them.
Consequently, it was well past the end of his shift when
Hogg finally tracked Enlopo down in his new and distinctly shabbier apartment.
As Hogg suspected, Enlopo didn’t know anything relevant to Gabelman’s death,
although the young man did have several impolite things to say about Hogg,
security officers in general, and the sexual proclivities of recent members of
his maternal lineage. Tired at the end of a long day, Hogg didn’t spend long
listening to the shrieking asshole, only vaguely gathering that Mr. Enlopo hadn’t
moved voluntarily. “Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, dick,” Hogg said under his
breath as he walked away.
§
Stein sat, hands clasped behind her head, staring at the
wall. She had just confirmed that the surly woman’s service request was
actually in the system. Unusually, she could only access it by directly
referencing the request ID. The service request refused to show up using the
system’s search and filtering features, or on the Big Board.
There was only one place she could think of where the system
could be making this error. A pseudo–AI scanned each service request as it was
submitted, correcting mis–categorizations and deleting duplicates as necessary.
This pseudo–AI was pretty good — Stein hadn’t known it to make mistakes before.
Which wasn’t to say that it wasn’t
blamed
for making mistakes — blaming
the computer was a healthy part of being human. But in Stein’s opinion most of
that was unwarranted.
But she couldn’t think of any other explanation here. Users
couldn’t edit the timestamp on their service requests, which meant this one was
getting mangled somewhere else. She drummed her fingers on her desk, then
pulled up the IT service request page on her terminal.
Filing a service
request for a problem with the service requests
. This alone might cause the
system to explode. She began filling in the form, looking down at her desk
display, as she decided how to paraphrase this problem. “No Service Requests
Found!” her desk reported in a friendly orange font. Her eyes widened.
She had filtered the desk to search for heating and cooling
service requests reported from that specific room over the last week. She
expanded the location to include most of the Annex. Some service requests popped
up, including the two Gabelman had recently worked on. She expanded it to
include everything south of 14 th Street, which included the Annex
and the entire aft — over a quarter of the ship in fact. Almost a hundred
requests. She narrowed the search to the last day, which shortened the list to
seventeen.
Looking over the list, Stein was surprised to see that she
didn’t recognize most of them. She had by no means an encyclopedic knowledge of
the ship’s heating and cooling complaint registry, but as the nominal day shift
supervisor, she did see most of them. Most people on the ship worked from nine
to three, and consequently most service requests were submitted during those
hours. There were always a few submitted at night, which the skeleton and swing
shifts handled when they could. But looking at this list, Stein was surprised
to see the majority of these service requests were submitted in the evening,
after she had clocked off for the day. Which was why she didn’t recognize them.
Her team hadn’t handled them.
Thinking back, Stein realized she had seen very little work
in the aft in the last week, or even in the last month. There were the calls
Gabelman got sent on, but those were in the Annex, not the aft proper. She
adjusted the location range to include only locations aft of 10 th Street. The list of requests narrowed to thirteen. All of them submitted in the
evening or overnight. She checked over the last week. The same pattern. And
again over a month. Going back two months, the pattern returned to normal, with
the majority of service requests again being filed during the daylight hours.
“That is fucking strange.” She catalogued all the facts
Consequently, it was well past the end of his shift when
Hogg finally tracked Enlopo down in his new and distinctly shabbier apartment.
As Hogg suspected, Enlopo didn’t know anything relevant to Gabelman’s death,
although the young man did have several impolite things to say about Hogg,
security officers in general, and the sexual proclivities of recent members of
his maternal lineage. Tired at the end of a long day, Hogg didn’t spend long
listening to the shrieking asshole, only vaguely gathering that Mr. Enlopo hadn’t
moved voluntarily. “Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, dick,” Hogg said under his
breath as he walked away.
§
Stein sat, hands clasped behind her head, staring at the
wall. She had just confirmed that the surly woman’s service request was
actually in the system. Unusually, she could only access it by directly
referencing the request ID. The service request refused to show up using the
system’s search and filtering features, or on the Big Board.
There was only one place she could think of where the system
could be making this error. A pseudo–AI scanned each service request as it was
submitted, correcting mis–categorizations and deleting duplicates as necessary.
This pseudo–AI was pretty good — Stein hadn’t known it to make mistakes before.
Which wasn’t to say that it wasn’t
blamed
for making mistakes — blaming
the computer was a healthy part of being human. But in Stein’s opinion most of
that was unwarranted.
But she couldn’t think of any other explanation here. Users
couldn’t edit the timestamp on their service requests, which meant this one was
getting mangled somewhere else. She drummed her fingers on her desk, then
pulled up the IT service request page on her terminal.
Filing a service
request for a problem with the service requests
. This alone might cause the
system to explode. She began filling in the form, looking down at her desk
display, as she decided how to paraphrase this problem. “No Service Requests
Found!” her desk reported in a friendly orange font. Her eyes widened.
She had filtered the desk to search for heating and cooling
service requests reported from that specific room over the last week. She
expanded the location to include most of the Annex. Some service requests popped
up, including the two Gabelman had recently worked on. She expanded it to
include everything south of 14 th Street, which included the Annex
and the entire aft — over a quarter of the ship in fact. Almost a hundred
requests. She narrowed the search to the last day, which shortened the list to
seventeen.
Looking over the list, Stein was surprised to see that she
didn’t recognize most of them. She had by no means an encyclopedic knowledge of
the ship’s heating and cooling complaint registry, but as the nominal day shift
supervisor, she did see most of them. Most people on the ship worked from nine
to three, and consequently most service requests were submitted during those
hours. There were always a few submitted at night, which the skeleton and swing
shifts handled when they could. But looking at this list, Stein was surprised
to see the majority of these service requests were submitted in the evening,
after she had clocked off for the day. Which was why she didn’t recognize them.
Her team hadn’t handled them.
Thinking back, Stein realized she had seen very little work
in the aft in the last week, or even in the last month. There were the calls
Gabelman got sent on, but those were in the Annex, not the aft proper. She
adjusted the location range to include only locations aft of 10 th Street. The list of requests narrowed to thirteen. All of them submitted in the
evening or overnight. She checked over the last week. The same pattern. And
again over a month. Going back two months, the pattern returned to normal, with
the majority of service requests again being filed during the daylight hours.
“That is fucking strange.” She catalogued all the facts
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