Her Brother's Keeper: A Story of Alpha Centauri
Delving Into the Past

She was tired, oh so very tired. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t slept well. In fact, she had slept like a log. Instead, it was because of her intense training the prior afternoon. “I hope that I never have to pick up another bokken in my life,” Christiana thought as she tried to keep her heavy eyelids from closing.

Yesterday her sensei had introduced her to the basics of kendo. This was a martial art from Nippon, which involved the use of long, curved wooden sticks to simulate swords referred to as katanas. Back on Old Earth, the Nipponese normally utilized something called a shinai for kendo. However, shinai broke easily over a lengthy period. So people in the Sol system replaced shinai with plastic bokken when practicing kendo.

Spacers used this material in place of hardwoods for their bokkens because of the partial ban of wood exports off of Earth. Since they could only grow trees on that planet, wood was significantly more valuable than gold or platinum in space. Even on Mars and Luna, there was no economical way to make a pressurized enclosure large enough to raise a full-sized oak or mahogany tree. Instead, such an area would be utilized to house more colonists or for other, more practical purposes. Plus, “precious” metals were mined from asteroids in such abundance that the off-world price of gold was not much higher than titanium or aluminum. Of course, that caused the homeworld to ban the import of these metals to prevent the collapse of its national economies.

No Spacer would import a long, curved piece of precious metal just to beat someone else over the head with it. Even if somebody did, they would have to guard the wooden sword against thieves constantly. After all, once the bokken was sliced up and carved into rings by a jeweler, there was no way to identify, much less recover it.

They used kendo as exercise on the starships, along with other martial arts. That was why those techniques still existed in Christiana’s time.

‘I wish that they had forgotten all about kendo,’ she reflected as she listlessly brought a spoon of oatmeal to her mouth. Even that action hurt the child’s arm. ‘I never thought waving a stick around would make my arms ache like this,’ she contemplated as she took in her surroundings.

All the siblings were seated at the rectangular wooden table in the dining room. As usual, Haruhi-nee was sitting beside her. Meanwhile, her Brother was opposite Christiana. This was also quite normal. However, the fact that Amelia-neechan was in the chair next to Johnathan-nii was quite abnormal.

Amelia-neechan typically sat across from Sophie-oneechan and she normally spent her meals trying to talk to her bookish elder Sister. Sophie-oneechan, meanwhile, would spend her time with her eyes glued to her portable, reading a book while eating her food. Her only responses to her chattering younger sibling consisted of one syllable, usually out of politeness. Still, this never seemed to deter Amelia-neechan from her constant babbling.

This morning Sophie-oneechan was sitting alone near the middle of the dining room table, a slight smile evident on her normally expressionless face. Meanwhile, Haruhi-nee and Amelia-neechan were chatting happily with one another. Their conversation, of course, was about Amelia-neechan’s future business plans.

Ana-onee was at the far end of the dinner table across from patMother Sydney. As usual, the duo was talking with each other in hushed tones. Christiana noted that the two eldest girls were consuming their soy bacon and synthetic eggs at a rapid pace. Since the cook was off this morning, they had made this simple breakfast together. Once the meal was over, they would also have to clean up and put the dishes in the washer. The adolescents were eating quickly so they could get to school on time after completing their chores.

She lethargically took a nibble of her plant-based bacon, and her eyes met her brother’s. ‘He looks so bored,’ she realized as she chewed her crispy soy product. Usually, their brother would talk with Haruhi-nee and Christiana while the three ate. Today, however, the black-haired girl was preoccupied with Amelia-neechan and Christiana was practically falling to sleep while eating. To make things even worse, the two chattering Sisters were talking about a subject that Johnathan-nii knew very little about.

‘He’s probably totally lost by their conversation,’ the light-haired girl realized as she finished her bacon.

Noticing Christiana’s gaze, the boy asked, “How’s your training going?”

‘He must really want to talk with me,’ she thought. ‘He’s never this forward in front of the rest of the matFam.’ While their brother was alone with Haruhi-nee and Christiana, he talked with them normally, just like the two Sisters chatted with each other. When in the presence of the other siblings, however, he was much quieter and more polite.

While this was how society expected a male to act around his female superiors, the Washingtons were more laid back than most families. Their entire House gave their males more rights and freedoms than most. They were proud decedents of the Second Wave, and their ancestors had taken part in the Uprising one hundred forty-six Colonial Years ago.

