Ploy Thongsuk, twenty-nine years old, dispatcher four months into the job at the Foodpanda Sukhumvit dispatch center, third night shift of the week. Air-conditioned room, white fluorescent lights, three rows of desks, six dispatchers per shift. In front of her, the screen showing the Bangkok map, the red dots of riders out on deliveries. Samsung work phone on the desk. Three dedicated buttons: white for the customer, green for the rider, red for the supervisor. Eighteen thousand baht a month. Mother with diabetes back in Nakhon Pathom, retired father who sleeps through the day.

It's three twelve in the morning. Order 4471 has been out for delivery eighteen minutes. Should have been twelve. The rider's dot is sitting still in front of the Rangsit campus. Ploy hits the green button. The rider doesn't pick up. She tries again. Nothing. Again. Nothing. Five calls. Silence.

She opens the service manual. Page 7: if the rider doesn't answer after three calls, contact the customer, apologize, offer a refund, close the order. Page 9: if there are signs of an emergency, contact the supervisor. Emergency signs are not defined. The manual doesn't say what a sign looks like. The manual only says what to do if one exists.

Ploy watches the rider's dot. Still. Doesn't move. On the Bangkok map, in front of the Rangsit campus, at three thirteen in the morning, a red dot that doesn't move could be a lot of things. Could be a dead battery. Could be a break. Could be the rider delivered and forgot to update. Could be something else.

The customer, somewhere in Bang Phlat, is typing in the chat: "where are you?" Then: "hello?" Then: "??". The messages keep coming.

Ploy hits the red button. Khun Anan picks up, the shift supervisor. Voice of someone who hasn't slept in three hours.

"Rider 4471 stationary at Rangsit for eighteen minutes. Not answering. I'm sending a check team."

"You called three times?"

"Five."

"Follow the manual. Page 7. Refund the customer. Close the order. Open a rider ticket tomorrow morning."

"Khun Anan, it's the middle of the night. Rangsit. He's not answering. I can send another rider to take a look."

"Follow the manual. Page 7."

Ploy hangs up. She looks at the work phone. The green button. The red button. The white button. Three buttons to shrink the world down to three answers.

She opens the shift's internal chat. Writes to Mai, dispatcher over at Lat Phrao, two desks down.

"Mai. Can you send a rider to Rangsit to check on something? Rider 4471 hasn't moved in eighteen minutes. Not picking up."

Mai reads it. Replies ten seconds later.

"Yeah. Sending 6612. Five minutes."

Ploy hits the white button. Calls the customer in Bang Phlat.

"Good evening, ma'am. This is Foodpanda dispatch. Your rider has run into a problem. We're going to refund your order. We're asking for ten minutes."

"What kind of problem?"

"He's not answering his phone. We're sending someone to check."

"Okay."

Ploy hangs up. She watches the screen. Rider 4471's dot, still. Rider 6612's dot pulling out from Lat Phrao. The Bangkok map at night is red dots moving. When one stops moving, it's a red dot that's stopped. That's the dot manual.

Four twenty in the morning. Rider 6612 finds rider 4471 two hundred meters from the Rangsit campus. On the asphalt, next to an overturned scooter. A black BMW stopped on the other side of the road. Rider 6612 calls an ambulance. Writes in the internal chat: "Ambulance on the way. BMW stopped. Student sitting on the curb. Rider is dead." Ploy reads it. Doesn't write anything. Sends the screenshot to Khun Anan.

Four fifty. Rider 4471 died on impact. Ploy hears the message. She drinks the cold tea that's been sitting on her desk for two hours. She keeps working her shift. More orders. More dots.

Six. End of shift. Ploy turns off her screen. She puts the work phone back in the dispatcher cabinet. The three buttons go back to being three buttons. She takes off her badge. She walks out the door that opens onto the courtyard where the riders park their scooters. She sees the morning shift's scooters, lined up, all the same, and 4471's is not among them. Spot 4471 is empty. The number, 4471, is written in chalk on the gray wall.

Nine o'clock. Khun Anan calls her into his office. The office is a three-by-three room, formica desk, ceiling fan. He tells her: "You bypassed procedure."

"Yes."

"You dispatched a rider without supervisory authorization."

"Yes."

"Three days suspension. No pay."

Ploy signs the suspension form. Writes below in her own hand: "I sent rider 6612 because rider 4471's dot had been stationary for eighteen minutes in front of the Rangsit campus and the manual does not explain what counts as a sign of an emergency."

Khun Anan reads the line. Says nothing. Puts the form in his drawer. Opens another drawer, takes out a cigarette, doesn't light it.

Ploy leaves. She takes the metro home at eleven. Her father is asleep. She lies down on her bed. She thinks about how the manual is seven pages long and how the red button always rings when you press it.