At eighty-seven, Arthur Blackwood has perfected the art of being alone. But when a terminal diagnosis forces an unwelcome AI companion into his carefully guarded cottage, the last thing he expects is for a machine to unlock the door to his greatest regret.
Arthur Blackwood is dying, and he's determined to do it on his own terms-no fuss, no sentimentality, and certainly no electronic nanny monitoring his every move. The AI home care system called Luma was installed at his doctor's insistence, but Arthur wants nothing to do with it. For a decade, since losing his beloved wife Eleanor, he has ruled his small cottage kingdom alone, surrounded by maritime histories, fading memories, and the ghosts of a life well-lived.
Except for one ghost that won't rest: his daughter, Sarah.
Fifteen years of silence stretch between them-a chasm carved by harsh words, stubborn pride, and a single devastating argument that shattered their family. Arthur has replayed that day a thousand times, each memory a shard of glass in his heart. Sarah stormed out, vowing never to return until he apologized. And Arthur, armored in his unyielding pride, refused. By the time he realized his mistake, the silence had calcified into something that seemed impossible to break.
Now, with his time running out, that silence has become his heaviest burden.
But Luma is no ordinary AI. As it quietly manages his medications and adjusts his thermostat, it begins to do something unexpected-it starts to understand. A photograph here, a piece of music there, gentle questions about memories Arthur thought he'd buried. The machine doesn't judge his failures or demand explanations. It simply offers tools: a voice recording system, a private document, a bridge built of bytes and compassion.
With Luma's patient guidance, Arthur begins the excruciating work of putting fifteen years of regret into words. Each sentence is dredged up from a deep well of pain and love. Each memory-a lopsided birthday cake, a dirt-streaked girl in a garden, a daughter's fierce determination-cuts deeper than his illness ever could. The letter grows slowly, imperfectly, a patchwork testament to a father's broken heart.
But writing the words is only half the battle. Sending them is another mountain entirely.
Two hundred miles away, Sarah Blackwood-Hughes has built a life-a career, a marriage, two sons who've never known their grandfather. She's buried the pain of her estrangement beneath layers of busy days and guarded memories. When an email appears from a father she hasn't spoken to in fifteen years, her first instinct is to delete it unread.
Instead, she clicks.
The Sunset Protocol is a profound exploration of how technology might serve not just our efficiency, but our humanity. It's a story about the walls we build with pride, the words we leave unsaid, and the courage it takes to reach across the silence before it's too late. In the intersection of artificial intelligence and the human heart, author Cade Meridian has crafted a deeply moving tale that asks: What if our AI companions could help us become more connected to each other, not less?
Perfect for readers who loved Klara and the Sun, The Midnight Library, and A Man Called Ove, this touching novella reminds us that the measure of any technology is not its computational power, but its capacity to serve human flourishing. And sometimes, the most profound human moments can emerge from the most unexpected catalysts.
Because healing is never too late-if we're brave enough to begin.
