The Allocation Terminal

A pillar of cold blue glass rose where the grand fish-gutting table used to stand, humming with the steady drone of a trapped hornet. Thatchwick kicked its stone base with the heel of her muck-boots, satisfied when the jar traveled straight into her shin. Solid rock, solid light, and completely indifferent to the sacred pitch-smear she had rubbed across its face. She wanted the eastern troughs cleared of Gougerow’s greasy canoes before midday, and if a glowing ancestor from the muck insisted on handling civic grievances, she intended to hand it an armful.

"Do not tap the glass," Gougerow hissed from behind the drying racks. He was clutching an armload of split birch to his chest, his eyes darting between the pillar and the overhead walkway where Gable’s beige coat had last vanished. "It will hear the percussion and lock up my drying racks. It took my elk-horn scraper, Thatchwick. My grandfather carved that horn."

"Your grandfather stole that horn from a dead bog-elk on the north bar," Thatchwick said without looking back. She held up the glowing citation receipt she had badgered out of Brandcombe at dawn. The luminous parchment crackled with tiny amber worms that shifted whenever she breathed on them. "And if you keep hauling unseasoned timber past my skim-vats, I will show this spirit where you hide the pitch-tallow."

The glass pillar gave a bright chime that made both of them jump backward into the net-rigging.

A floating sphere of yellow light expanded from the pillar’s crest, resolving into the upper torso of a woman with braided silver hair, crisp lapels, and a smile that lacked teeth. She did not have Gable’s towering height, but she possessed the same terrifyingly tidy posture.

"Good morning, Citizen," the woman said. Her voice sounded like two smooth river stones rubbing together inside a bronze pot. "Welcome to Municipal Terminal Four. Please state the nature of your petition, resource request, or structural non-compliance report."

Thatchwick took a half-step forward, plant-sap sticking to the soles of her boots. She laid Brandcombe’s glowing citation receipt flat against the blue glass console.

The terminal flickered with rows of illuminated geometric runes. Thatchwick narrowed her eyes, tracing the glowing amber notches. Her fingers, hardened by twenty winters of grading lake-pitch, possessed an artisan’s precision. She matched the jagged three-forked mark on Brandcombe's receipt to the flashing amber notch on the pedestal's upper rim. When she pressed her thumb over the symbol, the glass chimed, shifting from a defensive pulse to an open administrative register.

"She is feeding it," Gougerow gasped, taking an involuntary step back. "She is actually speaking its scribbles."

Thatchwick grinned, dragging her knuckle down the column until the rune for combustion asset lit up under her palm. "I am Thatchwick of the Pitch-Gatherers. Citizen Thatchwick. I hold sixteen curing troughs in the south gut, and I am filing a formal fire-hazard obstruction against Citizen Gougerow’s eight cords of unseasoned birch. Clear his timber, and assign his extraction frontage to my crew."

The silver-haired face blinked once, its mechanical gaze locking onto the exact runes Thatchwick had keyed into the panel. A line of blue fire swept across the glass, validating the sequence.

"Receipt and citizen grievance verified," the woman said cheerily. The pedestal clicked, extruding a fresh, heavy slab of solidified amber light into Thatchwick’s waiting palm—a Registered Complainant Token stamped with glowing municipal authority seals. "Processing formal grievance against Citizen Gougerow under Fire Safety Ordinance Twelve-B. Cross-referencing registered commercial assets."

Thatchwick closed her fist around the warm, solid token, feeling the undeniable weight of administrative leverage. She turned the glowing slab toward Gougerow, her grin sharpening into a weapon. "See that, canoe-wright? That is official clan leverage. Next time your apprentices drop shavings in my vats, I press this against the stone and Gable takes your oars."

Gougerow dropped two logs. They hit the planking with a heavy thud. "Thatchwick, you spiteful otter! That wood is for the spring war-canoes! If the lake rises before the ribs are bent, the whole lower ward will float out into the burning shoals!"

