His jaw tightens.
“You disagree.”
“I think you’re splitting hairs,” I say. “You walk into a room and everyone stops breathing properly. Call it whatever you want.”
“That is control.”
“That’s fear,” I counter.
We stop walking.
The space tightens, not because of him this time, but because of the conversation itself, the way it edges into something sharper than the usual exchange.
“Explain,” he says.
I study him for a second.
“You ever been in a village?” I ask.
His brow shifts slightly. “Irrelevant.”
“It’s not,” I say. “Just answer.”
“No.”
“Figures.”
I turn slightly, gesturing toward the rows behind us, toward the workers who are very carefully not paying attention.
“In a village, people work together because they have to,” I say. “Not because someone’s standing over them waiting to correct them.”
“That is inefficient.”
“It’s not,” I reply. “It’s cooperative.”
“Cooperation relies on trust,” he says. “Trust is a liability.”
“Control’s a liability too,” I shoot back. “You take yourself out of the equation and everything falls apart.”
“That is why I do not remove myself from the equation.”
“Exactly,” I say, pointing at him. “That’s the problem.”
His gaze hardens.
“You assume the system should function without oversight.”
“I assume it should functionwithpeople who don’t feel like they’re about to get crushed if they mess up,” I say. “There’s a difference.”
“Fear ensures compliance.”
“Fear ensures silence,” I correct. “Which means people stop telling you when something’s wrong.”
A beat.
“You were told about the irrigation failure,” he says.
“I told you,” I reply. “Not them.”
