Re: dock: atticus and mal
Mal was young, but his regrets already sat heavy in his back pocket, weighing him down. They grounded him, but they were still a heavy weight to carry. He tried not to think in terms that blew grandiose, but scientists before him came to mind, and not a single comparison was good.
"Might?" he asked, as he turned the puzzle over like a rubiks cube. Then he glanced up. "It's probably fine," he said, almost an apology for being so cavalier about something that was clearly so dangerous to his new friend. "If it isn't, at least our fate will make for an interesting story one day."
"I have great respect for analog media," he said. "It still has its benefits over a solid state drive. There's a reason major federal agencies still record massive amounts of data on magnetic tape. No, not Spotify. I don't give my information to anyone for free, and I certainly don't pay for the privilege. No Spotify, no Netflix, no data plan. High-tech, but paranoid. That's my motto. You're better off the way you are." Which was strange in other ways, hiding things, maybe, but he could understand that. "I own the electronics shop in the warehouse just outside town," he said. For whatever reason, Atticus' insistence that he preferred books in the hand had made him soften. Reminded him of someone holding books under his nose and shaking her head when he showed her a phone rather than read what she wanted. "I can at least get you something more portable to listen to music. You'd be the second person I sold a tape walkman to this year, which is the most people who've bought them in a decade.
"It might." He began to apply gentle pressure to one end of the puzzle. Then, surprisingly, it gave.