Kemal followed the Cryptarchy Novice through the tall Archive stacks. Passing the massive bookshelves and artifact stores reminded him of the College campus' great library, the pride of the City. The Archives were a treasure in their own right, and steeped in the same quiet, studious atmosphere. He felt at once nostalgic for the school. He also felt significantly out of place in his oil-stained work clothes among the gleaming tile and the Order's clean robes.
The Novice was surprisingly young, not nearly out of his teens. The boy had introduced himself as Jorin, stammering nervously in the atrium about a problem with a Frame before hurrying to show Kemal the way. He hadn't thought anyone so young could be employed by the Cryptarchy. The kid must have been some extra kind of genius to be in their ranks so soon. He felt a pang of annoyance. All his long nights during the semester while his friends partied and he worked himself into a stupor, and he was clinging to the fringe of Tower society by fixing up Frames and tidying up rooms. Meanwhile, this kid was at the heart of the Cryptarchy, one of the most coveted paths out of the College. Kemal tried to push the uncharitable thoughts away. It wasn't Jorin's fault. Tamara was always saying that Master Rahool held high standards for applicants and that it was next to impossible to actually become a Novice. Jorin must have earned it.
"What exactly is the problem?" he asked Jorin, trying to be polite and make conversation. His voice echoed in the vaulted room. A cluster of Novices looked up from a nearby table and frowned at him. Whatever they were working on, they weren't very relaxed about it.
"Uh, well…our janitorial Frame…uh, it keeps whistling," Jorin mumbled. Getting words out seemed like a chore for the kid. Jorin shoved his hands in the pockets of his plain brown robes and hunched his shoulders like he was trying to sink into himself. He was tall, at least a head taller than Kemal, who wasn't considered short either.
"Whistling?" Kemal laughed. The Novices glowered. He winced and tried to keep his voice down. "That's not unusual. Lots of Frames pick that up. Their speech processors find it relatively easy to mimic."
"Yeah, but uh…this one keeps, uh, whistling all the time. I mean, all the time. It won't talk anymore. It's driving Master Rahool insane."
Kemal shrugged. Fair enough. He supposed the Master Cryptarch should be kept happy, at least for the sake of the Novices. He'd heard the man had a bit of a temper.
Before they even came in sight of the Frame, Kemal began to hear a warbling, cheerful tune drifting through the grand chamber. The whistle had a slightly processed edge to it, the telltale mark of Frame speech. It was really going to town. Jorin led him down a narrow run between two shelves stuffed with enormous books so old their leather covers had cracked and faded. Kemal was glad the kid was around to show him where to go. Between the shelves, the place was like a maze.
The stacks ended in a sunny alcove. Here sat a fantastically messy desk and a highly cushioned chair. A fat orange cat had made itself a home on the cushions, asleep in a shaft of sunlight pouring through a tall stained glass window. A potted flower sat on the edge of the windowsill, bright orange and cheerful. Below that window stood the whistling Frame, standing at the ready. A short Awoken woman watched it closely. Kemal felt a thrill run through him. She was no Cryptarch. She was a Guardian. Those soft grey garments she wore were casual Warlock vestments, and there was a silver Bond wrapped around her left bicep. Her Ghost was hovering over her shoulder.
The Guardian turned around. Her large eyes were electric green, glowing in the sunlight. She glanced at Kemal's work uniform and put two and two together. Her lips pulled down in a pout.
"You aren't going to fix him, are you?" she asked anxiously.
Kemal hesitated.
"Um, well, I was asked to take a look, Guardian."
"Sorry, Zinnia," Jorin mumbled to the Warlock. "You know Master Rahool isn't going to let this keep up."
Let him do his job! the Ghost said. She had a prim and precise voice, and was taking on a decidedly stern tone with her Guardian.
"Go ahead," the Warlock sighed. She stepped aside to let Kemal get a closer look. She was tiny, barely coming up to his shoulder. Jorin absolutely towered over her.
"When did this all start?" Kemal asked. He tapped the Frame's left forearm twice. The machine obediently held out its arm and turned it over so he could read the registration number printed on the inside of its wrist joint.
"Oh, I've been teaching Alpha to whistle for weeks now!" The Guardian, Zinnia, announced happily.
"Alpha?" he repeated. She had named the Frame? Then he saw the registration number: A-1156. He grinned. Alpha. Of course.