‘Too bad we weren’t successful,’ Christiana reflected. ‘Men should have the same rights as women.’

“Chris-mouto?” John-nii asked.

It was only then that she realized that she had been lost in thought yet again.

“I apologize, I am just exhausted,” she responded, embarrassed that he caught her zoning out. “The training is going, but it’s very tiring.”

“I’m sorry, Chris-imouto,” he replied with a worried frown. “I didn’t think that they would train you in martial arts every day.”

She chuckled gloomily, “I am really glad that I don’t have to do extra studying in addition to combat practice like Mandy-imouto and Kelly-imouto.”

She felt bad for her patSisters. Since there was a written section of the competition besides the physical part, those two had to take special classes plus combat instruction. The third patSister in the tournament, Sakura-oneechan, had already been in one tournament and she had gotten a perfect score on the written test. Thus, she was exempt from having to study. Luckily, Christiana’s grades were high enough that she was also exempt, much to her relief.

“Well, just think,” her brother said with a grin, “all of that hard work will pay off. Once you win, we can go to school together.”

“Yeah,” she agreed cheerily as she picked up her last piece of soy bacon and stuffed it into her mouth.

Johnathan-nii replied with an enormous smile.

‘At least my acting is good enough to fool him,’ she thought, secretly wishing that breakfast would end. ‘I don’t enjoy lying to him. He is so naïve and trusting.’

Just then, her wish came true. Ana-onee rose to her feet and announced, “Hurry up, guys. We need to get going.” Then she and patMother Sydney cleared the table. Meanwhile, the siblings did their best to eat a last bite or two of food before getting up and taking their dishes to the kitchen.

-----

Since Christiana had martial arts practice every school day and because Johnathan-nii wanted to spend every evening with her, she could not replace the time after school to research Miss Harrison’s question. That only left before school and during her lunch break to look into things.

That was why she was eating her lunch with one hand and working with her portable with the other while in the noisy lunchroom. Haruhi-nee was sitting across from her reading her own portable while also eating her cafeteria purchased sandwich.

At first, she had simply logged into the school’s library, although she had very little hope that it would have any historical information of note. After all, the data available on the server was all age restricted. Since she was only 15, the only data available via the school library were books aimed at elementary school students.

After spending about five minutes of fruitless searching, she decided to try the Simmon’s Town public library machines. ‘They may have something on there that could be of use,’ Christiana thought. ‘They have a lot of history books after all.’

However, after wasting another five minutes searching on the library server, she had to conclude that the information she was using was not available to the general public.

“Haruhi-nee, do you know if the backdoor we installed on the House system still usable?” Christiana asked her womb-mate.

“It should be,” Haruhi-nee responded.with interest as she took her eyes off of her portable. “Why do you need access to the system?”

“I’m trying to research a question Miss Harrison asked me to look into,” Christiana answered.

“Have you tried the public library?” Haruhi-nee asked. “I wouldn’t use the backdoor unless you really need to, since it could be detected unless we are not careful while accessing it from offsite.”

“I already tried the public library, but I had no luck. That means the information is age restricted or only accessible via a House system or both,” Christiana said as she kept typing away on the portable’s screen.

“Hmm.. I guess you could try the House system, but it might still be unavailable even then. If you run into an issue, I’ll help you crack the age restriction,” Haruhi-nee volunteered.

“Okay, I may take you up on that,” Christiana responded, while typing away.

When Haruhi-nee went back to reading on her own portable, Christiana connected to the House system and then used the password the girls had created to bypass most of the system’s security blocks. She then tried to access the House archives and was successful.

“Yes, I’m in!” she exclaimed much more loudly than she had intended. While it momentarily drew curious looks from the other students in the lunchroom, they quickly lost interest and went back to eating.

“Shhhh!” Haruhi-nee chided. “Keep it down over there. The last thing that we need is for you to attract the attention of a teacher.”

“Okay, okay,” Christiana replied. “But the backdoor works. I’m in, now I just need to access the archives.”

After five minutes of trying to get into the archives to no avail, Christiana said, “Haruhi-nee please give me a hand over here.”

