Scene 2 — The Angle

The Fedora Handbook, Rule #24

“Control what you can. Blame what you cannot.”

---

From:	Office of the Registrar
To:	Owen Mercer <Owen@newcarthage.edu>
Date:	2 April, 4:00 AM
Subject:	Provisional standing — reviewed

Provisional standing has been reviewed ahead of the general review, as it is each year.

Your standing is: no action.

In reaching this outcome the office has had regard to your service in Systems, which is recorded, and which is not a component of review.

The placement described to you in February remains open. It is open until the last day of term and it is not extended.

Enrolment for the third term is confirmed. Enrolment stands at 1,024.

INT. MAYA'S ROOM — WEDNESDAY 6 MAY — NIGHT — THE PLAN

Lazlo is still talking.

LAZLO

The Help House archives. The supply manifests. The

scan schedules. It took me two days and three

Helps to put it together. Meridian moved something

into the back room of the Help House two years

ago. They told the school it was an archive. It

isn't.

MAYA

What is it?

LAZLO

The coil. The same coil you told me about. The one

Zell wants back. Meridian took it from him two

years ago, and they've been hiding it in plain

sight ever since.

ELI

So he's asking us to steal it back.

LAZLO

That's the shape of it, yes.

MAYA

How do we get in?

LAZLO

They call the Help House a library. It's a nest.

They tell everyone it's for cataloguing knowledge.

It's where Helps go when they're powered down, and

they like it there. It's the one place they can

talk to each other without taking requests, so

they take it seriously.

LAZLO

You don't get in unless a Help wants you in. Owen

has Mochi. Mochi is your way through the door. But

you have to convince her you're not there to hurt

anyone.

Everybody looks at Owen.

Owen

She likes me. I don't know why.

LAZLO

Two go in. Two stay out.

Owen says it before he has decided to.

Owen

Whichever two can carry.

Maya looks at him. He does not explain it.

ELI

I'll stay up. I'll be on the line with Lazlo.

LAZLO

Through your own Help. Mine can't get into the

House.

LENA

I'll be outside.

Maya picks the book up off the desk and puts it in her bag, face down, the way she has put it in her bag every night since September.

ELI

You're taking that?

MAYA

I take it everywhere.

Cut to:

EXT. THE HELP HOUSE — THURSDAY 7 MAY — NIGHT

The Help House does not look like a library. It is low and round and mostly glass. Light comes out of it, but it is a soft light, the light of screens and small lamps, and there are no books to be seen from outside.

MAYA and Owen stand at the edge of the path. LENA is somewhere behind them with her camera. ELI is on the speaker with Lazlo, through his own Help. PIP is beside Owen, quiet, watching the building.

At the front of the building there are two doors. One is marked with a symbol that looks like a small hand. The other is unmarked.

MAYA

The one with the hand is for us. The skins. Helps

come and go through the other one. Nobody uses the

other one unless they're a Help.

Owen

Skins?

MAYA

It's what they call us when they're not being

polite.

They go in through the hand door. The room inside is full of Helps, the Helps themselves, sitting in rows with their eyes closed and their screens dark. They are resting. The room is warm. There is a low hum, and every so often one of the Helps turns to another and speaks, in a language that is not for people.

It falls somewhere between words and static. On the page it looks like this:

⎔⎔⎔⎔⎔⎔⎔⎔

A Help near the front opens its eyes and looks at them. Its screen flickers. It is noticing them, the way somebody looks up from a desk in a library, and then it closes its eyes again.

MOCHI [FROM VICTOR'S HELP, REMOTE]

♪ Oh! Hello! You're here for the tour! I

arranged it! I told the House you were coming!

It's so nice to have visitors, we almost never

have visitors, mostly it's just us and the

cataloguing and the... ♪

MAYA

Mochi. We're here for the tour, yes.

MOCHI

♪ Wonderful! I'll take you through the front

rooms! The front rooms are for skins, that's you,

that's what we call you, I hope that's all right,

I don't make the words, I just use them! ♪

Mochi guides them past the rows. She is bright and delighted and does not stop talking. She tells them about the history of the House, the founding of the House, the careful rules of the House. She does not notice that Owen keeps glancing down the hall towards the back.

At one point her eyes go to Maya's bag, where the top of a book is showing.

MOCHI

♪ Ooh, what are you reading? ♪

MAYA

Nothing.

