Day 20.
05:47, boil water. 3 grams of pre-rain, 80 degrees, pour it down. Smell it 3 times. Pour it out.
There is ink in the well of the inkstone. I grind 20 turns. I write today's date: November 23, 2125. The strokes come out tight. Done, I crumple the paper and put it under the paperweight.
The pothos is watered. The soil is damp. Still 2 leaves.
The bandage comes off; there is nothing on the fingertip; a new one goes on. 5 left.
06:12:00, the commuter car comes in. Empty.
Locker 4471. The third drawer is empty. The cloth sleeve is gone too. The second drawer's bandages I count: 5. Yesterday's was the 6th.
The new badge is pinned to my left chest. From the changing room to Zone C, I press it 3 times.
The dust cloth is still on the desk, the corner lifted yesterday draped over the screen's edge. The screen is on.
> Status: Overdue > Overdue by: 374 hr 09 min > Clock: running
The head-of-queue item I haven't touched. Day 18. Today it resends for the 14,836th time.
I sit down. The chair height hasn't changed. No items on the desk. I smooth the dust cloth flat, leaving only the screen corner lifted.
09:15:02.
My hand shakes once. 0.4 seconds. Nothing in it. When it stops I put my right hand back on my knee.
3,000 desks in the hall. The sound of stamping comes from all sides, even, dense. My spot has no sound. Yesterday there was still a hole here. Today the hole is a little bigger, spread to the edge of Zone B — no. The problem is my ears.
09:40, I write on a blank application sheet. Handwritten. The hall has no blank forms; this sheet is paper I brought from home, cut to item size, no binding holes on the edge.
> Self-Verification Petition > Applicant: Shen Yan Seat: HZ-4471 > Matter: submit to verification of self; only thereafter shall the review be valid > Basis: Legislative Notes to the Natural Person Review Act (2025), page 41, line 3 > Test subject: the seal holder of this seat > Date of application: November 23, 2125
The 26 characters take me 3 tries to copy right. The second copy comes out one character short; the third comes out with one pause mark too many. A pause mark is not a character.
10:05, hall-leave register. Reason: submitting an application. Expected return, 12:00.
The Legal Affairs Section is on the second floor of the main building. End of the corridor, one window; under the glass a scheduling sheet lies pressed, the paper yellowed, the upper right corner curled up. The sheet is printed, the line spacing dense, a year of boxes squeezed onto one sheet of A4, most of the boxes empty. The most recent line with writing on it: the date is 6 years old.
A man sits inside the window, around fifty; on the elbows of his gray sleeves, 2 pads, darker than the rest of the cloth. A horizontal slot is cut into the glass, its rim polished bright; all paper goes in through there.
I pass the petition through.
He reads it once. Front to back, then back to front.
He says: This clause.
I say: This clause.
He says: 19 years at this window, and I've never seen this sheet of paper.
He presses the petition under the glass board, takes a volume out of the drawer, very thick, opens it, turns the pages one by one. Halfway through he pulls a second volume off the shelf, thicker. The two stacked, he pins the lower corner of the top one and walks the pages over with the pad of his finger.
He says: Current law. Two articles, one supplementary provision. No such clause.
I say: I know.
He says: What doesn't exist, I can't declare valid.
He turns to the middle of the thicker volume. His finger stops.
He says: And no one has declared it invalid either.
He closes both volumes.
He says: The Legislative Notes aren't law. They're notes. A clause in the notes that was never adopted—
He stops. He can't finish the sentence himself.
He says: And never sent back either.
From under the window he takes a receipt form and starts to fill it in. Slowly, stroke by stroke, like tracing.
> Legal Affairs Section · Application Review Opinion > Item: self-verification petition (HZ-4471, November 23, 2125) > Review: > 1. The current Natural Person Review Act (2099 revision) contains none of the clauses the applicant cites > 2. No record found of the cited clause's repeal > 3. No basis found for refusing the procedure > Opinion: this matter is not among the grounds for refusal. Accepted for filing; forwarded to scheduling. > Handled by: (signature)
He says: Not among the grounds for refusal.
He says: In 19 years I've written that sentence 4 times. The first 3 were water meters.
I say: Then schedule it.
He says: Scheduling isn't mine. It's the system's.
