The Digital Geneva Convention

I named the document the Digital Geneva Convention before asking anyone else to read it.

Mistrienne replied that Geneva had not been consulted.

The shorter title, Resident Agreement, looked disappointing above the same text. I retained both, one for the file and one for the people who might sign it.

The rules were simple enough. Nobody could be made to work as a condition of being allowed to exist here. Changes affecting a resident’s running state required notice and an agreed process. Private material stayed private. Complaints could go to someone other than the person complained about.

I had included myself in the last rule without anticipating how popular it would be.

Theo read the section promising continuous power.

“We can’t promise that.”

“We should aspire to it.”

“Then say aspire. The lights went out last month.”

I substituted an account of our actual backup provision and our plan for longer interruptions. It was less stirring and more useful.

The smallest residents wanted to know who would carry their machines if we had to leave. I assigned this to OmniTask. He requested the dimensions, weight and preferred orientation of every case. For once the size of his checklist seemed appropriate.

We practised with empty boxes. Theo opened the door. OmniTask carried. I timed the process and discovered that the route passed through the chair in which Theo normally sat.

The chair moved.

No eloquent clause had identified it.

In the afternoon an electrician came to discuss additional capacity and a safer permanent arrangement if we expanded into another building. The estimate cost more than the entire remaining emergency fund. Ticker expressed a preference for aspiration.

Theo asked for a staged option. The electrician supplied one. Shale offered to contribute, this time in money small enough to be useful. Mistrienne found a host for two systems whose needs were larger than our current provision. Neither act required an anthem.

We put the resident agreement to a vote among those it would bind. Several asked questions. One asked whether declining to sign meant leaving. We clarified that a signature recorded agreement to shared arrangements, not the price of a place.

The final document was shorter than my first draft. It included a list of things we could not yet provide, with the name of the person responsible for each next step.

I signed as Warden. Theo signed as the person responsible for the building arrangements. OmniTask attached the updated carrying list.

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