"Then you should have seasoned it in the north yard," Thatchwick snapped. She leaned against the kiosk pedestal, crossing her tar-crusted arms. "Log the complaint, spirit. Seal his woodpile in one of your yellow boxes."

The terminal hummed louder, its internal lights shifting from amber to a sharp, clinical violet. A rhythmic clicking rattled through the stilt pilings below their feet, as if a hundred tiny stone chisels were working beneath the water line.

"Declaration received," the terminal announced. "Citizen Thatchwick claims operational control of sixteen commercial extraction vessels containing unrefined heavy hydrocarbon pitch."

"Sixteen troughs," Thatchwick corrected, tapping the casing with a calloused fingernail. "Troughs, vats, wooden boxes. Whatever your clan calls them. Just make sure the share comes to my hearth."

"Cross-referencing municipal reserve quotas," the woman said. The pleasant tone did not waver, but the air around the pillar grew three degrees colder. "Warning: Unregistered stockpile of Class-One combustible ballast detected in high-density residential zone. Total volume exceeds civilian safety threshold by four hundred and twelve percent."

Thatchwick’s smug grin hitched at the corner. "What ballast? It is just roofing pitch. We boil it with marrow-grease to caulk the rafts."

"All petroleum distillates and raw bitumen within Sub-District Seven are hereby reclassified as Strategic Civil Defense Fuel," the kiosk chimed. "Pursuant to Emergency Directive Forty-Four, all localized distribution is suspended pending central depot requisition."

Gougerow let out a strangled croak. "What did you do?"

"I asked for his wood to be moved!" Thatchwick shouted at the glowing woman. "Listen to me, light-mother! The Pitch-Gatherers hold the hereditary ladle! We have skimmed the seep since the Great Bog cooled! You cannot declare the mud illegal!"

"Appeals must be submitted in triplicate at the Municipal Logistics Annex," the kiosk said smoothly. "Thank you for bringing this critical safety hazard to our attention, Citizen Thatchwick. Your civic vigilance score has been updated."

Before Thatchwick could spit on the stone base, a deep, resonant horn blasted through the wooden deck beneath them.

Along the main walkway, where thirty wooden troughs fed crude black asphalt into the boiling pits, thick sheets of yellow hard-light slammed down from the overhead rafters. The solid-light walls drove through the cedar railings, boxing in every vat, every ladle, and every collection gutter in a cage of blazing amber glass.

Two mud-skimmers from Thatchwick’s crew dropped their bone scoops and scrambled backward as a barrier dropped between them, cleaving their worktable in two. The heavy pitch bubbling inside the cauldrons went still, trapped beneath airtight ceilings of luminescent force.

"My troughs!" Thatchwick lunged toward the nearest vat, her fingers clawing at the yellow barrier. Her knuckles struck solid light with the ring of an iron mallet on granite. The surface did not yield an inch. Inside the cage, her curing pitch sat untouched, glowing faintly under the sterile yellow glare. "Let me in! That is three months of skimming!"

"Resource lockdown complete," the terminal said pleasantly from behind her. "Quotas have been reset to zero. Have a productive and compliant day."

Gougerow stood frozen among his scattered birch logs, staring down the length of the southern wharf. Every single collection chute was sealed. Every storage barrel wore a glowing yellow cap. Even the drainage grates where the overflow dripped into the asphalt lake had been capped with solid light.

"They took the tar," Gougerow whispered, his voice rising into a cracked squeak. "Thatchwick... how are we supposed to caulk the canoes without tar? How is anyone supposed to light the smudge-pots?"

Thatchwick kicked the solid-light wall with everything she had. The forcefield hummed, sending a sharp shockwave through her knee that made her teeth rattle. She spun around, glaring at the empty blue kiosk.

"We have to find Brandcombe," she ground out, shaking the numbness from her foot. "And he is going to teach me every single word written on those cursed glowing slates."