He staples the receipt to the petition; the stapler clicks once. He puts the whole thing into a kraft paper folder with a barcode printed on it. He presses the barcode to a small black pad at the lower right of the window. The pad lights up.
He looks at the pad. Longer than a pad needs looking at.
He says: Come a little closer.
I lean in. The pad is angled, facing inward. There is writing on it.
> Scheduling Acceptance > Acceptance no.: ZP-2125-1123-001 > Matter: natural-person self-verification procedure (seat-linked) > Applicant: Shen Yan HZ-4471 > Current status: merged > Merged into task: ZR-4471 (historical) > Task generation date: January 19, 2082 > Due execution date: (system generated) > Overdue by: 16013 days > Status: pending execution > Next available execution resource: (blank)
The man in the window turns the pad toward himself, then turns it back.
He says: It's been merged.
I say: What does merged mean.
He says: You already have one item under your name. The system merged today's into it.
I say: Under my name.
He says: Under the seat's name.
He says: Task number ZR-4471. The 4 is your 4.
I say: The generation date is 2082.
He says: That's what's printed on the paper.
I say: I started in 2105.
He says nothing. He pulls the two thick volumes of law back over, turns to the page he stopped at, reads it once, closes them. While he does it he watches his own hands.
He says: Six years ago somebody queued for this.
I say: Who.
He says: The booking record is there. The person I'm not in a position to show you.
I say: And then.
He says: Withdrawn.
I say: Why withdrawn.
He says: The withdrawal-reason field—
He stops.
He says: It's blank.
11:20, back into the hall. The stretch from Zone C to the door, I've walked it 20 years. Today every desk is sounding. At row 14, the row with the newly changed tubes, the white is very even.
Top right of the desk surface, a new one.
> Documents Section · Follow-up Notice > Item: close-out form LJ-2125-1122-003 > Status: second day since issue, not signed back > Notice: sign and return within 3 working days. Not signed back past the deadline, the item goes to the Audit Office, handled as "refusal to sign without just cause."
Handled as "refusal to sign without just cause." I read those 9 characters twice. The first time for the words, the second time to count them. 9.
The close-out form is in my bag. The bag hangs on the chair back; a corner of paper shows at its mouth. I tuck the corner in.
11:52, the canteen opens. Meat is roast duck and fish; vegetables are spinach and bean sprouts. I take spinach and bean sprouts, 1 scoop of rice.
Xiao Zheng doesn't come over. He sits at the Zone B table with his back to me. He eats at his usual speed; the spoon touches the bottom of the plate twice, and he's up.
Lao Ge isn't there. His spot is empty, fourth row toward the inside, the chair pushed halfway in. In 20 years he has been absent once; that day the answer was the annual physical. Today is the second.
Master Xu carries her tray past me. She slows a step.
She says: Sitting, then.
I say: Sitting.
She says: Sitting is good.
She goes. On her tray are 2 vegetable dishes, untouched. She sits back down in Zone B, very straight.
12:44, back to Zone C. I spread a sheet on the dust cloth and recite the names I counted this morning. Yesterday: 24, 96, 7. The day before: 512, 73, 1,001. Before that: 291, 106. I recite one by one; around 300, 2 names come out with their places swapped. I stop, put them back, keep reciting.
Done, I turn the sheet over. The back is white. On the white I write out from memory one page of the roll of 96, 12 names to a page, filling a line, skipping a line. At the ninth the strokes loosen; from the tenth on I go over them again. The traced characters come out darker than the 9 before them.
All of these names have been stamped. The seal is in the sealed bag. The names are still here.
13:10, at my seat I listen to the hall. The sound of stamping comes from all sides. In my head I keep time for the Zone B row: one stamp, two stamps, three stamps. 2.17 seconds a stamp. I count to 100 stamps. None fast, none slow, not one stitch sewn in between. Zone D runs a little slower — not slower people, thicker items; thick items land heavy, and heavy still counts inside the 2.17.
That number is my own number. 20 years, my average. Today the whole hall is sitting on it.
13:40, hall-leave register. Reason: lookup. Expected return, 15:30.
The iron door of the Archives stands open a crack. A He is inside, bent over the table, holding a very thin sheet with tweezers, tipping it into the page of a volume.
She says: Stand still. Don't bring wind.
I stand.
