//------------------------------//
// Chapter IX 
// Story: Blank Slate 
// by Integral Archer 
//------------------------------//

	The electrical engineer serves a dual purpose in Stable 2. Along with the design and maintenance of the electronics (in other words, the design and maintenance of nearly every aspect of the life of the stable dweller), he is also the one who operates the stable’s only radio frequency. With it, he makes the important announcements, the news of the day, calls various individuals to the overmare’s office, etc.

This dual responsibility has nothing to do with the concept of complementary professions, exchangeable skills, or anything of that matter. It is a much cruder reason, one that is resolved with a psychological argument rather than a vocational one. It is simply this: engineers have the peculiar quality, in that if they see something working that they did not build themselves, if they’re suddenly tasked with the goal of maintaining it, they will convince themselves, truthfully or not, that it is not operating as efficiently as it could be, or it is not performing as many duties as it could be performing. 

Stable 2’s first electrical engineer rewired the radio system to the point where none could understand it but him. When he retired, his successor censured what she perceived to be his bad practices in regard to the radio, so she completely rewired it, and it followed that she was the only one who understood it. Her successor rewired it, as did the next, as did the next. The new engineer looks at the wiring of the radio system, convinces himself that it’s wrong, and dedicates his first job to making it better. 

Personal projects assume personal conventions. The engineer is usually more than happy to explain to the overmare how it works, but the overmare has neither the time, nor the patience, nor the knowledge to understand it. The engineer doesn’t mind working the radio, so he usually happily wakes up Stable 2 every morning with his voice, which blares over the intercoms and the residents’ Pip-Bucks.

When it was his turn, Copper Chromite ignored all his duties for two months to move the radio down the hallway. He asked for no help. None knew what he was doing; they assumed he was slacking. For two months, there was no radio. It was only when, one day, the stable was shaken by a loud, sonorous voice. It startled them. Many screamed; many dropped what they were holding when they heard: “Testing, test—ha! It works!”

This marked the first time that Stable 2 heard that peculiar laugh of his: the first time in the history of the stable a laugh was born not of spite but of exultancy.