The Chain

by Adrian McKinty

George Orwell was wrong, she thinks. In the future, it won’t be the state that keeps tabs on everyone by extensive use of surveillance; it will be the people. They’ll do the state’s work for it by constantly uploading their locations, interests, food preferences, restaurant choices, political ideas, and hobbies to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media sites. We are our own secret police.

boredom and fear lay at the root of all evil.

The Egyptians lived in a god-and-demon-infested world. There are demons here too, but they are human beings.

civilization is just a thin, fragile veneer over the law of the jungle:

Dying is not the worst thing that can happen to you. The worst thing that can happen to you is for something to happen to your kid.

I remembered what Howard Carter said when he found King Tut’s tomb. You have to be looking, not just seeing.”

Something about this place screams denouement.

Sort of a 4th wall break? Foreshadowing for sure.

“I always thought that if we were going to go down, it would be because of you tangling emotions with business.” She smiles. “Christ, Olly, that’s how everybody goes down in the end. Didn’t you know that? You can’t fight biology.”

Life is fragile, fleeting, and precious. And to live at all is miracle enough.