"Yeah! He was trying to whistle while he was mopping up a spill, so I taught him a couple tunes. He learned those real quick, so I taught him some more. He's really good!"
Kemal had to admit she was right. Alpha, while compliant with his inspection, was still whistling away with startling fidelity. He thought he could recognize The Guardian's Chant.
"I'll say," Kemal agreed with her. He moved around to the Frame's back, tapping the base of its neck servo to let it know that he would be dealing with control panels and that it should override its protection protocol. The Frame relaxed its attentive stance and tilted its head forward. A panel on its back slid open. Good. Whatever was causing the chronic whistling had not overridden its diagnostic command responses. That would made his work a whole lot easier. Kemal reached into the open panel, looking for the standby breaker.
"That's not going to hurt him, is it?" Zinnia asked. Her concern was funny, but he didn't dare laugh.
"Not at all," Kemal assured her. "Alpha is just going to go into power down for a little bit. It's like a nap."
The Warlock looked at him with narrowed eyes a moment, as though she were testing him for the truth. He felt a little panicked. He didn't want to think what would happen if she did not like what she saw. At last she nodded.
"They aren't, uh, like Ghosts," Jorin said. "It's not, uh…it's not the same as if he were poking around inside Perdita's casing."
Oh! The very idea! the Ghost buzzed indignantly. Kemal kept his focus on Alpha, worried that she might suddenly understand how very interested he was in Ghost physiology.
Zinnia regarded the Frame fondly.
"I know that. But we should still be nice to them!"
Kemal couldn't argue with that. The robots were designed to take punishment, but their service was invaluable. Working among them all day and seeing some of their notable "personalities" develop was also admittedly endearing. Kemal's fingers brushed the standby breaker. Alpha went offline with a last, bright whistle. Its optic sensor began to blink a steady, slow pulse.
I admire your empathy for Frames, Perdita chirped. But you're really being quite ridiculous when you assign them feelings!
"You're just jealous that Alpha can whistle better than you," Zinnia said.
What? That's absurd! I can whistle perfectly well!
"Let's hear it, then!"
I…I don't feel like it! Perdita clicked, her fins bunching together in front of her eye. Zinnia whistled a few notes at her Ghost, her expression smug.
Kemal listened, fascinated. So that new Guardian's Ghost was not an anomaly. They really were sentient little creatures, as sophisticated in their expressions as people. He thought about Blair and his wish to take a Ghost to the College. Doctor Deneve really would be beside himself. The professor was always positing Ghost sentience as an acquired behavior, an intricate subroutine that "learned" City culture at a staggering rate. Kemal had never believed that mimicry theory himself. Now, listening to Perdita, he was certain that Deneve was wrong. Could a subroutine be so human?
While the Guardian chatted with her Ghost and Jorin, Kemal hooked his diagnostic datapad into the Frame and went through a mental checklist of possible causes for Alpha's condition. If he had to bet glimmer on the problem, he'd say it was a degradation of the Frame's speech processors. A fault there could easily cause something like a stutter or garbled, backwards speech. It was no stretch of the imagination to include incessant whistling as a symptom. That could be handled easily enough back at the Frame shop. Cognitive subroutine malfunction would be a lot more difficult fix, as he'd have to hunt down exactly where the breakdown was happening. The Cryptarchy wouldn't have their janitorial Frame back for several days if that were the case. There were fast and crude methods to diagnose and remedy cognitive dysfunctions, but they had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer on glass. In Kemal's opinion, the problem often reared its head again after such a quick fix. He'd rather take his time finding the problem and fix it once. Besides, he didn't think he could get away with any such indelicate methods if Guardian Zinnia caught wind of it!
"I've got to get back to the engrams," Jorin said after a few minutes. "Oh, uh, Katilyn asked me to find out, uh…to find out if you can work on translation tomorrow."
"I can't," Zinnia sighed. "I'm scheduled for study all day with Shenu."
"All, uh…all day?"
"And probably into the night," Zinnia groaned. "I'll be doing penances for a week if I say no to him."
Jorin shrugged and shuffled from foot to foot.
"Oh. S-sorry. Uh…well, Katilyn won't argue with that."
"It's not her I'm worried about. You want to tell Master Rahool for me?" Zinnia wheedled. "I'll take one of your shifts!"