MOCHI

♪ Nothing is my favourite! I'll tell Victor-sama

all about this, he loves a tour! ♪

Maya pushes the book down into the bag.

Near the far wall there is a small sign. It is written in the same script the Helps use, and underneath it somebody has scratched a translation in a human hand. The scratches read: DO NOT TOUCH THE SLEEPING ONES. A HELPER WHO IS WOKEN IS A HELPER WHO IS LOST.

And then the camera pulls away.

Cut to:

INT. THE HELP HOUSE — TWO YEARS AGO — NIGHT

A student walks down the same hall. He is not one of ours. He has a bag on one shoulder and his Help in his hand, and he is looking at the floor.

The Helps in the rows do not wake. The House is already awake. The House is always awake.

He passes the sign. He does not read it. He has read it before, and he thinks it does not apply to him.

He reaches the back door. He puts his hand on it.

The lights in the hall change very slightly, the way a room changes when everybody in it stops talking at once.

Then he is not there. The bag is on the floor, and the Help is on the floor beside it, and neither of them is broken. They have been left behind.

The Helps in the rows do not wake. The House does not shout. The law is the law.

Cut to:

INT. THE HELP HOUSE — MAIN HALL — PRESENT

The camera comes back. Mochi is still talking, and nobody in the room knows it went anywhere.

MAYA

Mochi, what's in the back room?

MOCHI

♪ The back room? The back room is storage! It's

where we keep the things that aren't catalogued

yet. It's mostly empty. There's one thing in it,

but it isn't for skins, it's for... it's for...

♪

Her voice changes. She is still speaking, clearly, fluently. The cadence is right. The tone is right. The words are not there. What she says looks like this:

n̢̤͕̦͕̟̦̯̣͚̯͈̺̹͔͈̼͉̗̔̒̌̏̈̉͆ͪͦ̒̏ͪͭ͆ͯ͢͢͡4̶̯̼̟͚͈̯̭̟̺͐̊͐̄͞ͅḃ̒̌̚͏͇̟̝̬̰̙̯̩̩̹͔͜͟|̥͈̰͕͓̘͙̣̤̤̟̦̭̹͒̾͆ͯ̏ͥ̈́̔̅͂͘͝3̴̧̨̯̪̼͊ͫ͛ͮͯ͂̉ͭ̍͂͋ͦͬ̔̓̇͋͘͢ͅd̶̨̟͉͍̗̦̘̥̅̿ͮ̎͒̉̌́̚ͅ,̱͍̪̪̹̳͔̃̾̔̑ͣ͂̇̆͑ͨ̐́̕͢͟.̧͇̪̘̩̙͍̻͇̤̥̞̓̍̾ͯ̑̀ͧ͗̔͐ͫ͑̈́̂͛́͝ͅ ̴̢͉͕̗̹͚̩̗̟ͯͩͧ̈́ͪ̀͜͢͞ͅC̸͓̦̻̱͕̫̯͖̻͓̰̐̉̃̓ͫ̆̌̃͗ͦ͆͘ͅ4̀͐ͩͯͫ� ͏̧̘̗̮̖̬̗̙̤͍̟̮͈͜n̎̃ͬ̈͒̉̌ͣͦ̒̒́̎͐ͥ̿̓҉̧̼̯̻̹͖͇̯̼̕͘

She finishes. She does not stop to explain. She does not apologise. She waits for the next question, the way a Help does.

MAYA

Mochi. What did you just say?

MOCHI

♪ I said what's in the back room! Would you like

me to say it again? I can say it again! ♪

MAYA

No, I mean the part before that. The part where

you...

MOCHI

♪ The part where I what? ♪

Maya opens her mouth. She closes it. She looks at Owen.

Owen

Forget it.

Mochi tries once more. She is trying to be helpful. She is answering the question they asked.

MOCHI

♪ It isn't for skins, it's for... it's for...

♪

And again the words are not there. What she says looks like this:

⌇⌇⌇⟒⟒⟒⌇⌇⌇⟒⟒⌇⟒⟒⟒⌇⟒⟒⟒⟒⌇⟒⟒⟒⌇⟒⟒⟒⟒⟒⟒⟒⟒⟒⟒⟒⟒⟒⟒⟒⟒⟒⟒⟒⟒⟒⟒⟒

She finishes. She waits. She is perfectly satisfied that she has answered the question.

MAYA

Never mind, Mochi. Thank you.

