Kyielra had been hard at her work since an hour after first light. There was nothing unusual in this, for she could not recall the last time she was not at work by that time of day – or when stopped before the absence of natural light. And as perverse at it might seem to some she knew, or to others in the future, Kyielra harboured a great deal of pride felt inside for how she performed daily duties and chores.

For Kyielra, getting to work was easy, she worked where she lived – in her husband’s home. “Husband, hmph!” she mumbled defiantly as she checked through the inventory for food storage and preparation area. No matter the records and lists were recorded and updated through technological interface, the review took at least an hour of time she sorely needed for other, more physically demanding chores.

As she updated each entry, a process which would eliminate outdated perishables and automatically replace them by giving final authorisation; Kyielra’s activity set in motion the wheels of commerce. Ready to place the order, her mind drifted off task and back to how one person’s quiet pride could be a living hell to her more aggressive and challenging sisters.

Despite their perception of how she felt, Kyielra was hardly content with her life. Some thought her simple, some thought her weak, still others believed she found her contentment in seeing to the business that was her husband’s home. One thing those other’s knew for certain – without her organisational skill and boundless energy, her husband would hardly hold his current position of relative importance in government.

And Kyielra was well aware of what others thought about her, for they did not remain silent. Their thoughts were vocalised one to another to another until they found their way back to her. Little did these gossipers know she had spent a lifetime secretly working with those who actively worked for change, reading when she was supposed to be sleeping, speeding through duties so she could read yet more, accessing writings that were banned by the government – a computer’s password for a programme tied into the government network was actually quite simple to crack. Her cover served her well, no one suspected she carried such ability.

The password fell to her cyphering two years ago, and her intrusion into government records remained undiscovered. Little did they know that information was making its way to those who might well make the most of the information obtained.

Logging in for the fourth day in a row, Kyielra did not waste time. She knew where to look, and what she needed to look for – the request had been unusually specific. As she navigated the system, Kyielra was distracted from her task by a slight noise from the foyer area of the home. Her concentration now broken, she stepped away from the interface, walking towards and into the welcoming entry space. Finding the door ajar but failing to speak, she stepped into the doorway, looking around outside. Kyielra saw only the neighbour’s young daughter walking slowly by, the child’s head angled toward Kyielra, watching inquisitively. Kyielra waved good naturedly at the child, turned back to leave the entryway – and screamed.

Moments later, as Kyielra lay unmoving on the steps of what had been for most of her adult life only physically and tenuously her home, a very young woman watched on in disbelief and horror. This young woman watched as a vehicle stopped, as the vehicle occupants – a man and a woman – rushed up to provide whatever aid they were capable of rendering. She watched as a crowd quickly gathered, making it more difficult for her – a child only two thirds of the height of most onlookers there – to see. A medical lifter arrived, emergency technicians rushed across the open space from the public way where it landed. The technicians yelled instructions for the crowd to stand aside, pulling along their state of the art equipment toward Kyielra.

The young woman shifted from foot to foot, increasingly restless. She moved to her right, she moved to her left, joggling for a place from which she could see, from which she would know.

Finding one small space just a bit more to the left, moving forward to preclude anyone else from again blocking her view – this child was not one to be denied – from this new and all too brief vantage point, young M’traliel – who was the only person to actually witness what really happened, watched the technicians declare Kyielra had breathed for the last time in this life.