[ECHO ARCHIVE · LAYER 3 · 49.0% DECODED · KEY: LIVE SOUND FROM THE 2008 SUMMER OLYMPICS OPENING CEREMONY BROADCAST]
Day 179, 03:11:44, step 182.
Before I leave in the morning Nian isn't awake yet. I lay her clothes over the chair back and pour her milk, leaving it on the table to go cold.
One stretch of the way is under repair; the barriers squeeze the sidewalk to a meter wide. Going through, the person coming the other way stops first and lets me pass.
I'm at the institute by six forty. The corridor light takes a foot stamp; I stamp twice. The machine hall holds twenty degrees year-round; first I read Machine Six's night log — nothing wrong overnight, Xiao Gao on duty. The old VCR's clock on the wall runs eleven minutes fast; it now reads seven oh two. Tong is in the gatehouse counting letters; when he counts letters he doesn't look up.
The duty log lies open; in the header I write the date: September 17. I cap the pen.
I steep a cup of tea and set it at my left hand.
At seven twenty the September 17 frame enters the archive, this round S-11 and S-17.
Layer 3: 32,357 rows. Sticky strip three, sheet fifty-nine.
Cutting goes by rotation — last digit of the frame number against the station number, same remainder — and this round our cut is item three of the local segment.
First, the same four things as always: frame number, time code, duration, caption time codes. Fifty-one seconds, from 00:21:07.4 to 00:21:58.4. Bitrate the same as yesterday; audio 48 kilohertz, stereo; the caption time code on the second line inside the segment. All four check out.
Item one of the local segment is a compound's parking retrofit; item two, a district's meal-service points for the elderly. Both finished before nine, one line of summary apiece.
Item three I leave for last.
Then I click it open.
The anchor is a woman's voice. She reads: this station reports — this morning, the farewell ceremony for the remains of Comrade Lin Wanqiu, formerly senior engineer of Yard Six, was held at No. 6 Keyuan North Street.
The first shot is the entrance. Two rows of wreaths; there is writing on the frontmost one's ribbon; the camera doesn't stop, and the words can't be made out.
The second shot is the banner. White ground, black characters, seven of them: Deeply Mourning Comrade Lin Wanqiu. The nail at the banner's right end has worked loose; a piece of the lower right corner curls up, and the curl catches a little light.
The third shot pans from the banner to inside the gate. Inside is dark. A person stands with their back to the camera, dark coat; you can't tell the age, can't tell man or woman. The person doesn't move.
The fourth shot is a photograph, held three seconds.
White background, short sleeves, dark blue.
I lift the access card off over my head. The card carries this exact picture. Taken last year, when the institute reissued everyone's cards; the room they shot in had an electric fan, and the wind lifted the strand of hair on the left so it wouldn't stay combed. The photographer said, chin in a little. I tucked it. In the print my eyes sit slightly down.
In the photo a bit of my badge lanyard shows, blue, below the collarbone. That lanyard is around my neck right now.
I set the card beside the screen, next to the photograph.
The same.
I hang the card back around my neck, and touch it once when it's hung.
Captions, three lines. First: Lin Wanqiu. Second: 2001-2079. Third: formerly senior engineer, Yard Six.
The anchor reads on. Comrade Lin Wanqiu, she says, long worked in deep-space signal processing and took part in the Echo project's early work in 2039. While she reads it the picture holds on the two rows of wreaths at the entrance.
Fifty-one seconds, over.
I play it again. Second pass at four times speed. Third pass I play only those three seconds.
The wreaths I count twice: fourteen. The banner's seven characters I count one by one. The person inside the gate stays back-turned; the camera pans away and they still haven't turned around.
That frame's date is September 17.
On the catalog table, the volume of Layer 2's row converts to a final day of September 26.
Nine days between.
I turn the volume off once, then on again.
I take three screenshots: the banner, the entrance, the photograph. I mistype one character of the filename, delete it, type it again.
Later I delete the banner and the entrance, keep the photograph. The one I keep I rename — six characters.
Normally I'd hand the local segment's text to Xiao Gao to check. That day I don't give it to him.
Then I submit it for dual-station verification. S-17 decodes it independently, byte-identical; the pool doesn't arbitrate. By procedure the other station compares bytes only. It doesn't read the content.
