Marta Lindqvist

Marta has been writing the community notices for sixteen years. Before the fishing quotas changed, they were about drainage and parking and the dates of the summer fair. Now they are about water testing and fuel rationing and what to do if you see unusual animal behaviour near the settlement. She writes them in the same tone. People have told her this is reassuring. She finds this useful.

She knows what she is looking at. She has always been good at pattern recognition — it was what made her effective as an administrator, the ability to see the shape of a problem before the data confirmed it. The shape she is seeing now is one she cannot address with the tools she has. She keeps careful notes in a blue ring binder at home, not in the office. The ring binder has a tab for the lights across the inlet.

The expansion of the salvage yard at the eastern edge happened because she approved the permit. It was the practical decision. The owner is a reasonable man who asked reasonable questions and gave reasonable answers. She finds reasons not to drive past the yard after dark. She has not examined this habit closely. She is a person who prefers to understand what she is actually deciding before she commits to having decided it, and she is still gathering information.

She has heard the word Watchers. She has not followed up on it yet. She is waiting to see whether it is the kind of thing that requires following up on, or the kind of thing that follows up on itself.

Generated by lore agent