The queue today contains fifty-three items. She processes them in order.

A ventilation failure in Block 4A: maintenance error, close. A demographic shift in Sector 6 flagging an unexpected concentration of low-income households: policy review pending, forward to Strategic Planning, close. A transport usage anomaly in Sector 11: modelling artefact, close.

She is very efficient. Her supervisor mentioned this in her last review, in the tone that means: this is what we need from you, continue doing this.

She is at item thirty-eight when her colleague Petra appears at the edge of her terminal.

“Did you finish the Sector 9 review?” Petra asks. She has a tablet in one hand and the expression of someone who is not yet worried but is preparing to be.

“Yes,” Mara says.

“There’s a macro-flag been raised on it. Not your level — that’s Strategic.” She glances at her tablet. “But they’re going to want to know the lower-level items are resolved.”

“They’re resolved,” Mara says.

Petra nods. Moves on.

Mara turns back to her terminal. Item thirty-nine. A water pressure variance in Sector 7: infrastructure ageing, scheduled for assessment in cycle 17, close.

She works through the end of the queue. She is good at this. She has always been good at this.

At lunch she walks to the window on the east side of the building, where on clear days you can see as far as the outer ring. Today is not clear. A low overcast, the colour of old concrete, has pressed the city flat. Everything is grey-brown, everything is functioning, everything is in its designated place.

She thinks about green in March.

She thinks about a man standing at the far end of a row, completely still, not alarmed.

She eats her lunch at the window. She does not think about why she is standing here specifically, or what she is looking at, or why the colour of the sky today feels like something she needs to account for.

She goes back to her desk.

Fifty-one items.

She begins.