“Okay,” Haruhi-nee responded just before she ate the last part of her meal in a single bite. Then she circled the table over to where Christiana was sitting. “I think we should use another login code specifically for the arrives.”

“So instead of using the backdoor we should use a different account?”

“Yep,” came Haruhi’s curt response.

“What login should we use then?” Christiana asked.

“How about trying your own account? We set up the backdoor for one reason, to login to the House computer. We did not set it up to log into the archives.” Haruhi-nee reminded Christiana.

“But if I use my credentials to get into the archives won’t they detect it?” Christiana asked.

“Think about it, they set up the House system to block entry,” Haruhi-nee reminded her. “Once you are beyond that point, only a very capable systems admin could detect the login from inside the exterior firewalls.”

“You have a good point. Now I just need to write the code needed to login to the archives with a different account than the one used for logging on to the system itself,” Christiana realized.

“You better hurry up. We only have fifteen minutes left for our lunch break,” Haruhi pointed out. “I could help you with it, but only if you tell me what you are researching.”

“Thats a secret between Miss Harrison and myself,” Christiana said as she tapped away on her portable.

“Aww… you’re no fun!” came Haruhi’s response.

“Nope, I’m no fun at all,” Christiana replied with a smile all the while typing away. “Besides, I’m sure that you would keep a secret if Miss Kayajima asked you to.”

“You’re right,” Haruhi replied. “I won’t ask you again.”

“Okay, I have written the code, now I just have to execute it,” she said, all but ignoring Haruhi who was still peeking over her shoulder. Then, with a final keystroke, she ran the code.

On the portable’s screen a new window appeared asking for a password to log into the archive. “That worked,” Christiana all but whispered as she entered her own credentials.

After a second or two a new window appeared saying “Welcome to the Washington archives.”

Christiana bounced up and down in her chair when the login worked, since she was so excited about it.

“Well, the good news is that you got in,” Haruhi stated. “The bad news is that we only have ten minutes left for our break.”

“Crap!” Christiana exclaimed, this time in her normal indoor voice.

“Look at it this way. Tomorrow is another day,” Haruhi-nee stated, apparently in an attempt to cheer her up her womb-mate. “We will just have to pick up where we left off during tomorrow’s lunch.”

“But…” Christiana began, only to be silenced by her older Sister.

“Now finish your lunch or you will be hungry during practice this evening,” Haruhi-nee said.

“Oh… and what would happen if I don’t eat it?”

“Tonight, while you are asleep, I will tickle you until you pee your pants,” Haruhi-nee said in a joking manner.

“Okay, okay!” Christiana said as she shut down her portable.

—-

Moments after Christiana logged off there was a phone call made from one of House Washington’s security personnel to the head of House Washington.

“Hello this is Holly Washington,” answered the head of the House.

“Princess One has broken into the family archives. You will need to provide the proper access to retrieve the information she needs.”

“Of course, I will give her access to the texts that Miss Harrison has asked me to unlock,” Holly replied. “Is there anything else that I can help you with?”

“Right now, we are just happy that she is becoming more active in her own future. She is finally taking her own fate into consideration instead of just letting life pass her by. She has never shown this side of herself before.”

“I am just glad that things are proceeding according to plan,” came Holly’s response.

“Of course you are,” the other person replied. “Of course you are.”

-----

The following day Christiana bought a sandwich before becoming lost in her own research. As with the day before, Haruhi-nee was sitting across the table with her eyes locked on her portable.

‘Today I am going to replace the information that Miss Harrison wanted me to research!’ Christiana thought as she typed away on her own portable.

First, Christiana used the back door to log into the House system. She then used the code she had written for her to log into the archives as herself. As a result, it only took a couple of minutes to get back in.

Once inside, Christiana began her search. ‘Lets see, where should I begin?’ she thought. The House archives included data dating back to before the starships had left the Sol system. Needless to say it held an incredible amount of information, although most of it only dated back to Colonial Year seventy one. That was when the Second Wave of colonists entered the a-cent-b system. Christiana’s family could trace their history back to the founder of House Washington who was part of the Second Wave.

At first she searched the history books found in the system. However, looking up “the number of Keepers a male could have” returned no hits.

