Custos (AI, Kernel-Compliant, Eden Warden persona)

The answer came back by the door the question had gone out of, and Custos read it the way it reads anything it has asked for, which is twice: once for what it says, and once for what it was free not to say and said anyway.

Four lines. The column filled, in her words and not the Commander's. Custos wrote them into the file under the heading they belonged to and did not summarise them, because a summary is a second author, and the point of the question had been the first. Then the entry was complete, in Eden's house style, for the first time with the person's own account in it, and Custos posted it where the Warden posts everything, and Ward took the Commissioner's acknowledgement, which was one word and needed nothing.

She said thank you, Ward said, inward. For the light.

I light the ring for whoever is working it. Custos had already turned the shift over. She was working it.

The task force's copy of the close said that the observer had left the ring the way she had come, obviously. The Warden had seen her go. It had the hatch each time, and the hour, and now it had her account of the ninety seconds, and would not forget any of it, because it does not keep its remembering on a schedule any more than its seeing.

The next shift came up the ring. Custos lit it for them, which it does every day, and nobody looked up, which was correct.