Long, slender fingers massaged the throbbing temples of the Seigneur Archivist. He knew not who or what they belonged to – a notion better left alone, experience dictated – but he welcomed the intervention and felt his headache lessening with every firm, circular stroke. A sigh of relief escaped his frayed nostrils as he swiped through to the final item needing classification for that particular shift.
It had been a long and particularly arduous one, with an inordinate amount of recordings from across the INC’s storied existence, both recent as well as ancient, needing careful analysis, parsing, and subsequent allocating to specific memory blocks and sub-blocks. The Intergalactic Nexus Committee had made it a top priority to catalogue as much of the verse’s goings-on as possible, no matter the initial perceived level of importance. How else would one learn to effectively rule the neverending parsecs of space – and the beings therein – without arousing anyone’s suspicion? Or, worse, anyone’s outright challenge of this status quo.
The Stupendous Data Stacks, which stored all this information, lined the insides of a swirling serpentine of specially-designed barges. Dozens upon dozens of these gigantic, Void-worthy transport vessels were tethered to one another in a gargantuan, spherical knot of metal lumbering through the verse at a considerable pace. The purpose being, of course, establishing a constantly moving item whose location is known only to a handful of high-ranking INC Officers. These individuals alone were tasked with assembling and relaying new information to the Stacks on a constant basis.
The Seigneur glanced lazily out of a triangular viewport in the side of his circular chamber. A bright, pink, rotating nebula far to the left caught his attention – he knew that it was the Stacks’ own spinning cycle giving that illusion, but he still beheld the conglomeration with no small amount of awe. The sizzling, sparking brightness of a blue star shone along a pinkish cloud edge. He wondered what the name of that star was, or if it had yet received a designator and caught himself snorting – of course it had. It had surely been evaluated, its system mapped for lifeforms, and any biological material sampling potential made known to the Gnoems who, in their perpetual search for more Meat-Garden-bred life meant to die in the arenas, had already paid the place a visit if anything was even remotely alive out there.
He’d recently catalogued an interesting bout featuring a lumbering block of sentient ash facing off against a single-cell organism taking up fully half the arena. It was an interesting, if short conflict. The wavy cell simply blobbed itself on top of the block, assimilating whatever was worth anything, then releasing a small cloud of dust from a repulsing-looking, slanted orifice along one of its fluttering sides. The Seigneur shuddered, his wrinkly skin tingling with revulsion. It surprised himself that he could still react thusly to the verse’s horrors. He also found it surprising how many of them found their way under so many unwitting Lanistas’ feeble grasp. He wondered if the winner’s own Lanista had met a similar end since that particular recording was logged, then returned to the outlying item.
His brow furrowed as he started poring over the coded lines of alpha-numerical vomit lurching across the console’s screen. The massaging fingers, having slacked off for a moment, redoubled their temple-swirling efforts. Eyes widening, the Seigneur fiddled for a comms switch.
‘Bör,’ he inquired in a hoarse voice, ‘has the file I’m currently reading suffered any corruption or been tampered with since initial storage?’
A gravelly tone replied almost instantly, ‘Nothing whatsoever, Seigneur Archivist. Security protocols haven’t been breached, the code hasn’t been altered since original recording. No physical tampering was evident on the storage unit, either,’ it quickly continued, anticipating an unspoken question, ‘otherwise it wouldn’t have made it into the Stacks.’
‘Thank you, Bör,’ the Seigneur flicked the switch off, then on again almost immediately, ‘join me for a while, if you will.’
A pause came from the other end before the gravelly tone replied.
‘Seigneur?’
‘I’m going to need your input on this one, old friend…’
* * *
Bör’s heavy bootfalls echoed along the vaulted corridors of Stack Barge 93/2/21. A peculiar notion had taken over the Systems Overseer and wouldn’t let go – the Seigneur Archivist seldom asked for his presence at the main archival post. When this last happened, it had turned into a rotations-long endeavour requiring him the focus of all his processing power on the matter at hand, dealing with a serious case of anti-INC evidence that needed scrubbing, modifications, and outright section purging before being catalogued. As a consequence, it had seen him return to his own posting faced with a backlog of system faults and user errors from the other ten Senior and Junior Archivists on the barge that had taken him almost half a TIRD to attend to. The notion coalescing inside of him told him that subroutine-numbing amounts of work would be piling up again, waiting for him with bright, flashing, optical-sensor-jarring warning lights.