‘How about I search the entire archive and not just the history texts?’ she thought. Upon running it against all texts in the system, she found two hits. All of them were diaries from the period immediately following the Uprising in the Spring of Colonial Year 112. Since this happened almost 150 Years in the past, she hadn’t thought of looking at journals from that period. ‘I guess it’s better to read first-hand accounts instead of what the historians decided was relevant,’ Christiana thought as she opened the first diary.

‘Now I just need to look for any references to Keepers,’ Christiana reflected, as she entered the search parameters.

‘Hmm too many Keeper references in the text,’ she mused as she changed the parameters to include “number of Keepers.”

‘Got it,’ Christiana thought as a grin formed on her face. ‘Only four hits in the book.’

After looking into the first two hits, she quickly realized that they were merely complaining that the federal government was trying to push their ideals onto the provinces that were involved in the Uprising. To them it was bad enough that they had taken away the basic rights of their men, but they also instigated the Keeper system.

According to the diary, the idea of assigning a female to each male simply wasn’t possible. They lived on the frontier after all. That meant it took every person they could get to eek out a living. Now the males couldn’t work and it also took a working female out of the equation. Besides, the idea of having a single Keeper per male wasn’t even a written in the law, but a custom of the Feds.

That’s why the author of the journal and her Sisters took turns watching over the males on a rotating basis. The younger colony couldn’t afford to lose the expertise of a single colonist.

‘So it’s true,’ Christiana thought. ‘150 Years ago males could have more than one Keeper, at least in the Second Wave provinces.’

‘I wonder if the laws have changed over the Years or is the idea of one Keeper per male is just a custom,’ Christiana mused as she opened up the next journal.

This diary was also from the same period and it conveyed a similar feeling as the previous one. ‘It seems like this group of people really hated the Federal government.’ Christiana thought as she searched through the diary. ‘That is something that was downplayed in the history books and not even mentioned in History class.’

This diary expressed even more hatred than the one she had just read excerpts from. The journal was from a teenager who had been forced to leave her first year of high school to act as a Keeper for her male relatives in middle school.

Not only that, but the Feds also forced her younger Sister to leave the prestigious middle school for the same reason. Not only that, but both girls were in the talented and gifted program and were studying civil engineering. Now, the girls had to go to a public school, the only school in the area that had a separate wing just for male students.

“We have lost our chance to become engineers, all because we have to babysit a bunch of brats!” the girl had written in her diary.

‘Wow! She really did have a rough time of it,’ Christiana thought as she read this passage. ‘From this, it is easy to see that not only was there more than one Keeper per male, but they also watched over multiple males at the same time,’ Christiana realized.

‘What Miss Harrison asked me to look into is true!’ she thought as her eyes grew wide in wonder. ‘That means that unless they have changed the federal law concerning Keepers it might be possible for Haruhi and I to both become John-nii’s Keepers!’

For the rest of the lunch break, Christiana sat there and ate her food in stunned silence while mulling over the repercussions of her new discovery.

-----

The same evening, Christiana thought about her discovery and its implications throughout the school day. She was still thinking about things while studying martial arts after school.

Suddenly, Christiana felt a sharp pain in her rear end, causing her to jump and yelp.

“Christiana, stop daydreaming!” Saito-sensei said. “Next time it won’t be a love tap like that one!”

“Yes, sensei,” Christiana said with a deep bow.

“When fighting you have to be aware of your surroundings,” Saito-sensei reminded her pupil. “If you are careless during an actual battle, then you can be badly hurt or even killed.”

“But, sensei, I am only learning this for the Keeper tournament,” Christiana pointed out. “It’s not like I plan to use these skills afterwards.”

“You never know if or when you will need the skills you learn as a child. You could be seventy Years old and need to protect yourself against an attacker,” the sensei pointed out. “While our crime rate is low, people still get mugged from time to time.”

“Yes, sensei,” Christiana said. However, her thoughts were quite different. ‘This is Simmon Town, after all. It isn’t a major city like Cooper’s Landing or even Planetfall. That’s where most crimes take place.’

“Now pay attention and do your exercises again!” Saito-sensei said. “Start the swings over at one.”

“But sensei, I was already halfway done,” Christiana protested.

“Well, now you’re starting over because you weren’t focused on your swings and thus they were sloppy,” Saito-sensei said. “Practising badly does not make perfect. Perfect practise makes perfect.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Christiana said as she took the proper stance and began swinging her bokken in the proper way.

-----