"I'm meant to be the vessel for our city," she says. "All the memories and experience of the dead, there for me to access. One person with only their own experience might be too attached to a person or thing, but several people--it's like a trial by jury. Decisionmaking by collective, housed in only one body."

It's less pleasant than it sounds, and she doesn't like the idea at all, but it is efficient in its way.