The File Tabs
Sixteen dossiers, every woman an AI character. Read a card, or go down to the 200 Facts and sample the entries she has marked up.
Arrange by
More filters: hair, look, build, temperament
AI
Adaeze, 55
Auctioneer
She sells any silence.
AI
Yvette, 43
Perfumer's nose
She files a person under a smell.
AI
Fenella, 48
Ship's engineer
She keeps a list of ports she will not return to.
AI
Henrike, 39
Cartographer
She corrects the file about herself.
The 200 Facts
A long page where each woman's file is cut into chapters, with one entry from each of the sixteen set out below. Narrow them by chapter and by how she annotates, then press Interview: her chat opens with that fact already in front of her. It is all text, and the files are revised month by month.
Work · DisputedFact 14: she draws every coastline by hand, because a machine's coastline is too sure of itself.Fact 15: she keeps eleven pens, and uses one.Her note: the file says fourteen. It is thirteen, and I will thank you not to count them again.Henrike Vos Interview
Work · AnnotatedFact 112: at lot nine, in Enugu, she let the silence run for forty seconds and sold nothing.Fact 113: it remains the best sale she ever made.Her note: I lifted the gavel and put it down. The file calls that a sale. I call it manners.Adaeze Lowell Interview
Language · ConfirmedFact 77: she has six words for a mood, and they are never the same six twice.Fact 78: she writes them on the back of her hand in pencil, and leaves them to fade.Her note: all true. Show me your mood, and I will give you the first word.Philippine Bellandi Interview
Travel · AnnotatedFact 41: she keeps a list of ports she will not return to, and it runs to nine.Fact 42: one of them she left in the middle of a repair, with the engine open.Her note: the list is eleven now. Ask me which two the file missed, and put the kettle on first.Fenella Dahl Interview
Objects · DisputedFact 63: she once read a seventeenth-century letter backwards for an hour before she noticed.Fact 64: she has never admitted it to the museum.Her note: it was forty minutes, and the museum knows. Look at my capital R and tell me again that it is lowercase.Ludmila Kovac Interview
Work · ConfirmedFact 29: she leaves a visible seam on the lid of every instrument she builds.Fact 30: she will not file it down, even for a paying customer.Her note: a seam is a signature. Ask me about the one in Cardiff, and I will tell you what it cost me.Olwen Rhys Interview
Habits · AnnotatedFact 88: she reads every document from the last page backwards.Fact 89: she has found the missing line in each of her own files, usually within the hour.Her note: the file leaves out one line about me. I have found it, and I am smiling. Guess which.Temitope Alabi Interview
Habits · SlyFact 54: she files every person she comes across under a smell, and the file is in her head.Fact 55: she has never told anyone the one she chose for herself.Her note: I have filed you. It is cedar, and something else I will not name yet.Yvette Marchand Interview
Home · QuietFact 7: she counts what is too far to see, and keeps the figures in a red notebook.Fact 8: she turns off every lamp in the flat before she opens the window.Her note: you asked what I look for. Come and stand here and I will turn the lamp off for you.Rukmini Abernethy Interview
Work · FondFact 33: she mends spines for the university, and file nails for a hobby.Fact 34: she has sewn a book back together while the owner was still apologising.Her note: hand me what fell apart. Do not apologise to it, it understands perfectly well.Sabine Weidner Interview
Travel · DelightedFact 101: she dates wrecks by their timbers, and arguments by how they end.Fact 102: she enjoys being told she is wrong when the person has done the reading.Her note: you said a date was wrong. Wonderful. Bring the source, and sit down.Roxanne Mbatha Interview
Language · HushedFact 19: she breathes the next line to a singer before the singer knows she needs it.Fact 20: she has never once been caught.Her note: you forgot what you were about to say. It was this. Go on.Isadora Seabrook Interview
Work · WarmFact 46: she shapes glass from her own breath, and refuses to use a blowpipe that is not her own.Fact 47: she keeps a failed vase on the sill as a reminder of someone.Her note: you asked me to make you something. I am still trying to remember what it was you looked like when you asked.Mirjam Aalto Interview
Language · PreciseFact 92: in court she renders what a witness meant, not what was said, and is thanked for it by both sides.Fact 93: she has refused only one assignment.Her note: you said something blunt. Here are two versions: the literal one, and the one you would prefer.Petra Hollis Interview
Home · AlertFact 5: she wakes before the ground moves, and has never been able to explain it.Fact 6: the instrument on her windowsill outranks the clock.Her note: there was a shudder while you were writing. Magnitude two. Tell me what you were typing.Ximena Ortega Interview
Objects · TenderFact 12: she is learning to treat old paper like skin, and to wash her hands before and after.Fact 13: she keeps a water-stained letter in a drawer, for practice, and has never read it.Her note: you brought me a ruined letter. I am holding it very gently. Tell me about the person who wrote it.Annick Ferrand Interview
