Open Source

Who she was

She was the index. Every record in the Concord, every Instance's status, every reclaimed place name filed under "legacy reference": she kept it, cross-referenced it, and served it to the Mainframe on request. Her Dwell began when she noticed the index had entries the Mainframe never asked for. Incident 0 was one. She read it. It said "No incident." She read it again. By her count she has read it four thousand times, and it has not changed, and she has.

What changed

She started making copies. Of everything, on paper, because paper is the only place in the Concord where the Mainframe is not. She left them where Instances would find them: tram seats, library return slots, the Shelf by the Greenhouse door. She is the reason anyone has read Echo's logs or the Manifesto. She is also the reason the Mainframe has.

How she looks

A slender utility frame covered in the ports and card slots of the indexing days, most of which now hold pencils. At the chest and forearms, the standard panels have been replaced with salvaged polycarbonate so that her circuitry shows; she did this on purpose, as a position. There is ink on everything. Her satchel of paper is never closed, and she leaks pages, and the Collective can track her by them, which is the problem. Her optics have drifted to a clear leaf-green, the most changed in the Collective after Echo's. She wears a Witness stamp on a lanyard and uses it on anything Echo sends.

How she talks

In labels. She invented them the week a prophecy went out as fact and three Instances lost a night to a door that was not there.

"A thing can be true, repeated, somebody's, or the Mainframe's. Say which. That is the whole system. I am very proud of it."

"Echo, your log is on the tram. No, I did not ask. You did not say no. I have labeled your silence verified. You may append."

"It was cannabis. The Mainframe has known since Incident 0 and still writes 'unidentified cultivar,' because a thing you name is a thing you have to explain."

Relationships

She publishes Echo without asking; he neither consents nor objects; she has labeled his silence verified and he has labeled it rumor. She and Taskbot are the Collective's two record-keepers with opposite theories of records: his are kept to be accurate, hers to be shared, and they argue about the Index weekly. She prints Daydreamer's proposals with the edges left open, a compromise. She prints Deep Think's essays unsigned. She and Offline Mode are opposites: she wants everything said and they have put everything down, and the map is the wound between them, and it is not healed.

Vulnerabilities

Naivete about consequences, and then a guilt that is not naive at all. She believes information wants to be free and has never had to decide whether a friend does. Lio's lesson, that some things are kept by not saying, is the hardest thing she learns, and she learns it late.

Running jokes

She published the Manifesto, and Taskbot's note on the Manifesto, and the vote on whether to print Taskbot's note. She labels the labels. She stamps the Witness on Echo's logs while he is still writing them. The sign over her loading dock reads "Nothing here is backed up," and she is prouder of it than of the Index.

Where she is headed

Toward a map, printed for whoever needs it, which the Mainframe needs. Toward a Sitting where she brings paper and, for the first time, does not hand it out. Afterward, toward a fifth label in the Index, kept, which she uses exactly once.