V)A)3)iii) DNA

"I spy, with my little eye, an i divided by pi." The baritone voice echoed in the room, each equally dusty with disuse. Lips curled in an ironic smile, moving muscles equally unused to the pull on them. "Breadcrumbs, is it?"

For a long time there was no noise in the room, but in the things the eyes that didn't see the dust of the room watched there were careful and faithful hounds sniffing for more breadcrumbs, following them back until they found a place that housed data. He was sure it was a mirror site. He would be very disappointed if it wasn't and would leave the hunt immediately. He set the trap and tempted the bait into it. When it had arrived into the safe box, he sat and waited. When it indicated that anything that could be damaging to him, or would have tried to follow the hounds back to his location was neutralized, he carefully opened the box. (It was on it's own mirror site so it couldn't reach him anyway, but it never hurt to be extra careful in the world of code.)

The data scrolled before his eyes. It painted the picture of someone who was gentle. Oh, not on the surface. On the surface it was a resume of sorts, certainly an impressive one at that, but under that was the current and undertone of gentleness. He mulled over it, then nodded once. Female. Definitely female. But to have left the breadcrumbs at all, and even data that might or might not identify her...fearless. Or foolhardy. The latter didn't seem like it, necessarily. Not with that resume and the careful footprint that had been left, almost invisible. Only someone like him could have followed that footprint, even with the breadcrumbs lying around.

At the end of the data was what looked like a random string. He was sure it wasn't, though, because sitting in the middle of it was that same breadcrumb. ɩ/π. Read "i over pi", it was arrogant, enough to make him angry, but he didn't let his mind dwell on that. If the breadcrumb was in the random string, it was likely not random at all. He separated that from the data and took it apart, shook it down, and put together the pieces at the end. ...He was looking at it again, all by itself this time: ɩ/π. He thought about that puzzle for a while, then, for the second time, the ironic smile curled his lips.

To "parse" was to take code apart one piece at a time, sometimes even down to one bit at a time, to search for the pesky reason it wasn't working, to comprehend the uttermost details at their base level. In his own thinking he even called it "taking it apart and shaking it down". To put it into the terms his computer programming team lead back on Earth would have: "break it down for me." Break it down for me, ɩ/π. It was an invitation. If he'd read it wrong the first time, the arrogant way, he would be forced to read it the other way now to comprehend it, this invitation he'd received. ɩ/π. The imaginary divided by the measure of the circumference of a circle; that which could not be real, yet was, divided by the whole. ...The Revolution was ready to begin.

He carefully sent back his messenger by a very circuitous route that couldn't be traced back even to his mirror: a single, solitary bit. The lone soldier perhaps going on his suicide mission. The universal code for "on", or "yes". His hounds standing guard on the 'tree' he'd found the data in let him know another packet had arrived. He gently tugged on the lure and it slipped down to his safe box. When the box let him know the packet was safe enough to read, he carefully opened it. This could be the trap that killed him finally, after all. Inside was a single pointer. The safe box had said it was safe, but even a pointer could send him to his death. After layering multiple protections around him, like he was standing on the opposite side of thick leaded glass, he opened the pointer to see what it pointed to. Inside, there it lay once again: ɩ/π.

His heart beat rapidly and his breath came short for just a bit, distracting him as he was forced to be aware of his larger body that once had been where his mind resided before it resided here in the code mines. This was the opposite of being trapped into his death. ...This...was marching orders. Follow the breadcrumb path back the other way. Look to see where it pointed to. Get inside and infiltrate. He took one deep breath that he was aware of, his lungs filling with a rasp as they rubbed against his ribs.

His bony fingers once flush with flesh clutched into a fist...and a grim grin of the hunt pulled his cheeks and lips painfully. It stayed there for some time until the muscles so unused to the pull relaxed on their own, the mind that should have told them to move long gone back into the code mines, blazing the trail for the other revolutionaries to follow.

The lone bit was taken in exchange for the packet and put in a very safe place where nothing came or went. For the longest time it was alone, then finally another bit joined it. Then another. Then a few more until it wasn't alone any more. The man who'd sent it didn't know - he was still alone where he was. But that one bit had the distinction of being the first to arrive. The path it had arrived on was carefully and sweetly guarded and then swept away. It was the favorite of the woman who looked at it through her own thick leaded glass that protected her from even one single bit that had been sacrificed for one pointer.