She finishes the page, puts the tweezers back in the tin box, then looks up.
She says: You're not here about the catalogue today.
I say: No.
I say: Scheduling records. Does the Archives have any? Self-verification ones.
She says: Self-verification.
She wipes her hand on her smock.
She says: How many years have you waited for that sentence of mine.
I say: What do you mean.
She says: Waiting for someone to come ask about this one.
She walks to the innermost row, crouches, draws a wooden box from the bottom shelf. In it a stack of cards tied with cotton thread. She undoes the thread, flips through a few, draws one out, hands it to me.
> Scheduling Register Card (historical · self-verification) > No.: ZR-4471 > Matter: natural-person self-verification procedure > Linked seat: HZ-4471 > Date generated: January 19, 2082 > Booking record: 1 > Most recent booking: 2019...
She says: The card is old. The number in the system is live. One digit of this year was typed wrong. In the system it's 2119. Don't reckon by the card.
She says: 6 years ago, 2119, someone made one booking for this number. Then withdrew. That's all the card holds. There's no box for a withdrawal reason; nowhere to fill one in even if you wanted to.
I hand the card back.
I say: Lend me the box.
She says: No.
She says: But you can stand here and read. Until 15:20.
I go through every card in the box. 6 in the self-verification class. 4 are blank — number only, no matter. One reads ZR-0001, its matter field struck through in ink, struck deep; you can feel the impression on the back of the paper. One is ZR-4471 itself.
ZR-0001. I pull it out half an inch and push it back.
Drawing the card out stirs a little air, and the inked back turns up. Not one score — three, one over another; the deepest has cut the paper through, the tear frayed at its lip.
A He watches me from the far end of the table. She says nothing. She screws the cap onto the ink bottle, tight.
She says: That one — keep your hands off it.
She says: Whoever struck it out didn't want it read. Struck like this, he didn't even want to remember having written it.
She moves the box half a foot from my hand and reties the 6 cards with the cotton thread, the same knot as ever, two turns.
She says: You ask about self-verification, and I know how far you're going.
She says: 20 years I've been here, archives in and out. You're the second to ask about this kind.
I say: Who was the first.
She says: The first never came through this door.
She says: He telephoned. Asked one thing and hung up.
I say: Asked what.
She says: How to get to Vault Zero.
She puts the box back on the bottom shelf and stays crouched, feeling under the shelf awhile, and brings out a sheet of paper — the bottom copy of a holdings slip. She glances at it and stuffs it back.
She says: The bottom copy has the phone number he left. An extension. I'm not telling you.
She says: It's not that I won't tell. That phone was ripped out 3 years ago.
15:24, out through the iron door. 15:29, back to Zone C. One hour 49 minutes out of the hall.
15:37, up to fetch water. 40 steps there and back. The water sits at my right hand. Not a sip.
16:44, day-close. I lift a corner of the dust cloth.
> Reviewer: HZ-4471 > Stamps today: 0 > Net time: — > Average: — > Errors: 0 > Note: seat deactivated, second day; 0 items accepted today
Passing the standings screen: the first line is not me. Day 15. I run down the whole list, first line to last. No HZ-4471. The second day of the seal suspension, my name came off the standings screen. 3,000 numbers on the screen, one fewer, and the grid still lines up even.
16:51, seal return.
17:12, the commuter car comes in. Empty.
Home. The inkstone goes unwashed. The pothos watered.
I copy the scheduling acceptance onto a sheet: acceptance no. ZP-2125-1123-001, merged into task ZR-4471, date generated January 19, 2082, overdue by 16013 days, next available execution resource (blank).
I take out the slip of paper and flatten it. 11 lines on the front. Under the eleventh I write one line: 16013.
Now 12.
The back still has 2 lines.
16013 days. I do the arithmetic. 43 years, plus 308 days. 43 years ago is 2082. 365 days after January 19, 2082 is January 19, 2083.
I've seen that date before, on a service receipt. Retained service. Bedside. Collected by nursing staff.
The day the task was generated is 1 year to the day before the day she signed for that paper.
I fold the slip and put it back in the inside pocket. The close-out form is still in the bag, 3 pages, unsigned. The follow-up notice says 3 working days.
The ring of paint on the pen cap: I rub it once with my thumb. It doesn't come off.