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But this silence was different. It was a waiting silence. The silence of breath being held, of hope and fear choking each other.
Death didn’t faze him. It couldn’t, really. Having never considered the option, dying at his age was so foreign a thought, Biran couldn’t wrap his mind around it. But brain death, or someplace in-between, made him cold to the core. His mind was all he had—all he’d ever been praised for, all he’d ever been recognized for. Now, it hung on a razor’s edge. Who was he, without his brilliance? Without his so-called potential? What would he become?
The old man’s face flushed. And then—a paradigm shift in Biran’s mind, in his perspective. Old man. The director was just an old man. Elevated to power, yes, a man to be feared for many reasons, but a man all the same. Not an entity, not an institution. In the cheap lighting of the room, even his wrinkles lacked dignity. An old man, and old men could make mistakes as easily as young men.
In the upper right of her HUD, text flashed: :-P “Oh my god. They taught you emoticons.” “I had access to the in-system internet.” “Of course you did. Because what better way to introduce a newly created intelligence to the world than through cat pictures and terrible puns.” “I rather enjoyed the puns.” “But not the cat pictures?” “May I ask you an embarrassing question, Sanda?” “Those are my favorite kind.” “Are cats… real?”
“Did you mean to?” Graham asked, startling Biran out of his downward spiral. Biran blinked at him, trying to focus. “Mean to what?” “Make a mistake.” “You can’t plan to make a mistake, Dad.” “Then stop being so hard on yourself, idiot.”
How had things gotten so screwed, so quickly? How had he become the dissenting voice in the organization he loved? Because it’d never been that organization. It’d been a farce—a face—a public-soothing construction.
“You do not invite those you do not trust to enter your body, do you? You live in my veins. Can reach into my mind and rearrange things at will. There is… intimacy, in having your mind contained in a place of dwelling.”
He used to think his parents had done very well, financially, with their trading ventures. He’d been wrong. There were scales of “doing well” in the universe he hadn’t realized existed until that moment.
Seeing herself in the faces of those first few pioneers reminded her that not all of her family history was bullshit. She could be something, maybe. Her ancient ancestors had reached for the stars and taken them for their own. Maybe she could make something her own, too, someday.
“We must be better than a codified system,” Sanda pressed. “What good are our laws if they cannot be reexamined to better fit the needs of our present society?”
Biran may have grown older in her absence, but his eyes still shone with the same bright trust they always had. Trust that the system he served would serve him back. It probably would. He just hadn’t realized she’d been forced outside that system.
The Keepers of the Cannery had split, crystallized into factions, and then shattered apart. The Keepers too young to be privy to backdoor negotiations. The Keepers too old to miss the politicking of Sanda’s welcoming party. And the Keepers here, the real players. The Protectorate members and the movers thereof. Thin in number, powerful in consequence. A family knit of distrust and petty thrusts. Divided. And divided, they would fall.
