> Close my eyes
The man continues speaking. “I checked, and while we have a majority of Observers with a strong, positive opinion of the subject, pretty much none of the observers have created an account yet.”
“Well, couldn’t we just take that as a majority and move on? The rules are just that we need to obey the votes.”
“Technically, I think you’re right, but I’m sure some of the observers are going to have opinions if we start making decisions that rightfully belong to them. Maybe we could just send out a mass text quickly to everyone letting them know they need to sign up again?”
“That makes sense. How about something like this:
“Observer, due to the incident with the previous subject, our systems have been taken down temporarily. As I’m sure you’re aware, there is a new subject being observed. To make any decisions about her fate, and the fate of the Sprawl, we need your input. We’ve opened up applications to a new portal. You’ll need to sign up again. Go to https://www.cognizance.observer/observers/portal to get your credentials setup. You’ll only be able to vote on the current subject, but we’re working on bringing back additional functionality. Thank you for your Patience during this rebuilding phase.”
“Sounds good to me. We can’t give them forever, but at least now everyone has some time to make a call on this one. You just know one of them’ll be pissed if we let a subject into the Sprawl permanently after less than a dozen…”
You close your eyes. The world goes quiet, and the conversation gets quiet. You’re colder than you were in the sea. A light draft breezes across your arms, and you can feel them go to goosebumps.