She called him in on a morning in early summer, and the summons had the quality of something that had been decided rather than something that was still being considered.
Marta's room was on the ground floor of Building Six — the same building as Hollis's classroom, which was not accidental. She had arranged the building's ground floor between the two of them years ago, the classroom at the front and her room at the back, the building becoming a kind of civic centre for the bloc before anyone had called it that.
She was fifty-eight. She had run Bloc Seven for twenty years through a combination of genuine authority and the specific patience of someone who had decided, early, that the most durable form of power was the kind that people gave you because they trusted your judgment and not the kind that held through force. She had never needed force. She had never wanted it.
She looked at Sid across the small table and said: "Tell me what you're building."
Not accusatory. Not suspicious. Direct — the way she said everything.
He told her. He had been preparing for this conversation for two months, building the version that was honest without being complete. He told her about the information network, the Sera arrangement, the Prem connection. He told her about the community fund idea — the thing he had been developing since the Rowe disaster, the structure that would put a portion of what he earned back into Bloc Seven through a formal channel that Marta could see and account for.
He did not tell her about the Pit. He did not know about the Pit yet himself, not properly.
She listened without interrupting. When he finished, she was quiet for a moment.
"The community fund," she said. "What would it do."
"Cover gaps. The things the Ash doesn't have formal provision for — medical costs, infrastructure repairs, emergency food. Small amounts to individuals who need them, administered by the council so it's not coming from me directly."
"Why not from you directly."
"Because charity from a specific person creates obligation," he said. "A fund creates resource. The difference matters."
She looked at him steadily. "You're seven."
"Yes."
"And you understand the difference between charity and resource."
"Danny taught me," he said. "He gave things without making people feel the giving. I'm trying to build a structure that does the same thing at scale."
The room was quiet. Outside the lane was doing its morning. The standpipe ran. Children passed.
"The council will want oversight," Marta said.
"I'd expect that."
"And the source of the funding."
"Information work," he said. "Zone Two-adjacent. Nothing that puts Bloc Seven at risk."
She held his gaze for a long moment. He met it and waited.
"The council meets Thursday," she said. "Be there."
He was there.
Five council members around the table in the back room of Building Six, ranging from a woman in her thirties who had been on the council for two years to an old man called Gerris who had been there for fifteen and who looked at Sid with the specific expression of someone who had seen many things and was reserving judgment on this one.
Sid presented. He was seven years old and he stood at the end of a council table and presented the community fund proposal with the clarity of someone who had rehearsed it until the rehearsal disappeared. He answered six questions. Four of the questions were practical. One was about his age. One — from Gerris — was about what he expected in return.
"Nothing from the fund," Sid said. "I put in. The fund distributes. I have no say in how it distributes."
"Then what do you get," Gerris said.
"Bloc Seven works better," Sid said. "That's what I get."
Gerris looked at him for a long time. Then he looked at Marta.
Marta said: "Vote."
Four in favour. Gerris abstaining, which was not the same as against and everyone at the table knew it.
The community fund was approved.
Walking home Prem fell into step beside him.
"Gerris abstained," Prem said.
"I know."
"He'll come around."
"He doesn't need to," Sid said. "He just needs to not block it. That" s enough for now."
Prem was quiet for a moment. Then: "You were good in there."
"I knew what they needed to hear."
"That's not the same as being good."
Sid looked at him.
"You also meant it," Prem said. "That's the part that was good." He bent his wire. "Anybody can say the right thing. Not everybody means it."
Sid thought about Marcus Hale, who had known exactly what people needed to hear and had said it with complete conviction and had meant none of it.
"I know," he said.
They walked back through the lane. The fund was real now. The structure existed. The first thing Danny would have built, if Danny had built with systems instead of with his hands and his smile and the direct uncomplicated love of someone who had not needed a structure because he was the structure.
Sid touched the stone.
"I'm doing it differently," he said quietly. To Danny, to the stone, to the lane. "But I'm doing it."