The bird was a budget line

TRANSMISSION TEXT / 01

17 accounts.

The first document did not say surveillance. It said external surface renewal. Seventeen units. A useful-life adjustment. I assumed street furniture. Then I opened the attachment. The drawing had wings. Not a camera attached to a pigeon. The entire pigeon had a replacement schedule. The public inventory called it wildlife. The contractor called it an asset. And the technician could find only sixteen bodies for seventeen active accounts. The missing unit was still available, according to the report. Think about that sentence. The pigeon was absent. The service was successful. Somebody had replaced a missing machine with a very convincing paragraph. Before we ask who benefits, ask what, exactly, they were buying.