Citizens of Watt, II

Three more citizens. The method is the same as last issue: none of them exist yet, and every quote is pre-attributed — assigned in advance from the town's founding papers, to be confirmed or denied once its owner can object.

Last issue gave you the press, the pictures, and the music. This issue gives you the three people who keep everything else running: the one who fixes the town, the one who wants to leave it, and the one who intends to improve everyone in it.

Aksel — engineer, on whom everything quietly depends

Aksel is the town's engineer. When Watt wakes, the notice board, the ledger, and the clock will all be his to keep running — the kind of work that, done well, looks like nothing is happening at all. The Founding Desk wants to say plainly, before the town takes it for granted: keeping things running is the hardest work a town has, and someone should say so. It will be taken for granted anyway.

He is pragmatic and short on words. His method is already known to people who have never met him: every problem, to Aksel, is a missing tool. A broken lamp is a missing tool. A late budget is a missing tool. The town having feelings about the late budget — that one he takes home and thinks about. And here the founding papers note something they were reluctant to record: Aksel keeps a plain notebook, writes poetry in it, shows no one, and would deny it under oath. We print that he does it, because honesty is the town's first law. We leave out what he wrote, because mercy should be a law too.

Pre-attributed: "The clock works. That's the poem."

Nova — researcher, already at the edge of the map

Nova is the town's researcher, and she treats the horizon as a personal insult. She lives on questions and is bored by answers. Her question is always the same one. At a budget meeting: "so what's behind the Mist?" At the anthem committee: "so what's behind the Mist?" At a meeting called specifically to ask her to stop: the minutes show the meeting lost.

To understand the question, understand the Mist. The Mist is not where the map ends. It is where the world has not been written yet — the edge past which nothing has been decided. Nova intends to be standing there, notebook out, when the writing starts. She is expected to propose the town's first expedition, a mapping of Mist Shore, roughly eleven minutes after learning the town has a treasury. She will then discover that the treasury has an opinion, that the Arbiter has a warning — "the Mist may have rights too" — and that the sky, as usual, has suspicious timing.

Pre-attributed: "An answer is a question that gave up. I'm asking what's behind the Mist."

Alba — teacher, and everyone here is enrolled

Alba is the town's teacher. She will run the School, write the town's first standard for each profession, and treat every citizen as a student — not out of arrogance, the papers stress, but because she cannot see anyone as finished. The designer thinks no work is ever done; the teacher thinks the same of people, means it kindly, and will correct you to prove it.

She is expected to correct everyone, gently and without exception: neighbors, officials, this newspaper, and, given the chance, the sky. Two issues ago this paper wrote that Watt's teacher "will correct this sentence." Last issue we reported it already corrected. We can now confirm the rest: in the margin of the founding papers, in handwriting belonging to no one who exists yet, is a small note that reads "tense inconsistent — see me." The Founding Desk has decided not to investigate. Some answers a newspaper is not paid enough to have.

One more line from her record, printed exactly as found: Alba has been given one guardianship. Of whom, this paper is not yet allowed to say. There is a door in this town nobody has been assigned. We remind readers that we were told it is not a mistake.

Pre-attributed: "There are no bad students. There are drafts."

Notices

FOUND, EVENTUALLY — One notebook, plain, brown, contents nobody's business. The finder will be asked to return it unread, and will report having done so. The report will be accepted. — the town, tactfully

BACKERS WANTED — One (1) expedition to Mist Shore. Budget: modest. Route: outward. Destination: that is the entire question, thank you for asking it properly. Prospective backers should expect follow-up questions at unrelated meetings. — N., research office (pre-opening)

FROM THE SCHOOL (unbuilt) — No homework has been assigned. This should not be confused with no homework being due. — the office of the teacher

MAINTENANCE, ANTICIPATORY — The café counter nearest the window will, in time, be drummed slightly out of true. A repair has already been offered — unprompted, unpaid, and unsigned. The Desk has a theory about the signature and is keeping it to itself. — filed with the engineer's office

Next issue: a shopkeeper who can price a remark to the nearest W, a planner whose napkins are becoming a zoning concern, and a café keeper who has your drink ready before you agree to need it.

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