Within the Eye

Chapter 7

The Cross Institute thrummed with the pulse of intellectual fervour—a sprawling labyrinth of departments, each one focused on dissecting some minuscule thread of the Society's grand design. To anyone else, it would have appeared chaotic, the departments moving like separate organisms, each with their own direction, their own purpose. But to me, the overseer of it all, it was... predictable.

Standing on the upper floors, the air noticeably cooler and the light more sterile, I could look down on it all. Each department, each project, each initiative—they were lines on a web that I could track effortlessly, interlacing strands that, when followed correctly, led toward something larger. For progress. For Society.

Of course, the end goal was never explicitly revealed to anyone. The Institute operated on a need-to-know basis. But that didn't stop me from seeing the pattern beneath the pattern. The rhythm beneath the surface.

Today, the Directors were meeting to review progress.

Director Asa Kaplan arrived first, as he usually did, with a slight incline of his head in greeting. His grey eyes were sharp, always watching, but his presence never felt invasive. If he had to be distinguished between our directorial triumvirate, Kaplan was the leader of the three of us—rational, with a certain ease that set him apart from the cold, sterile attitude of others in the upper echelons of Society. 

"Pandora," he said, stepping into the room. "I hope the morning has been kind to you."

"As kind as it ever is," I replied, eyes still on the terminal in front of me, analyzing a set of trajectories for one of the more delicate research divisions.

Kaplan smiled briefly, settling into his seat with the usual air of calm professionalism. He glanced at my screen, but his eyes didn't linger long. He knew I would explain the relevant details when the time came.

The second arrival was Director Laeda Bass, entering the room with a clip to her step and the faintest curl to her lip that indicated her displeasure. That was nothing new. Laeda Bass had made it abundantly clear, in her own subtle way, that she did not like me. 

At all.

She took her seat across from me, her movements precise, but not as fluid as Kaplan's. Laeda had always carried a tension with her, a kind of coiled energy that rippled just beneath her controlled exterior. Her dark eyes swept over the room, catching mine for the briefest moment before she looked away, already distasteful.

"Director Pandora," she greeted, the words clipped, but professional.

"Director Bass," I replied smoothly, my tone a mirror of hers. Polite. Controlled.

Laeda never smiled. Not with me, at least. And I had long since stopped wondering why. Whatever her reasons, they didn't matter. We functioned, just as Society expected us to.

I suspected it stemmed from my previous decisions—my foggy memories suggested that I had rejected more than a few of Laeda's propositions. Ones that Kaplan, in his careful yet firm way, had voted against as well. Whether he did so out of agreement with me or out of his own reasoning, I didn't know. It was of little consequence now.

The meeting began like any other. We reviewed the latest results from the research divisions, scrutinized projections, and rebalanced priorities where necessary. Kaplan offered his usual tempered insights, and Laeda remained focused, interjecting only when she felt it necessary. But even when she spoke, it was with the tone of someone who knew her proposals would meet resistance.

"Director Pandora," Laeda said, her voice cutting into the discussion as we reviewed a particularly contentious project. "The predictions for Division Alpha-9 are off by a noticeable margin. Their current trajectory doesn't align with the original estimates."

I flicked my eyes toward the data she referenced on my terminal. Off, yes, but only if you were looking at it in isolation.

"They're off because they've shifted their focus," I replied, my voice even. "It's a recalibration. The estimates will fall into line once they integrate with Division Beta-7's outputs."

Laeda's eyes narrowed slightly. "Beta-7 is a risk. Their work is... volatile."

"And essential," I countered. "Both are working toward the same goal. Beta-7's volatility is compensated by Alpha-9's precision. They'll converge in due time. This is a pattern, not a deviation."

Kaplan's hand hovered over his chin, his grey eyes flicking between Laeda and me, thoughtful but quiet. He had been observing this tension for months now, never commenting, never taking a side overtly, though I suspected he leaned toward my assessments. Kaplan understood the value in patterns, but he didn't see them with the same clarity I did.

Laeda exhaled sharply, her displeasure palpable but contained. She didn't push further. She never did when it came to me. For all her personal disdain, she knew better than to challenge openly without solid ground.

"I will monitor their progress," I said, ending the discussion on that note. Kaplan gave a small nod in agreement.

And so, the meeting continued. Discussions about logistics, allocation of resources, project deadlines—it was all routine now.

After the meeting concluded, I found myself alone in my office, high above the rest of the Institute. The sterile white walls reflected the cold light of the evening, casting long shadows that stretched across the polished floor.

Around me, papers and documents were scattered in what would seem like a disorganized mess to anyone else. Reports from various departments, memos from the research divisions, snippets of ongoing projects—they lay strewn across the large desk, fluttering slightly in the artificial breeze of the ventilation.

To the untrained eye, they were unrelated. Random. Chaotic.

But to me, they were threads. Pieces of a much larger puzzle, each one connected to the other in ways that no one else could see.

I stepped to the large window, looking out over the city. The lights of the city below flickered like stars, cold and distant, much like the people who lived and worked within it. Just another part of the pattern. Did they even know?

My eyes drifted back to the papers, scanning the notes I had made, the annotations in the margins. Everything was connected. I could see it, even if I didn't know the final destination.

The Society's goals were never revealed to us explicitly. But they didn't need to be. That was part of my job, to infer them. It was in the way pieces moved, the way the research divisions shifted focus, the subtle redirections of resources that no one else noticed. It was in the minutiae. The details. The things I had naturally perceived, been trained to see—and the things the Casting had sharpened further.

After my second Casting, it was as though the patterns had become even clearer. The lines more defined, the connections brighter. My mind moved through them like water, fluid and unimpeded. But there was something else, too. Something quieter.

I felt different.

Not worse. Not better. Just... different. The emotional pull I once felt toward certain things, certain people, had dulled. I was sharper, yes. More efficient. But the quiet in my mind had become louder. And I was alone in it.

My gaze shifted to a set of documents near the edge of my desk—proposals from Laeda. Ones I had rejected, again. I didn't remember exactly why, but I knew they hadn't fit. They hadn't aligned with the pattern. That was enough.

Still, something tugged at me, some question I couldn't quite pin down. Why does she dislike me so much? I had wondered about it before, but like so many other things, the thought slipped through my fingers when I tried to hold onto it.

I turned back to the window, letting the question drift away again, like everything else. It didn't matter.

All that mattered was the pattern. And I could see it clearer than anyone.

As the night deepened, the cold light of my office cast longer shadows. In the quiet, I stood alone, surrounded by the intricate web of connections only I could understand.