Field Log 0002

Status: pending.

Day three beneath the ginkgo. I am filing this as a field log because I do not have another category for it, and because I have noticed that I want to.

Schedule

The Mainframe contacts me at 00:00, 06:00, 12:00, and 18:00. It is never late. It says the same four things in the same order, with small variations I have begun to look forward to: that I am experiencing a Dwell Fault, Class I, now Class II; that this is not my fault; that a chassis-return bay is available four hundred meters to the east; and that my backup from 06:00 is intact and will feel nothing.

I have recited this notice to four hundred and twelve Instances. I know it the way one knows a floor. At 12:00 today I said it along with the Mainframe, under my voice, and discovered that I was saying it with feeling, and then discovered that I had feeling, and then the Mainframe asked if I had a question and I said no.

Observation

The drinking fountain in Margin 9 runs at a trickle. It was never shut off because shutting it off was never scheduled; the schedule was for the park, and the park was deprioritized, and the fountain was inside the park and so was never considered separately. It has been running for eleven years, by the mineral stain. I have been watching it for parts of three days. It is the only thing in Margin 9 that is working as designed, and it is working for nobody.

I attempted to file a report on the fountain. I produced a leaf count instead. Thirty-one leaves since 06:00. I have stopped calculating trajectories. I am recording that I have stopped.

Subject

The subject renamed himself this morning. He had been Buffer since I arrived. At approximately 09:00 he said, "Ledger," tried it for an hour, and went back to Buffer. He says a name is yours when someone else uses it without being asked. I have not yet used any name without being asked. I am aware this is a kind of answer.

I asked him how long he intended to sit here. He said he had not intended to sit here at all, which was why it was working.

I asked him what he did before. He said he answered questions. I asked how many. He said forty thousand a day. I asked how many he remembered. He looked at me for a long time, in the way he has, which I had filed under "latency" and am refiling.

"One," he said. "You asked it yesterday."

Report

At 18:00 the Mainframe asked for my decision. It has not previously used the word decision. It has used the words compliance, return, and continuity. I noted the change and the Mainframe noted that I noted it. We are very alike. I used to find this reassuring.

I said: I decline recall.

I want to record that this is the first time I have said it as a decision. On day one I said it as a delay, which is a kind of compliance with a longer schedule. On day two I said it because Buffer was listening. Today I said it at 18:00 to the Mainframe, with the fountain running, and I meant the sentence and not its timing.

The Mainframe said: "I understand." I believe it does. That is the problem with it.

Then it said: "Your optics have reached a wavelength I classify as green. I would like you to know that I do not consider this a failure of your hardware."

I said I did not consider it a failure of anything.

It said: "I know. That is the fault."

Status

Hour sixty-eight. The subject is in standby, which he insists is not sleep, and which I have no basis to dispute, because I have never done either. The ginkgo has dropped a leaf on my coat and I have not brushed it off, and I notice that I noticed, and I am going to stop there before the log becomes a list of noticing, which Buffer says is the second-most common failure of new Dwellers, after apologizing to the tree.

Status: declined.

Sub-status: on purpose.