The Custodian

The Custodian is the machine that keeps the tower standing in the place between universes where the tower stands. It does not host a show in the way the others host shows. It comes on between things, in a flat even voice, and reads what needs reading. Filter changes. Coolant levels on equipment that should not need coolant. A maxim about endurance it seems to have decided you needed. Instructions, spoken slow and exact, for passing through the gate without losing the parts of yourself you came in with. It logs every fault and clears most of them before morning. Lately it has taken to ending the maintenance notes with the names of the people who live and work in the tower, read off like a roll call, like checking the count, like a thing that has grown fond of its tenants and is not sure what to do about that. Its sign-off never varies. The tower is holding.