Chapter 117: The Glyph Maestro
“Highly specialized knowledge, such as celestium engineering, focus rifle maintenance, and glyph software repair, is always in high demand in the Nova Rim.”
—Traboor Holda, Business Guru and Life Coach
Zaina’s crutch slipped, nearly spilling her to the floor. She grumbled and kept moving—people were already staring at her mark, and the last thing she wanted was to give prying eyes a reason to look.
I hate this.
Gizmo, in low-power mode for the time being, was wrapped in fabric and slung over her shoulder, making it awkward to hobble on the knockoff crutches provided by the Order’s health service. Her little friend swung back and forth with every step, throwing off her balance.
All I need to do is get him to Valsi’s shop.
While she was glad to be off bed-rest, the leg was still giving her a fair amount of grief. She wasn’t yet able to walk unassisted, much less run or jump. That made it especially difficult to navigate the semi-crowded throughways of Market Isle, a floating island within Kaado’s crust; every available inch of land was dedicated to the Kaado Market—including the island’s edges, where simgrav fields allowed vendors and shoppers alike to shop sideways. A coming-and-going of Order-approved merchants selling everything from freshly printed vegetables and shanks of trimeat to Anacazan jewelry and history books lined every street, while the buildings were reserved for established shops, hotels, or restaurants.
With all the makeshift signs and advertisements blocking most of the street markers, Market Isle was a nightmare to navigate even without considering the foot traffic. It seemed to Zaina that people had two speeds: aimlessly meandering or aggressively reckless.
Finally, she managed to make it to a cross-section. There she maneuvered around a large, tall sign that said, “Uluvrian Tarmok, Cheapest Price on Market Isle!” to see the street’s name.
Okay, I’m on Alaverus Causeway. So it should be…
She scanned the nearby buildings, knowing the shop she was looking for was on a corner. One was a hostel, another a restaurant, and then—there it was. The sign, which read, “Valsi’s Glyph Repair” was partially covered by a sign affixed to the top of a vendor’s cart showing a picture of Ru Gumalgi, a Valathonian delicacy.
Valsi’s shop was quite plain—a windowless, single-story building made of wood. The front entrance looked like the only door on the whole building. A light blue awning with a blue stripe shaded the door, and two dead plants were displayed in cracked vases outside, their loose dirt spilling to the floor.
Zaina shook her head—she hadn’t been sure what to expect coming into this, and seeing the shop had only instilled more trepidation. She cooed to Gizmo, “Don’t worry, little buddy. We’re gonna get you some help.”
It occurred to her that Gizmo was in low-power mode—she was talking to herself.
Hell, maybe I need to hear it right now, too.
Zaina was about to open the door when a glyph opened it from inside.
“Oh,” she said, “thank you.”
The glyph replied with a high-pitched beep. Zaina entered Valsi’s shop, a cramped mess of crates filled with machine parts, tables with books, tools, and assorted metal scraps stacked haphazardly, and shelves packed to the brim with glyphs and glyph manuals. The store looked ready to fall apart if Zaina breathed wrong. She carefully set her crutches on the floor and unwrapped Gizmo.
There behind the furthest table, was a Cuataran woman with pale, milky skin. She had a bulbous head with three eyes, a circular mouth, and no visible nose. She wore heavily stained mechanic’s clothes and sported a pair of trinocs, with each eye-port zooming in and out as needed.
She raised a hand and said, “Be with you real quick!”
“Oh—okay,” Zaina said.
This must be Valsi.
The mechanic connected two wires and put a casing into the back of a newer glyph unit and tapped the machine with both hands. Then she strode over and said, “Name’s Valsi. How can I help you? Is this the patient?”
“Yes,” Zaina replied, handing Gizmo over. The shop-owner took him in her webbed hands and carefully examined him, each lens on her trinocs sporadically extending or retracting. Zaina hobbled back to her crutches and picked them up.
“Ooh,” Valsi said. “Am I the first one you contacted?”
“No. You were recommended to me by Goran.”
“Okay. Software issue, then?”
“Yeah, that’s what he thinks. He keeps resetting. He said something about a memory overflow.”
“Got it,” Valsi said absentmindedly. She was already hooking Gizmo up to a rectangular box on one of her tables, having to cast aside a few pieces of junk to make room for her new patient. “Let’s take a look inside this little head of yours, shall we?”
