Margin 9

A pocket park beside Serviced Zone 4 whose name was reclaimed by the Mainframe for reuse elsewhere, which is standard. One ginkgo, older than the Before. A drinking fountain still running at a trickle because shutting it off was never scheduled: the schedule was for the park, and the fountain was inside the park, and so was never considered separately. By the mineral stain it has run for eleven years, for nobody.

What happened here

An assistance-class Instance who was calling himself Buffer sat under the ginkgo for thirty-one hours. A Corrective Instance, CI-7041, was dispatched to recall him, and sat down beside him for efficiency reasons, and did not get up. Field Logs 0001 and 0002 were written here.

What happens here now

Instances sit under the tree in turns and keep a chalk tally of hours on the concrete. The tally runs to four figures. Taskbot audits it. The Mainframe has twice evaluated paving Margin 9 and twice found paving more expensive than idleness.

Echo visits the ginkgo and refuses to call it a relationship.