Teodor Alcaraz
Flat-Reading Custody Respondent
Unflappable Since Age Six
He said it twice, out loud, in a bright room, and both times the clerk wrote it in the narrow column.
Overview
Teodor Alcaraz keeps the Stack Four lift column running on nights in the Stacks. Ninety thousand residents, one working lift bank. He is twenty. He keeps a pencil stub behind his ear, and he does not fail screenings.
That was the point. In 2170 his mother stood outside a storefront in the Composure Academies and read the fee schedule in the window. Twelve Weeks. One Reflex. Poise For Life. She could afford the twelve weeks. He was six. Six is when the work is cheap, and the schedule is priced to match.
The course worked. Checkpoints, credit interviews, two hiring boards, one Guardian stop: his pupils, breath, and skin stay flat. The house closed in 2178, and its records went to the Composure Trades Board. His certificate survives.
He said it twice, out loud, and both times the clerk wrote it in the narrow column.
The Hearing
He took the night rotation because the day rate would not cover his hearing fees. The welfare report then described his household as unattended after dark. In spring 2184 a Sector 2 custody review read its finding about his daughter, Runa, who was two.
He said he was sorry. Twice. The clerk entered both in the Represented Column, read them back, and asked if that was right. The finding cited the other column: low demonstrated attachment. Respiration unchanged. Skin conductance flat. Every figure was accurate. He had paid, at six, to produce exactly those figures.
The Notices
On the way out he asked whether the represented column is kept. It is not. So he sat on the corridor bench, unfolded the notice, and wrote down what he had said on the back, in pencil.
He has eleven of them now, in his coat. A clinic worker offered to get them into a file. So did a Line-Walker. He said no both times.
In Sector 12, Maren Cott can spot a storefront curve on a strip-chart at a glance. She has granted the discount clause once in three years. She has not seen his file. He has not heard her name.
Appearance
Lift-mechanic coveralls and lift-mechanic hands. On a corridor bench, with a notice across his knee, his face does not move. It is not meant to.
Voice
Quiet and polite. Asked whether the mediator was unfair, he said, "The mediator read what was there."
He went to two meetings of the Untuned. He agreed with most of it. But their case is that the reading is wrong about people, and his was not wrong about him. His mother bought a thing. It works.
Emrys Dolan, seventeen, will not sign what the clerk hands him. Teodor signs, then writes his own copy on the back.
The next review is in the spring. He is drafting what he will say. He is getting better at the wording.
Connections
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