The wait is two hours forty minutes.
In those two hours forty minutes I peel the strip of sticky notes off the right side of the monitor one by one and bundle them with a rubber band. The rubber band comes from the old house's kitchen drawer — that drawer always holds rubber bands, staples, and three kinds of screws.
I line up the three pens on the desk, tips pointing one way.
I copy the photograph's metadata onto a sheet: frame number, time code, file size, the hash's first eight digits. Copied, I fold the sheet once.
I never drink that cup of tea. It goes cold.
At ten past two I go down to the washroom. Coming back I see Tong in front of the windowsill, the postcards in his hand. Seeing me, he sets them back, one on top of another, the order untouched.
At two forty S-17's result comes back: identical.
By procedure, anomalous entries get a number and an archive line. This entry is not anomalous. Frame number right, time code right, both stations identical, captions legible, voice not dubbed. I mark nothing.
I add one line to the ledger: frame number, time code, duration; the summary field left empty. The time code I checked twice before writing it.
Tong flips the ledger and sees it. He says, how come today's entry has no summary.
I say, didn't write one.
He says, oh.
Xiao Gao brings a slip to ask about a place name, from item one of the same frame, the parking retrofit. I check the database: it's there. He tapes the slip to the end of his list and doesn't say which item. When he goes he pulls the door shut behind him.
At noon I eat half a bowl in the canteen. Eggplant today — fried first, and cold the skin goes soft. Lao Song comes over with his tray and sits across from me.
He says, few people today.
I say, mm.
He says, Adebayo didn't come today.
I say, oh.
A few bites in he says, I looked at that table of his.
I say, what table.
He says, you know. That one. Says he couldn't make sense of it either.
He chopsticks two meatballs onto my tray. I say I don't eat them. He eats them himself.
After lunch I go downstairs and stand a while at the gate. On the doorplate, the "6" — the stroke at its top runs short. I look for two seconds.
The tree at the gate died in its second year. Cut down, it left a pit; over the pit lies an iron plate, and on the plate one word in paint: SLOW.
Old Chen at the gate asks: Engineer Lin, working late today?
I say, not tonight.
He says, oh. Says these two days a car keeps parking out front — gray, no telling whose.
I say, no idea.
Going up I glance at the gatehouse windowsill: five postcards lined up by postmark, the last one's postmark facing out.
I go back in.
In the afternoon Shen Yi comes down from the third floor and passes my station.
He says, how many rows in Layer 3 today.
I say, thirty-two thousand three hundred fifty-seven.
He says, nearly half.
He goes.
The third-floor room is locked. The light is off.
Ye Zhen comes by once in the afternoon, a sheet of paper in her hand, about a doorplate in the city's first block; she asks whether the August 26 frame has that street. I say it does, and pull it up. She stands beside me watching; on the third pass she says enough. While she watches, her hand rests on the table's edge, not moving.
Leaving, she folds her sheet in half, unfolds it again, says she'll go check it once more.
I say, and the other-province block.
She says, still waiting. Says she has written the waiting into her work plan — three months now.
I say, three months.
She says, three months. Says this work was always made out of waiting.
Adebayo's three-column sheet runs past two hundred rows now. He still checks the moment each new frame lands; the fourth column is still empty.
That afternoon he passes behind me, stops, asks whether I want the score of the 09-17 match.
I say, no.
He says, oh.
Two steps off he comes back and holds up his phone. On the screen, a table — one match a row, the date in the first column, the score in the last. He says this one is tomorrow's.
I say, I don't want it.
He says, what's with you today.
I say, nothing.
He says, you're off today, I can see it.
I say, I'm tired.
He says, oh. Says he'll tell me tomorrow, then.
He goes.
I turn my own phone over, screen down, and set it in the corner of the desk.
In the afternoon another postcard reaches Tong. The fifth. He says he doesn't plan to reply. He lines the five up by postmark on the windowsill.
I say, what's the lining-up for.
He says, to see what date the next one brings.
I close the ledger and push it back where it belongs. That day I said few words at the institute, and not one of them was about that frame.
At end of day Zhou Yansheng meets me on the stairs. He says, are you not feeling well today.
I say, no.
