Kieran’s chest panged at Aura’s response to his offer. Sure--he had felt a hair too protective in offering to be with her, but what else could he do? 

It was true that his protection had to come with several caveats. For one, being seen with her at this party would likely be a death sentence for her and would completely give up the ghost of the operation. Two, there wasn’t much in the way he could do to protect her from the clear and present danger Gregor had placed her in through her alibi. He would have to improvise his way through bailing her out of that situation, and he had never been good at improvisation.

“I’ll learn what I can tomorrow about Pogo’s operation,” Kieran replied. “Loor’s people can probably get me that information and I’ll generate some excuse to be able to come out there.”

He watched empathetically as Aura pivoted to the bigger, laudier questions about life in Apex. His first instinct, as it had always had been, was to be dismissive. He prepared often-repeated answers to her questions. How Apex wasn’t an evil place--not at its core. That this was simply the system in which they had been given and it was one in which any complaints, disillusions, or rebellions were, in essence, fruitless.

You can’t swim against a waterfall.

But the more she spoke, the more he felt that tinge of idealism that he had felt before. His mind raced back as she spoke:

[i]Kieran was little more than a baby when he was found on a cargo boat docked in Port Apex. 

The Port Boys that took him in and showed him their ways had always assumed he hadn’t a clue what happened before that. To his parents.

But that wasn’t the case. 

Kieran had memories--scant and fading, but there all the same--of the last moments he shared with his parents. 

They had a farm further north and west than even Apex. Near where the sea would extend beyond oblivion. The rains here were strong--making the ground fertile enough for simple crops to grow. But generations upon generations had tilled this land down to it’s last gasp. 

Kieran pictured what he could of his parents--his father’s strong arm wrapped around him. The touch of his mother’s dress as he pulled at it for attention. They explained what was happening to a boy who could do little more than say a few choice words. 

He couldn’t picture their faces. No, not anymore. But here now, he could feel their pain as they told him to sit in a cargo box in the middle of the night. They gave him a doll made from discarded hay and rags sewn together by his mother. 

And he never saw them again.[/i]

Kieran’s mind flashed back to Aura, and to her final question:

[i]“Do you ever wonder what life would be like if Apex wasn’t the center of the universe?”[/i]

In truth, sometimes he did. And one time, he had acted.

When he was old enough to convince the sailors to let him aboard, Kieran had ridden one of the ships back to the land his parents had tilled. He had his doll about him--wrapped in the blanket that had been with him the right he had left them.

He stood on the sandy beaches of his childhood, directed to the farm by some of the other local farmers. He could see in their eyes that some of them recognized him still. They bore morose expressions at the sight of him. They would say little about his parents.

He stood in the blighted ashes of what had once been his home soon after. He dug through the rubble that had been a farmhouse. He found little more than sticks, pots, pans, and dirt.

How the home was destroyed, the other farmers wouldn’t say. But the story went that one morning, the farmers saw his parents headed west, into the mountains.

They would not be seen again.

Kieran had returned to Port Apex, and remained ever since. 

These memories had passed him in an instant as Aura asked her question.

“I don’t know what’s out there, Aura,” he admitted. “I don’t know if anyone here knows. Anyone who’s left hasn’t come back, that’s for sure.”

He thought for a moment, then shifted gears. “Apex is all we have. It’s cruel, but it can be exploited. I don’t know what’s out past those mountains, but I do know that here we have a chance to live a better life if we play our cards right. It’s all I’ve ever done. If there was a way to change AA, to make things better, sure I’d try for it but... “

He looked down, then back up. “I just want to survive. Maybe once that’s done we can see about creating something better.”