RETRIEVING DOCUMENT
The GDA sends a facility audit form at the end of every month. I have been filling it out since I took this position. Before the Invincible War, it was two pages. Three sections. Thirty minutes if you did it right.
The third form since the War took me most of the afternoon.
Not because the facility is complicated. Because the form does not have fields for what the facility currently is.
It has a field for Active Personnel. I wrote four.
It has a field for Personnel on Medical Leave. I wrote one, with a margin note: long-term recovery, return to duty not anticipated. I have been writing that note for three months. The form has never come back with a question about it.
It has a field for Personnel on Authorized Deployment. I wrote two. Then I wrote in the margin: Dimensional Operations — Flaxan, Earth calendar timeline subject to compression. I did not want whoever reads this to assume standard field conditions. I don't know if the margin note will make it past whatever processor receives these. I wrote it anyway.
The form does not have a field for equipment pending assignment to unnamed personnel.
I wrote one in. At the bottom of the second page, in the space the form left for additional comments: Additional classification in use at this facility — PENDING — UNASSIGNED. Current count: one (1) locker, designation RE-08. Assignment pending. I almost wrote indefinitely and then did not, because I do not know that it is indefinite. The field I left for date of expected assignment is blank on the form in my drawer. It seemed wrong to fill it in on the audit when I have not filled it in on the original.
Rae's jacket is still on the hook in the equipment room.
The audit form has a line for equipment pending return to personnel or next of kin. I wrote one, same as last month. Same as the month before. The jacket is not pending in any logistical sense — I could send it anytime. The GDA form for personal effects release is filled out and has been since March. The name is right. The address is right. Three days after I check the third box, a processor sends it to their medical liaison, who notifies Rae's family.
I read the form again this afternoon.
Third checkbox: Authorize release of personal effects from facility storage.
I have the authority. I have the pen. The form was on my desk because I pulled it out for the audit reconciliation, and I read it again the way you read something when you already know what it says but you need to see if anything has changed.
Nothing had changed.
I folded it back the way I found it and put it in the drawer.
Not because I decided no. I do not think I have decided anything. I have just not checked the third box yet, and not yet is different from no, and I am clear on which one it is.
The fifth mug is still in the back of the cabinet.
Twenty-two days since it arrived. Brit used the green one this morning — the one that is not actually his, though he has never corrected this. Black Samson used the chipped one. Bulletproof used his. Shapesmith used his for warm water, same as always, and I did not point that out because he has asked me not to.
Nobody opened the back of the cabinet.
I do not expect them to. I am not waiting. The mug is an administrative allocation: the requisition system required a minimum order of four, I had four mugs in rotation, I ordered four, one is in reserve. That is what the form says, and the form is accurate.
I closed the cabinet.
I submitted the facility audit at 4:47 p.m. One supplemental field written in by hand. Two margin notes. Three categories the form did not originally include.
The facility is operational.