He says, it would be normal if you were.
I say, no.
He says, I read that explanation of yours.
I say, mm.
He says, three lines is good.
He goes up holding the rail; his hand pauses on it.
After work I go to pick up Nian. She waits below the piano-lesson building, the music folder hugged in her arms. She says the certificate came.
I say, where did you put it.
She says, on the bookshelf in my room.
I say, mm.
On the way home it's already dark. The shop at the intersection has changed its sign; the light is red, falling on the sidewalk in patches.
On the way she says two people from her class didn't come this week. Says the teacher says there's been a lot of absence lately.
I say, why.
She says, don't know. Says one classmate's grandma is in the hospital.
I say, oh.
A few steps on she says, Mama, someone in my class says the world is ending in a few days.
I say, who says that.
She says, don't know. Everybody's saying it.
I say, it won't.
She says, I told them it won't, and they said I was arguing for the sake of it.
On the way I stop at the market. I buy green beans, scallions, a slab of pork belly, two tomatoes, and a hand of ginger. The beans I pick over for a long time, one by one, snapping a tip to look at the break. The seller watches me, and after a while walks off to tidy her other vegetables on her own.
On the ginger stall a little TV is playing a program, the sound turned very low. I don't look at that TV.
Home, I rinse the rice three times first. I tie the apron twice; the first time it goes on backwards.
Nian practices in the back room. She plays forty minutes. The staccato in the third section is still heavy. When she finishes she says it herself: heavy again. I say mm. She says the teacher says that note is the bone. I say mm.
I trim the beans. One by one — both ends snapped off, the strings pulled. A small pile when it's done; I put them into the pot in two lots.
When my father was alive, beans never got stringed. He said you string them when you're old.
Nian comes out of the back room and stands at the kitchen door. She says, Mama, why isn't the TV on today.
I say, don't feel like watching.
She says, oh.
The pork belly cut into chunks and into the pot with cold water; when it boils, skim — three times. Oil in the wok, sugar melted down to a jujube red, the meat in and turned. Water added to cover, two slices of ginger, one star anise.
I turn the flame down.
I carry a small stool to the kitchen doorway and sit. I don't look at my phone. The piano comes through one closed door; the hit of the third section's staccato you can pick out.
My father's last year, I sat in the hospital corridor many times. The corridor chairs are blue, eight in a row. Once I counted them: eight.
Forty minutes. I don't lift the lid in between.
After the forty minutes the beans go in. Another twenty minutes.
I turn the flame off. Still I don't lift it.
After a while I lift it; the steam rises and smokes the film of grease on the range hood. I wipe it off with a rag.
I taste once, add a little more salt.
Before we eat Nian says the teacher asked whether she was nervous.
I say, what did you tell him.
She says, I said I wasn't.
She says, actually I was.
I say, I know.
She says, how do you know.
I say, I could see it.
At the table Nian says, today's dinner is slow.
I say, mm.
I pick out a piece of meat for her bowl.
Two bites in she says, Mama, why do you keep looking at me today.
I say, I'm not.
She says, you are.
I say, eat.
She eats with her head down. Halfway she looks up: what's for breakfast tomorrow.
I say, green beans.
She says, green beans again.
I say, mm.
When she's done she brings her workbook for my signature. I sign, and then write the date. Writing it, I pause a moment, and finish the 7.
While I'm washing up she calls me from the back room. I don't catch what she says; I answer anyway. She doesn't call again.
A little past eleven the group chat posts a notice: short meeting at seven thirty tomorrow morning. I read it. I don't reply.
I look in on her room. She's asleep, one hand pressed under the score. I slide the score out and set it on the bookshelf, beside the certificate.
I wash the bowls, wash the pot, wipe down the stove. The dishcloth wrung dry, draped over the tap.
Next to the metronome sits the button-battery box that holds her front tooth. I look at it. I don't touch it.
I lay out tomorrow's clothes and hang them on the back of the door. Hanging them, I think, and change out one piece.
I set the alarm for six ten. Meant to make it six thirty; I think, and put it back to six ten.
In the living room the Red Lantern is on, shortwave band, hissing. I sit on the sofa a while. After a while I get up and shut the window halfway.
I turn the radio's volume down a little. I don't turn it off.