and I am so not in the mood to tackle any more, thank you and good night."