Irina Sergeyevna returned two days later. This time she brought no charger, but she did bring three slim folders. She placed them on the desk in my office and asked Vera to stay.
"This is not an investigation into your Ariadna," she said. "I want you to understand why the application will contain one unwelcome section."
The first folder contained documents from a rural studio in Novaya Rechka. The second was from a children's club in Sosnovoye. The third was from a club based at the library in Lesnoy. A year before our pilot scheme, the region had introduced automated grant checks. The service found matching addresses, identical wording in procurement forms and the same accountant's telephone number, then concluded that the three organisations duplicated one another.
"There really was only one telephone number," Irina Sergeyevna said. "The accountant travelled between the settlements. The wording in the procurement forms was identical because the district produced the form. The addresses began to match after the streets were consolidated. The machine did not invent a single fact."
"And it was wrong," I said.
"A human being signed the decision. Then the contractor finished the job, technical support was discontinued, and the human being blamed the automated check."
The payments were frozen before the New Year productions. The head of the studio bought fabric with her own money, the library could not pay to heat the hall, and the children's club disbanded its group for a month. Irina Sergeyevna spent three months reconstructing the paperwork by hand and explaining to people why the phrase "the algorithm decided" did not give them their wages back.
The folders contained more than forms. Among the official records lay a receipt from a fabric shop, paid with the studio head's personal card, a photograph of a children's production performed in outdoor coats and a letter from the librarian: "Hall closed pending payment; group books moved to reading room." The papers smelt of toner and a damp cardboard box. An automated error usually looks like a red line on a screen; the human part arrives later, in a folder someone has carried from office to office.
"The contractor offered to correct the model in the next version," Irina Sergeyevna said. "The head of the studio asked whether she could eat before the next version. They had no technical answer to that."
She spoke without emphasis. Dates, sums, surnames, consequences. It was difficult to defend oneself against that sort of account by insisting that the speaker was afraid of anything new.
"That is why," Irina Sergeyevna said, "every decision made by your laboratory will have a human being who can stop it and is accountable for any error. Not in principle. By name."
"A single accountable person," I clarified.
"A different one for each action. The key holder is accountable for access and disclosure. The programme lead is accountable for procedure. The theatre is accountable for safety. A participant is accountable only for their own consent, not for what you make of it."
I did not like the plural. "Single accountable person" sounded like a post one could put on a business card. "A different one for each action" sounded like a duty rota.
"And Ariadna?"
"Her decisions must be visible in the log. But if she makes a mistake, you will be the one explaining it."
"Because she isn't human?"
"Because you signed the contract."
Vera drew the folders towards her.
"What exactly should we add to the application?"
Irina Sergeyevna dictated: the right of an individual to stop a scene; automatic deletion of a match after consent was withdrawn; a log of every access; the name of the person who confirmed the action; independent review of any harm. The final provision had already been introduced after Sazonov, and I told her so.
"Good," she replied. "That means you managed to make one useful mistake."
I wanted to object that it was not the transgression itself that had proved useful, but the conclusions drawn from it. Then I remembered my own explanations to Ariadna and said nothing.
Irina Sergeyevna did not leave until we had tested the scheme on a small action. That day, a dance teacher was due to look at some old costumes. Ariadna found the match, Vera set the time, Raya opened the wardrobe room, and I proposed a stage task: choose one dress and explain why it could not be used.
"Who is accountable if the participant becomes unwell?" Irina Sergeyevna asked.
"I'm leading the meeting."
"Who can stop it?"
"The participant herself, Raya, Vera, me, and Ariadna if she detects indicators of risk."
"Who decides that the record should be deleted?"
"The participant."
"Who carries it out?"
"Vera, as programme lead."
"Who verifies it?"
We stopped. Under the old scheme, Vera would both delete the record and confirm that she had done so. We added a second verification by the council, without access to the content.
The meeting began. The teacher chose a short silver dress that Raya considered beyond hope: the fabric was fraying at the seams, and the zip had not fastened since 1999. The woman said she would not tell its story; she simply wanted to copy the sleeve pattern. My task vanished because it was no longer needed.
"What does the laboratory have to do with this, then?" I asked.
"She received permission to look through the collection," Vera said.
"That could have been done without a scene."
"It could. That's what we're doing."
The woman took the measurements, Raya found suitable paper, and forty minutes later the meeting ended. No one went on stage, laid bare their destiny or provided material for the report, apart from one line: access to the collection took place without breach. Irina Sergeyevna accepted the line as a result.
"If all twenty-four events are like this, the city will ask about the benefit to the community," I said.
"And if all of them are magnificent," she replied, "I'll ask where you're hiding the ordinary ones."
The silver dress stayed with Raya. A month later, using the pattern she had copied, the teacher sewed eight sleeves for the children's dance. Not eight dresses: there was not enough money for dresses. The benefit acquired half a costume and did not complain.
Before leaving, Irina Sergeyevna took two of the folders and left the third behind.
"Lesnoy is still waiting for its December payment," she said. "So that the word 'consequence' does not become nothing more than a field on a screen for you."
The folder remained on Vera's desk until the region finally transferred the money. Not as a symbol: it contained the bank details.
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