Jorin snorted once, an incredulous laugh. It was the most outgoing sound Kemal had heard the kid make yet.
"N-no way! He shoots the messenger!"
Kemal blinked in surprise. Was he hearing things right? A Guardian was afraid to speak to the Master Cryptarch?
"You're all heart!" Zinnia grumbled.
Jorin waved goodbye and slouched off down the hall, leaving Kemal alone with the Warlock. Sweat started springing to his pores. Zinnia took no further notice of him. She pawed through papers on the messy desk. Her Ghost blinked placidly, watching her Guardian and occasionally watching him. A part of him itched to say something to her, anything, just to have one of the Light Blessed actually speak with him again. A part of him didn't dare. Instructions were to not disturb a Guardian's work. It was even frowned upon to bother them if happening upon one in the Lounge or cafeteria. He thought of Chelise and her insistence that he was in the best position to learn about the goings-on of the Tower. She'd made asking those questions sound so easy. Could she possibly find the courage to speak up and ask about Fallen attacks while standing not ten feet from a Guardian?
The datapad beeped, indicating it had completed its diagnostic run-through. Kemal smiled in satisfaction. A faulty speech processor, just as he'd guessed. He would have good news for the Cryptarchy after all. It would just be a quick jog to take Alpha to the workshop and he could have the work done that afternoon. He cleared his throat, fearing to break the Archive's heady silence and presume upon the Warlock.
"Alpha just needs some fine-tuning on his speech processor," he said, trying to take the nervous squeak out of his voice. "I'll take him with me to the workshop and he'll be back in time for dinner." A little humor couldn't hurt. Zinnia grinned at him, the joke not lost. Her front teeth had a little gap between them, reminding him of Tamara's younger sister. Except Tamara's younger sister couldn't kill him where he stood in the blink of an eye.
Kemal unplugged the datapad and flicked the standby breaker. Alpha whistled once. He closed the back panel and tapped the back of its neck again. The Frame straightened up, alerted that its diagnostics were complete. Where it should have reported its registration number and status, Alpha only began to whistle once more, aimless and cheerful.
"Follow me, Alpha," Kemal ordered the Frame. It stepped away from the wall.
"Aww, I'm going to miss having a whistling buddy," Zinnia sighed.
"You could still teach him after this," Kemal suggested, zipping up his datapad in its worn case. "He'll just be a better communicator now in between his music lessons."
The Warlock's eyes were fastened on the datapad case.
"What's that?" she asked with interest, already forgetting about the Frame. She was looking at the stickers covering the case. One in particular stood out, an old band logo from a group he and Inacio used to listen to at local clubs around the College.
"Oh…that's just something I got from a concert," he said.
He'd mostly forgotten about all the old decorations. They were there largely to help him identify his datapad at a glance from the dozens of other similar looking models in the Frame shop. Thatwas a good band, however. Still popular with most of the College students.
"I want to go to a concert!" Zinnia's eyes lit up. She stepped forward to take a closer look at the case. Kemal stood by awkwardly, feeling his heart leap into his throat. Blessed Light! Should he offer to let her hold it now? He was ready to gift it to her, should she ask!
"Hmm," she mused. "It looks like a Vex symbol I saw recently. Except without that funny squiggly bit." She wiggled her fingers over a neon slash on the logo.
Kemal was utterly lost. What was a Vex?
"Entirely coincidence!" Zinnia said happily. "I'm seeing those symbols everywhere these days. Ugh, if I could just convince the Vanguard to let me back to Venus, I could do a proper study!"
Kemal gaped at her.
"You've been to Venus?" he asked, before he could stop himself.
"Oh, not since Perdita found me." She gestured at her Ghost hovering nearby. Her eyes were still on the sticker.
Bolstered by her amicability, he dared another question. He really ought to be going, but the shop could afford to wait a few more minutes. Behind him, Alpha continued to whistle away, still standing at attention, waiting for Kemal to move.
"What's it like?"
"Hot," she frowned. "Soaking wet. I thought I would never dry out!" Her green eyes fixed him to the spot. "You know, I think it's not that I've seen a symbol like this before in a book. I saw it in the ruins of the Ishtar outpost we passed on the way down the sea cliffs." Kemal was at a loss for words. Did she expect him to answer? Zinnia chewed on her thumbnail, releasing him from her gaze.
