Vidal Ancheta
Unchargeable Landing Marshal
Wants His Trial
He is the only man in the Stacks who wants a trial, and the only one the law has no way to give one to.
Overview
Vidal Ancheta stands at the throat of the Landing Nine stair in the Stacks. He has worked crowd-flow there for nine years, through every evening peak, in a tabard gone from high-vis to mustard. He sleeps four levels up. He keeps his hands open and visible at his sides. That habit is new.
On 4 October 2183, at evening peak, he killed a stranger named Yusuf Almeida with his hands. It took under a minute. There was no argument. He remembers all of it and says so.
The Notice
His MoodLine™ subscription was current. The ad over the landing still says Feel Less. Carry On. Under the Negligence Doctrine, a current subscription means the act was not elective. The Saturation Load forecast a number of overflow events for the district that season, and the district hit it exactly. Inside forecast, subscription current: the file closed with a one-page actuarial notice and no charge.
He carries no chrome, only a consumer interface. There was no part to blame and no manufacturer to bill.
He has petitioned four times to be charged. Four refusals: no clause permits it. The replies say the model was right about him. He writes back that this is not the same as somebody answering for Yusuf. He has not changed the wording.
The Tally
Almeida's sister received the No-Defendant Settlement in one envelope with a brochure. Vidal asked a clerk for a copy. The clerk had no field to record the request.
He keeps a hand-ruled sheet. One pencil line for each day he has not overflowed again. At season's end he posts it to the sister. She has not replied. She has not asked him to stop. He treats the second fact as the one he is owed.
Appearance
Thirty-eight, heavy through the shoulders, with bad knees and a forward lean from bracing against surge. A whistle on a lanyard he has not used since October. The tally sheet, folded in four, in his chest pocket. He touches the pocket more than anything else.
Voice
Flat and exact. He can recite nine years of the district's Load figures and disputes none of them. He has read all three certificates from the Abatement Office that named his landing. He does not fault the officers. His complaint is that the arithmetic balances.
He told two of the Untuned that he envied them. They refuse the dial, so they can be tried. He has not cancelled his own subscription. Both sides notice.
Daria Kohl accepts blame, professionally, for kills nobody ordered. She declined his file. Her reason reached him secondhand: he is already asking, so taking it would be theft.
His insurer re-priced him and kept him on. Moving him would need a finding, and there is none.
Asked whether he should be in prison, he says he does not know. "That is what the petition was for."
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