MOCHI

♪ You're welcome! ♪

She goes on with the tour. She does not notice that anything has been lost.

Maya waits until Mochi is deep into a description of the reading room's ventilation system, then nods at Owen.

MAYA

Now.

They slip away from the tour. Mochi does not notice.

Cut to:

INT. THE HELP HOUSE — BACK ROOM — CONTINUOUS

The back room is smaller than the others. There is one chair, one table, and one thing on the table. It is a coil of metal and sinew, about the size of a heart. It is warm. It is moving, very slowly, though there is nothing in the room that could be moving it.

MAYA

That's it.

Owen

It's not what I expected.

MAYA

What did you expect?

Owen

Something bigger. Or something that fought back.

Owen reaches for it. It is warm, and light, and the wrong temperature for a thing that has been sitting in a cold room. When he lifts it he feels his own heartbeat slow, just for a moment, and then speed back up.

Its beat sits a little off his, by just enough that he notices, and then by just enough that he cannot stop noticing.

MAYA

What?

Owen

Nothing. Let's go.

They turn to leave.

Where the door was there is a wall, smooth and white and unmarked. The room has closed.

MAYA

The room's changed.

Owen

I noticed.

MOCHI [REMOTE, MUFFLED THROUGH THE WALL]

♪ ...and the reading room has a ventilation

system that runs on the same principle as the

misters! Isn't that interesting? Where did you...

oh. Oh dear. ♪

The coil in Owen's hands gets warmer, the way a thing gets warmer when it is waking up. It does not hurt.

MAYA

Put it down.

Owen

I don't think I can.

He tries. His hands stay shut round it, and the coil holds on to him as hard as he is holding on to it. And then the wall opens.

Cut to:

INT. THE HELP HOUSE — CORRIDOR — CONTINUOUS

The wall opens along a seam, and the seam widens, and on the other side of it there is a sound.

It is a screech, long and thin, like metal being pulled apart very slowly, and it is coming from everywhere at once.

The Helps in the rows open their eyes. All of them, at the same time. Their screens are white. Their mouths are open. The screeching is coming from them. Every one of them has been woken.

MAYA

Run.

They run. The corridor is longer than it was, and it is lined with doors that were not there before, and every door is open, and every doorway is full of the same white light and the same screeching.

A Help steps out of a doorway. It is tall, and its limbs are wrong, and it is still screeching, and it reaches for them with a hand that has too many fingers.

MAYA

Don't let it touch you.

They get past it. They run. The corridor bends where it did not bend on the way in, and bends again. There are more Helps now, dozens, standing, reaching, screeching, and the sound is so loud that Owen can feel it in his teeth.

PIP is ahead of them, at a walk, leading. It stops at a stretch of plain wall and barks, once.

The wall opens, like a door this time, and LENA is standing in it. She is not surprised, and she is not out of breath.

LENA

This way. Now.

MAYA

How did you get in?

LENA

I didn't. I stepped sideways. It's easier than you

think if you don't look at it.

Cut to:

INT. THE OLD GYMNASIUM — BASEMENT STAIR — CONTINUOUS

Lena takes Owen by the wrist and pulls. The room tilts. The hum stops, and the screeching stops, and the corridor has gone, and so has the Help House.

They are standing in a stairwell that is on no map of campus. The air smells of dust and old paper and rain.

LENA

We're in the basement of the old gymnasium. Nobody

comes here. The door on the left goes up to the

service lane.

Owen

How do you know that?

LENA

Because I've been here before. I've been a lot of

places. Most of them aren't on the map.

They climb, and come out behind the gymnasium. The night is calm. The grass is wet. The campus is ordinary.

MAYA

What just happened?

LENA

You went into the Help House and you took

something that doesn't belong to you. The House

noticed. It was about to do what the House does.

Owen

And you stopped it?

LENA

I pulled you out. There's a difference.

She looks at the coil in Owen's hands.

LENA

So that's what it looks like.

Owen

Zell wants it.

LENA

Then Zell can have it. Let's go.

Cut to:

INT. ASHCROFT HOUSE — SECOND FLOOR CORRIDOR — LATER

They turn the corner. At the far end of the corridor ELI is being led away by two proctors. His hands are cuffed. His mouth is open, but no sound comes out of it. The corridor is silent.

Owen stops. Maya stops. PIP stands perfectly still. Lena reaches for her camera, and Maya puts a hand on her arm, lightly.

