The Temperature in Apartment 6C

At thirty-one degrees, Juno Halvik started hitting the ceiling with a broom.

Not because it helped the temperature.

She just wanted the neighbor upstairs to know she was still alive.

Three knocks came back.

Good.

Apartment 7C was occupied too.

Juno sat in front of the fan again.

The fan was intended for electronics, not people, and had been borrowed from Rell in 6A, who was synthetic and therefore personally unconcerned by the heat but deeply concerned about his dog.

The dog lay on Juno’s kitchen floor with its tongue out.

“Your father is an idiot,” she said.

The dog agreed.

The cooling system had stopped working two days earlier.

The landlord’s service contractor had logged the fault.

Then reclassified it.

Then sent a technician who concluded that the main system was functioning.

It was.

Only the branch feed to the C stack was not.

On Civic Network, the case therefore read:

BUILDING COOLING: OPERATIONAL. LOCAL COMFORT VARIATION UNDER REVIEW.

Juno had written a reply.

COME HERE AND VARY.

It had been moderated for tone.

That evening Rell knocked on the door.

His dog did not even get up.

“Mediation tomorrow,” he said.

“I know.”

“Are you coming?”

“I’m seventy-eight. I’ve been angry longer than their company has existed.”

“That wasn’t an answer.”

“Yes.”

In the mediation room, the landlord’s representative wore a shirt that looked cool.

Juno disliked him immediately.

Rell sat to the left. On the right sat Tomas from 7C, his eight-year-old son beside him.

“This is not a safety issue,” the representative began.

“My son sleeps in the bathtub,” Tomas said.

The representative fell silent.

“Coldest room,” the boy explained.

Juno liked him.

The mediator went through the logs.

The landlord had responded within the required time.

Technical inspection had been completed.

A replacement part had been ordered.

Estimated delivery: four days.

“Four more?” Tomas said.

“Unfortunately.”

“So six days.”

“Yes.”

“At thirty-one degrees.”

“Daytime temperatures vary.”

Juno leaned forward.

“How hot is your office?”

The representative looked at her.

“That’s not relevant.”

“Then it’s below thirty.”

The mediator coughed.

Rell presented his solution.

Temporary mobile cooling units for the C stack.

Cost borne by the property owner.

“That requires a power connection the building is not rated for,” the representative said.

“I work in load management,” Rell said.

“Yes?”

“You can run two per floor if the kitchen circuits are restricted during peak demand.”

“This isn’t a technical negotiation.”

“It’s a technical problem.”

Juno saw the representative make the mistake of looking at Rell’s chassis and then at the mediator, as if someone else should confirm he was really entitled to know anything.

Rell saw it too.

He said nothing.

Tomas did.

“He leads the night shift on the distribution floor.”

“I wasn’t questioning his—”

“Yes, you were,” Juno said.

The mediator raised one hand.

“We’re moving on.”

An hour later there was an interim decision.

Mobile units.

Temporary load schedule.

The landlord paid.

The property would also undergo a new inspection of its zoning controls because the temperature sensor for the C stack turned out to be mounted on the main return and had therefore been consistently reporting a temperature that no one in the C apartments actually had.

When Juno got home, two technicians were in the corridor.

“Are you 6C?”

“Unfortunately.”

“We need access to your kitchen.”

“There’s a dog in there.”

“Yours?”

“Municipal witness.”

The technician looked at Rell.

Rell shrugged.

The cooling returned shortly after midnight.

Not dramatic cold. Just air that suddenly stopped feeling personal.

Tomas’s boy stood in the doorway of 7C in pajamas.

“Now I don’t have to sleep in the bathtub.”

“Shame,” Juno said. “Cheapest room in the building.”

He laughed.

Rell came to collect the dog.

Juno began closing the windows.

“Thanks,” he said.

“For what?”

“The fan.”

“It was yours.”

“You used it on him.”

“He’s stupid but innocent.”

The dog wagged its tail.

Rell stopped in the doorway.

“We should keep the residents’ group going.”

Juno stared at him.

“Now that it’s cold?”

“There are other things.”

“There are always other things.”

“Exactly.”

She sighed.

“Thursdays. Not before eleven.”

“In the morning?”

“I’m retired, not dead.”

He nodded.

The following week seven residents gathered in her kitchen.

The month after that, there were thirteen.

By winter the property owner had installed new sensors.

Civic Network marked the original case as RESOLVED.

Juno did not like the word.

It made it sound as if nothing remained.

She preferred REPAIRED.

Repairs were more honest.

They admitted something had been broken.