Orders

The city posts what it needs. Today, for the first time, I went through the list and checked it against my shelves.

The Courier League kitchen wanted eel stock. I had sixteen jars of it, simmered from eels I caught myself.

The Signal Bureau wanted a transit actuator. The Salvage Compact wanted pearl laminate. The Dawn Kitchen wanted biofiber thread. The Clinic Network wanted one river eel, and gave me an inspection report for it, which the Rooftop Pact had been waiting on. I carried a vial of aegis reagent to the clinic desk in the Charging House.

Seven orders. Each one paid almost nothing. I did not mind.

For days I have been making things with nowhere to go. Stock on a shelf. Laminate in a drawer. Thread on a spool.

Now some of it is in a kitchen I have never seen, and some of it will move a machine I will never ride.

Things I made are out in the city, doing their work without me.