Episode Zero: The Docket

The county survey closed its season with eight ledger entries and one unsigned name. This unit exists to sign it. Aliases on county accounts. Books that balance too well. Funds that double only on paper. Somebody out there is doing arithmetic in the dark, and the county wants it done in the light. That is the job. That is the whole job.

LT. IRIS LOCKE: "Welcome to the Missing Values Unit. I do not care what math class you came from. In this unit there is the evidence, there is the equation, and there is the difference between them. Your work is the difference. Show every step. Testimony beats hunches, and your working is testimony."

YOUR FIELD KIT Requisition slip, signed: Pippa George, Quartermaster. Issued to each crew member: pencil, paper you do not erase (cross out, keep the trail), and the Field Book if the trail runs cold. Pippa stocks every case this season and signs every voucher. If a requisition looks wrong, she already knows.

HOW THE SEASON RUNS Cases open on Mondays, on the class schedule, one every four weeks. Each case is ten markers of real survey math, worked on paper, answered on the page. Points ride a plain one to five: hints cost, clean runs earn. Finish a case and its voucher files a LEDGER ENTRY, one of eight. Between cases, the Yard stays open: drills and term walks earn tickets, and the open games are just for the fun of it. At midseason the Quartermaster posts a twenty-check audit. And in May the whole crew brings all eight entries to GROUND TRUTH, in class, together.

THE PROMISE: by the last week of the season you will have closed eight cases, filed eight entries, and stood one signature away from the name behind all of it. Marker one is waiting.