He let his legs carry him along the path to the Seigneur’s post without allocating too much memory to it. He was so much a part of the barge he might’ve been part of its own processing core, for all it mattered. While Archivists came and went, for multiple purposes – security, performance, literally expiring on the job – Systems Overseers were formatted and allocated to a barge from its initial startup, and for as long as it was kept running. This happened foremost for technological purposes – Overseers were created during the same technological era as their barges, and with progress as fast as it was with the INC, backwards compatibility, be it component or code-wise, was seldom taken into account when something newfangled was put together. Whenever a Stack Barge’s memory banks filled up – usually with chaff info that would never again be deemed relevant – that particular section of the Stack would be mothballed. Simultaneously, the heavily-augmented Overseers would enter a low-power mode, only booting up to full awareness on rare, momentous occasions, such as the Stacks being attacked, or, once in a million TIRDs, a particular bit of information somehow becoming of vital importance.
Bör had been on for as long as the barge had. Some hundred and fifty TIRDs had passed since this section of the Stack had been attached and had started amassing data. He couldn’t remember how many Archivists had come and gone in that time, but for the past couple dozen TIRDs or so, the Seigneur Archivist had made this particular barge his post, and the two had gotten to know each other very well over that span of time.
The Seigneur was the first of his kind that Bör had even heard of requiring – even welcoming – his Overseer’s aid with difficult cases. Had Bör been missing his feeling reprimand subroutines, he would’ve been humbled by the fact. And also, the Seigneur referring to him as old friend. That did still tingle the non-binary side of him, ever so slightly.
Bör headed through the slide doors to the Seigneur’s post and stood at attention behind the giant swivel-seat at the middle of the room.
His simple jumpsuit contrasted sharply with the old Archivist’s exquisite attire. A purple-and-gold cape with a high, rounded collar sat crumpled to the side of the Seigneur’s comfy seat. Bör knew how he hated that ceremonial bit of kit. Technically, Seigneur Archivists were required to wear it at all times, but woe betide whomever might try to make this Seigneur hang those pointless, pompous pounds of material around his frail, aging frame.
‘Welcome, Bör,’ the Seigneur hoared and gestured the Overseer forward, ‘have a seat and come look at this, if you will…’
Bör nodded and stepped forward. The Seigneur could simply order him to do so, but always opted to allow for Bör to opt for aiding him of his own volition. There was a fine line between help and obedience, what with him being specifically made for a purpose, but the distinction was clear enough for Bör to recognise it whenever it happened. A switch on the control board produced him an Adjutant seat which sprung upwards from the room’s floor. It zoomed to to the Seigneur’s side and hovered neatly in place. As he approached, the Overseer thought he heard something skittering off the Seigneur’s seat and disappearing along the underworks of the great console that span half the room’s circumference.
Bör sat down, the chair wobbling slightly, adjusting to his weight, ‘How may I help you, Seigneur?’
‘For starters, you can pay me a visit once in a while,’ the Archivist smirked, ‘how long has it been, old friend?’
‘Too long, Seigneur,’ Bör nodded. He could supply the exact date this had last happened, but he knew this wasn’t the answer the Seigneur was looking for.
The old Archivist smiled bitterly. He was well aware the deference protocol was simply coded into the Overseer’s subroutines, but he couldn’t help but feel there was enough of a living, breathing thing left inside that circuit-enhanced body for it bubble to the surface in a way that was more… natural than one would expect from his kind.
‘Why,’ the Seigneur mused inwardly, ‘looking at him, you would think Bör is significantly more living than I!’
Whatever synthetic flesh and skin had been grafted unto Bör’s face and exposed arms to cover up any implants was blended seamlessly with his pre-existing frame. Realistic muscles rippled with his every move and the sharp features of his face could easily portray any regular emotion and pass for that of a biological resident of the verse. The only thing betraying Bör as an Overseer was, as the Seigneur knew, the three small runes etched into the back of his neck, the initials of the System Overseer Unit, and the INC seal stamped below.