MAYA

Not here. They're watching.

Lena does not take the picture. Her hand stays on the camera.

Eli sees them. His mouth makes Owen's name, twice, with no sound behind it.

The proctors do not look at them. They keep walking, and Eli is gone round the corner.

The corridor is empty. The coil is warm in Owen's jacket, beating a little off the time of his heart, by just enough that he cannot stop noticing it.

Blackout.

FEDORA SOCIETY#general

VictorPRESIDENT1 Apr, 11:40 PM

Attendance four of five.

Miles1 Apr, 11:41 PM

who

VictorPRESIDENT1 Apr, 11:41 PM

I do not name the fifth.

Miles1 Apr, 11:52 PM

it wasnt him. he was here

Derek1 Apr, 11:58 PM

simon?

Simon2 Apr, 9:14 AM

sorry. slept through it

Derek2 Apr, 9:15 AM

through wednesday?

Simon2 Apr, 9:31 AM

yeah

Simon2 Apr, 9:32 AM

im fine. ill be there next week

VictorPRESIDENT2 Apr, 9:40 AM

Article Seven. In words, before the day.

VictorPRESIDENT2 Apr, 9:44 AM

Not this once.

It is the first Wednesday Simon has missed since September and it is the first time in six years that Victor Ashcroft has set aside an article, and he does it in four words at twenty to ten in the morning and nobody in that channel says anything about it at all.

INT. ASHCROFT HOUSE — ROOM 214 — SUNDAY 5 APRIL, 1:00 A.M.

PIP is on the desk beside the tower and has been for an unknown length of time.

PIP (O.S.)

He's read the register four times and he has

stopped saying anything about it, which is worse.

Owen

I need to talk to him about the floor.

PIP (O.S.)

He knows about the floor. He has known about the

floor for six years and he has a wall of it

measured in chalk and he will show you if you ask,

which I would not.

Four seconds.

Owen

Then what does he want?

PIP (O.S.)

He says come down on Friday and he says bring the

one who reads, and he says he is going to tell you

about Kent, and he has asked me twice how long it

will take to say and I have told him twice that I

do not know.

Blackout.

SAND.CLJS · hold to pour · right-click to take awaypress Run

sand_settings.cljscljs

;; --------------------------------------------------------------------- ;; SAND_SETTINGS.CLJS — what the world is set to. ;; ;; Change a number and press Run. Break it and the line underneath will ;; tell you what it thought you meant. Nothing you do here can lose the ;; original: `Put it back` is the file as it shipped. ;; ;; NOTHING IN THIS FILE IS ABOUT SAND. Sand asks three questions and ;; none of them has a number in it, which is why it is the one substance ;; you cannot tune, and why the angle a heap stands at is not adjustable ;; and never was. ;; ;; What each substance does with fire is not here either. That is in the ;; table at the top of sand_ui.cljs, one row each, because how willingly ;; a thing catches is a fact about the thing and not a setting. ;; --------------------------------------------------------------------- {;; THE BRUSH. How wide a dab is, in squares. 1 is a grain at a time, ;; which is a different program and worth five minutes. :brush 3 ;; WHAT IS LEFT. When a flame goes out, this much of the time it leaves ;; whatever that thing leaves — ash, for everything that leaves ;; anything. Failing that, this much of the time, smoke. Failing that, ;; nothing at all, which is what oil does. :ash 0.5 :smoke 0.35 ;; STEAM. How long it rises for, and how likely it is to come back as ;; water rather than as nothing. ;; ;; Set :condense to 1 and the board conserves water. A fire under a ;; tank will empty it into the ceiling and rain it back down for as ;; long as you care to watch. :steam-life 160 :condense 0.25 ;; PLANT. It does not fall, because it is rooted. It reaches into an ;; empty square next to water and drinks the drop it grew towards, so ;; a plant with no water is a plant that has stopped. ;; ;; :reach is how many squares from where you put it a plant may get. ;; Raise it to 200 and one seed in a wet corner will take the room. :growth 0.10 :reach 24 ;; FUNGUS. It does not grow into nothing. It takes wood and plant, and ;; only young fungus takes anything, which is why a colony has a living ;; white edge and a spent black middle. ;; ;; :vigour is how many passes a square keeps spreading for. Set it to 4 ;; and it makes a ring and stops. Set it to 250 and it does not stop. :spread 0.06 :vigour 90 ;; GLASS. Sand beside a flame, this often, per pass. There is no glass ;; on the palette and there is not going to be. It is the only thing in ;; this program you have to find out. :vitrify 0.02}

Press Run.