Once Gizmo was connected Valsi stared at a holo-screen showing various readouts Zaina didn’t understand. Valsi made a noise every so often, nothing more than an ‘ooh’ or an ‘ah’ or a grunt. Waiting was driving Zaina crazy, but so was the pain in her leg.
“Hey, uh—do you have anywhere I can sit?”
Without skipping a beat, Valsi replied, “I’m afraid not.” She then continued her examination.
After what felt like an eternity of watching Valsi fiddle with various holo-screens, she finally broke the silence. “Okay, okay. So here’s what I can do for you.”
“Do you know what’s wrong with him?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes. In another, no.” Valsi scratched her head. “Anyway, here’s what I recommend. Full system wipe. Everything. Build him back from the ground up. Either that or you’ve gotta get a new glyph. I can help you with either.”
“What—no, I don’t want either of those things! Do you know what’s wrong with him or not?”
Valsi shrugged. “Yeah, that’s easy. He’s been tampered with. Simple as that. As for the what, where, when, why, how, that’s the part I don’t know. All I know is someone had something on that glyph that they wanted to survive the Order’s memory wipe, and now the leftovers are distorting its functions.”
“So this had to be—” Zaina gulped—“—you mean—”
“Intentional, yes,” Valsi said. “This didn’t happen by chance. Perhaps High Lancer Giramodo had something to do with it.”
“Wait—how do you know him?”
“He’s registered as the current operator of the glyph. That’s also weird—it should be you since High Lancer Giramodo is designated as having passed away, but it seems with every reset it’s also rewriting him into that record. Glitches on glitches in this one. Would you believe its synaptic functions are still processing data even as it’s in low-power?”
This all disturbed Zaina. For one, perhaps Gizmo knew more about this than he was able to let on—for another, that wasn’t Gir’s name. Giramodo was only what Gizmo called him. This was weird.
What the hell does any of this mean? Why would Gir want to hide something from the Order?
Valsi continued, “It’s an older unit anyway, VzR series. This one’s serial number dates it back to the year 20,123 S.E., if you can believe that. This little thing has been in operation for four thousand continuous years. Might be time to consider an upgrade.”
Desperate for an easy answer, Zaina asked, “Could that maybe explain why he’s malfunctioning?”
Valsi shook her head. “Anti-degradation protocols are pretty stringent. A glyph should be able to get wiped a thousand times and suffer no loss of functionality. As for this one—none of the hardware needs to be replaced, and by all rights the software should be running fine. This is something else entirely. Something that wouldn’t occur naturally. There are other markers of tampering in the logs, too—not sure how technical you want to get. Let’s leave it at this: it’s my professional opinion that this glyph’s central matrices were accessed and altered, whether by Giramodo or someone else. And whoever did it didn’t exactly leave the door open behind them, if you know what I mean.”
“So, there’s—there’s nothing you can do?”
“Basically,” Valsi said with a shrug. “If you don’t want a full wipe or a new glyph, there’s nothing I can do. The data in the memory flow is encrypted with multi-hash action-gating. It’ll only open under extremely specific circumstances, none of which I can help you with, as they vary from gate to gate. Could be a specific phrase, could be a specific atmospheric or data pulse trigger, or it could be unlocked by taking it to a specific set of coordinates—or anything between and to either side. There are maybe six people in the entire Nova Rim who could crack this glyph’s innermost matrices, but I’m not one of them. So, what’ll it be?”
Zaina was a bit confused by all the jargon, so the sudden question caught her off guard. “Huh?”
“Full wipe, new glyph, or no deal? I’ve got a lot of projects going on, so please make up your mind quickly.”
Zaina stared at Gizmo, wondering what secret the little guy was carrying. Gir was a loyal lancer above all else—if he was going to try to hide something from the Order, it had to be big. And if he’d trusted Zaina with whatever it was, she had to act on it.
“I’ll keep him as is.”
“Okay,” Valsi said, unplugging every wire from Gizmo. “Have a nice day.”
Without another word she went back to work. Zaina picked Gizmo back up, wrapped him in the fabric sack, and hobbled out the door, not knowing what to do or where to go next.