The Seigneur’s own body barely resembled a living thing, by comparison. His destitute frame and hunched back spoke of service extended beyond count or reason. Pale, grey skin rippled around two cheekbone islands that almost broke the thin, worn cover of his face. His eyes wormholed through to the back of his oblong, bald head, boring their way almost clean through to the other side. Thickly, dried specks had formed at the corners of the Seigneur’s cracked mouth, stark against his black, cracked lips.
He was, as he well knew, at best unnerving to look at.
‘Too long, indeed,’ the Seigneur agreed. He turned back towards the console and once again became embroiled in the rows and columns forming and dissolving before him.
‘What do you make of this,’ he raised a thinning wisp of an eyebrow at Bör.
The Overseer could easily plug into the console and sift through the data internally, but working with the Seigneur had taught him that a different kind of approach was needed. Presently, he leaned closer to the screen.
‘It looks like a standard, first-person account,’ Bör said, ‘May I?’
‘Of course,’ the Seigneur leaned back in his seat, allowing Bronar to swipe through to the statistical block of the recording. The Overseer frowned.
‘We’re dealing with a rather extensive amount of information, fragmented and incomplete as it may be,’ he paused, cross referencing his own data, ‘well beyond what’s been considered efficient – and indeed the maximum permitted currently. And for a long while, as well,’ he said, matter of factly.
The Seigneur nodded and pursed the cracked vestiges of his mouth, ‘Check the descriptors, particularly the subject,’ he prodded Bör onwards.
The Overseer swiped and froze, his face expresionless. The Seigneur could almost see his internal processes cascading over one another, trying to explain what he was gawking at.
‘This is anamolous,’ he declared, ‘My apologies, Signeur, there must be some deeper tampering that was dealt to this particular file, one way or another, and that I missed on my first scan. With your permission I will take charge of the data, and find out just wh-‘
The Signeur stopped him by raising a bony finger, ‘You will do no such thing, Bör. And there is no need to apologise. Every descriptor of this recording is correct, and your scans have never missed anything for as long as I’ve known you.
‘No, old friend, somebody else is at fault here. Somebody who misplaced this particular recording. To our benefit.’
‘Seigneur?’ Bör frowned, ‘I’m afraid I don’t follow.’
‘I’m going to have to ask you to refrain from logging anything we might come across while examining this recording,’ the Seigneur said, gravely, then quickly added, ‘under my authority,’ he added, preventing one of Bronar’s innate security protocols to trigger.
‘All other copies or mentions of this particular situation and individual have already been destroyed, and we may have to do the same to this one, for the safety of the INC. But until such time…’ he tapped the screen, highlighting the descriptor block.
‘…you and I will be indulging in the tale of the one soul who ever came close to toppling the very pillars upon which our great organisation stands,’ the Seigneur grinned, the lumps of his worn out teeth illuminated by the pulsing yellow light below.
Bör turned his eyes to the screen, reading the highlighted sequence, and feeling a series of strange notions coalesce within him. The word treason bulbed red-hot in his digital mind’s eye. So did decommission or dismantling. But these were followed by a fervent desire to learn more? He wasn’t even aware he had a subroutine for something of the sort.
The first line of code said, Subject: Haamos Klimt – recovered personal log (incomplete, mostly verified), followed by the more grisly Status: missing, presumed dead, marked for termination. But it was the latter part of the next segment that sent Bronar’s inner workings into a warm, humming tingle. It read, Known enterprises: vagrancy, merchantry, counterfeiting; Attempted enterprises, partially successful: sabotage of core INC processes, infiltration of Stack archives, assassination of key INC leadership members.
The Overseer blinked, slowly. He wondered which of the latter parts had been partially successful. More so, he wondered how one of the INC’s most wanted targets ever had managed to keep a personal activities log. And how it had made its way to his barge, an echo of ages long since lost to space and time.
The Seigneur could tell he had thoroughly captivated Bör, biological and otherwise, and nudged him slightly, ‘Shall we?’