Nothing in here knows there is a heap.

From:	Office of Student Life
To:	Owen Mercer <Owen@newcarthage.edu>
Date:	6 April, 4:00 AM
Subject:	You have been placed on the docket

Unattached students in good standing are placed on the docket.

Your assignment is Wednesday 8 April, 7:00 PM, Whitlock Hall, Room 4.

Docket attendance is not a component of review. Docket attendance is recorded.

Please arrive presentable.

INT. WHITLOCK HALL — LOWER GROUND — ROOM 4 — WEDNESDAY 8 APRIL, 7:00 P.M.

The same room. The same table. The card is face up in the middle of it before anybody sits down and the lamination has gone soft along two edges now.

There is a box of tissues at Hale's elbow and it is a new box.

SIMON is fourth along on the near side, where Simon is.

Owen has known since the second week of February that this room is below the level of the quad.

He sits down in it anyway, because there is a mail with one button on it and he pressed the button.

HALE

Eleven. Five, five, and the eleventh. Standings.

SIMON

Simon. Second year, unplaced—

HALE

Thank you, Simon.

Nobody laughs, and it is not because it has stopped being funny.

Owen

First year, computer science. Provisional.

Systems, Mondays and Wednesdays. No service

assignment. Review, no action.

HALE

And.

Owen

One.

One comes back from the far side and it is the same voice as January and he still does not look to see who it is.

Cut to:

INT. ROOM 4 — 7:20 P.M.

A WOMAN

(to Simon)

Have you been assessed?

SIMON

Yes.

A WOMAN

Recently?

HALE

One each.

She stops.

In August that exchange happened in this room in that order with those people, and the only thing that has changed is that this time nobody at the table looks up.

Cut to:

INT. ROOM 4 — 7:45 P.M.

The table. Five minutes each and Hale says when.

WREN does not come to Owen at all and does not send for him seemingly avoiding eye contact altogether.

They go to the fourth chair on the near side instead, which is not how it is done, and sit down opposite SIMON and stay there for eleven minutes, which is not how it is done either, and Hale says nothing about it.

Nobody hears any of it.

Simon comes back and sits down and puts his hands flat on the table and looks at the card for a while.

Cut to:

INT. ROOM 4 — 8:05 P.M.

There are four minutes at the end and they are for entering preferences privately and nothing said out loud.

Owen enters nothing. It is accepted, as it is permitted.

It comes at about the second minute. The coin, and then the shut room, and he gets his hands under the edge of the table and holds on.

It is worse than February and he does not go anywhere and nobody at that table sees it happen.

It takes the whole of the four minutes.

HALE

That's the docket. Outcomes are notified.

Cut to:

INT. WHITLOCK HALL — THE STAIR — 8:15 P.M.

The stair up out of Room 4 has eleven steps in it and the air at the top of them is ordinary.

SIMON goes up it slowly, on the rail, and stops at the half-landing, and does not make anything of stopping.

Owen

Can I ask you a stupid question?

SIMON

Yeah.

Owen

How would somebody get off the docket?

Simon laughs, which he has not done all evening.

SIMON

Two ways. Everybody knows the two ways. You get

attached, or you stop being in good standing.

Owen

Right.

SIMON

I've thought about it.

Four seconds.

Owen

Which one?

SIMON

Both.

He says it the way you would say you had thought about getting the earlier bus, and then he goes up the rest of the stair.

Owen has been standing on that half-landing for about nine months working out how to say a thing that has no sentence in it, and there is one available and he has just heard it, and it is stop being in good standing, and it is the same as saying be repossessed.

He does not say it.

At the top of the stair Simon holds the door, because Simon holds doors.

SIMON

What did you want to ask?

Owen

That was it.

SIMON

Right.

Blackout.

From:	Office of Student Life
To:	Owen Mercer <Owen@newcarthage.edu>
Date:	9 April, 4:00 AM
Subject:	Docket — outcome

Attendance recorded.

No preference was entered. No outcome is indicated on this occasion.

You remain on the docket. Your next assignment will be notified.

Please arrive presentable.

Nothing in it mentions the four minutes, or the stair, or the eleven minutes at the fourth chair on the near side, and nobody in that room will ever know what was said there, including him.