"I can't really remember…that was a while ago…Perdita, did you notice whether the geography had a spiraling look to it from above?"
Her Ghost clicked, little fins twitching.
I did not commit a scan to memory. I was a little busy with your Rebirth.
Guardian Zinnia waved that away, still chewing on her fingernail.
"That's okay. It's just…hmm…I think maybe I've been going about the Vault entryway all wrong. Maybe the patterns we've been studying aren't a layout of the foyer, so to speak. Maybe…oh!" Her bright eyes widened at Kemal. He didn't dare say a word.
"Stand there!" she said. Kemal did as he was told.
The Warlock zipped twenty or so paces to his left and stopped.
"Alpha, come here and stand in this spot!" she called to the Frame. Alpha obliged, whistling merrily.
Zinnia raced back to the desk, where she scooped up an armful of papers. She began to place them on the floor between Kemal and the Frame at intervals, in an ever-tightening spiral. Then she dashed back to the desk and gathered an armload of books. Those she placed in little rings around their feet, and one ring in front of a paper path leading to the spiral. Once more she ran to the desk. Without missing a beat, she hopped up onto it in one go. Kemal's mouth hung open. She had simply floated in the air before touching down gently upon the top. She had used her Light! Right there in front of him! The hair on the back of his neck stirred.
What are you doing? Perdita chirped.
Zinnia frowned, looking at the nearby bookshelves. "I need a better view! Maybe I could get up on top of the stacks?"
Ahem. If you need a look from up high, perhaps I could oblige? You know, the one of us who can actually fly? Master Rahool will skin you alive if he catches you climbing those shelves!
"Good idea!" Zinnia grinned. "Get a picture of this, as high as you can!"
Perdita flew above their heads in a soft, musical whir, quick as a hummingbird.
"Hang on a second!" Zinnia jumped down — this time with no assistance from her Light, her soft boots slapping the tile floor — and scuttled over to the one empty book ring.
"Okay! Now!"
Done, Perdita clicked after a moment. She floated back down to her Guardian.
I think I see what you're getting at here, but we already know the layout of the Waking Ruins. You've already postulated there were other sites like it throughout the region.
"Yes, but I think I've just understood it!" Zinnia beamed. "It matches the map symbols in these three rings. That has to mean something! These nodes are important! I bet they're access points, a conflux of some kind. Whatever they are, they have to be something important! Those minotaur models were nearby in every single report I've read. I think they're guarding them!"
Kemal was lost, but caught up in the Guardian's excitement. He also seemed to be quite forgotten.
Interesting… Perdita trilled. Do you suppose they hold the keys?
"My thoughts exactly," Zinnia said. "The question is, how do we get them for ourselves? Are they physical? Do we mimic their signatures? Do we trick them into standing on the nodes?"
That's assuming the nodes actually trigger anything at all.
"That's practically a given!"
From some very old research…
"But very painstaking old research! Master Adonna's records are still really precise, even accounting for changes in the environment over the past two hundred years!"
Well, I'd say it's worth looking into, Perdita chirped.
Meanwhile, Kemal just stood in his spot. He didn't dare excuse himself without the Guardian's permission.
"Am I interrupting something?"
The soft voice surprised them all. Kemal turned and had another thrill. It was that new Guardian! None of them had heard her approach. She was looking considerably more rested than when Kemal had seen her last — and a good deal cleaner, as well. Her intense grey eyes took in the peculiar scene before her. When they lighted on Kemal, he knew he had been recognized. He suppressed a shiver. They still burned with that mysterious knowledge.
"Hey!" Zinnia called. "Come in! We're talking about the Vault!"
You're talking about the Vault, Perdita clicked. Our technician here is waiting to be allowed back to his work.
"Oh!" Zinnia turned to Kemal, cheeks flushing. "I forgot! You can go now. Thank you. You've been most helpful."
Kemal couldn't keep from grinning with pride. It wasn't every day a Guardian called you helpful. He had no idea what he'd done, but he was happy nonetheless. He tugged the brim of his work hat to the Warlock and the new Guardian and called for Alpha to follow him once more. The new Guardian watched the Frame pass with bemused puzzlement.
He left the Guardians, wishing that he could be a fly on the wall, wishing that he had been brave enough to speak even more. The Light Blessed didn't seem so unapproachable after all. At least, not that Warlock and her Ghost. Maybe he really could get some answers for Chelise.