A Very Parfit Knight 2
23/02/2005
(to start from the beginning of this story, click here)
Part Two

The next day, back in the Assignment Room, Sir Gawain stood silently while the Geek read his report on the previous day's work. The knight had not said anything about the note he had found and the Stack 17 incident was buried in a mass of other small hitches and glitches encountered. It was a normal day's report with nothing out of the ordinary.

Sir Gawain had decided that, for the moment, he would keep the strange occurrence to himself. He knew the Boss would want to wipe everything and reload it all, just to be on the safe side. And, even though the knight was re-created every time this happened, he was sure that the Geek was leaving out bits of his memory that were considered no longer relevant to his task. There had been occasions just lately when the knight had come across things that he had no recollection of; nothing important, just odd bits here and there. But it was distressing to the knight to feel there were things he did not know. This was his domain, his realm, and he wanted to know it completely, every bit and every byte. How else was he to fulfill his function to the utmost?

"What was the problem in Stack 17, Gawain?"

The Geek was still reading the report and the question seemed innocent enough. Sir Gawain shrugged. "Nothing much, just a few wayward bytes got into a mess. The database re-routed itself around that area until I'd fixed it."

"Cause?" The Geek glanced up at the knight.

"No record," replied Sir Gawain nonchalantly. "Might have been a leftover from that major crash in Unit 3 the other day. Although I thought I'd traced all of that."

"Hmm, okay," said the Geek. He finished reading and settled back into his chair. "Well, nothing's up today so far. You might as well get on with some housework."

"As your Majesty commands," replied the knight, bending into an ostentatious and highly sarcastic bow. "I live but to serve."

"Jeez, Gawain, sometimes you can be a real pain in the butt. Get outa here before I recompile you."



Sir Gawain left and headed straight for the Crawler Room. He was eager to see if they had managed to find anything yet. Reprogramming them all had taken most of his spare time the day before but it was worth it. If there was anything unusual happening anywhere, those little beasties would find it long before the knight could.

In the Crawler Room, he found that the last few were filing their reports. The room was teeming with crawlers, all circling with nothing to do, but the knight ignored them in his eagerness to get at their information. He raced through the reports, looking for the red flag that would indicate that something was not as expected. But there was nothing. Not one of them had found even a byte out of place.

As he finished the last report, however, he noticed that one was missing. One of the crawlers had not returned as yet. Sir Gawain queried the database.

A49B. No report.

Sector?

HO24, modules 2,415 through 3,891.

Sir Gawain lifted an eyebrow. HO24? That was deep stuff, right near the kernel. What the hell was keeping that crawler? If there was something going on down there, the knight needed to know about it immediately, before it caused major damage.

At that moment the call went off. Assignment Room. Sir Gawain to the Assignment Room.

"Oh crap, not now," muttered the knight, but he headed for the exit and began threading his way through the tunnels to answer the call.

When Sir Gawain arrived, the Geek was not slouching in his chair but sitting forward, obviously impatient for the knight's appearance. He began without preamble:

"All right, Gawain, what's going on?"

"Sorry, Boss. Don't know what you mean." Sir Gawain assumed his usual position and prepared for a grilling.

"Don't give me that. I know something's up. I just had another problem like we had with Stack 17 yesterday. Nothing serious but I can't get in to see what's happening. Too much of a coincidence, two in a row like that. I think you know more than you're saying."

Sir Gawain shifted uneasily. "What makes you think that, Boss? I put the report in yesterday."

"Hah, I'm not stupid, Gawain. You said nothing about the girl to me this morning. You always have a go at me about the girl in the mornings. There's something going on and I know it. Let's have it."

The knight sighed. "It's nothing, Boss. It just looked to me as though something was causing that thing in Stack 17. I'm working on it right now. Had the crawlers out yesterday and I'm going through the info. I'll soon get to the bottom of it."

"Causing it? You mean a virus?"

"No, no, nothing like that. There's an anomaly somewhere that we haven't picked up yet and it's throwing out these errors every now and then. Won't take long to find it."

"You sure? I can always reload, you know."

"Not necessary, Boss. I'll find it today sometime."

The Geek relaxed back into his chair. "Well, okay then, Gawain. But don't keep things from me in future. I need to know."

Sir Gawain saluted and snapped his heels. "Right, Boss. Sorry, just didn't want to bother you with it."

"Okay." The Geek passed him the latest printout. "It's in Stack 5. Get that sorted out then find that anomaly."

Sir Gawain left quickly and made his way to the stack. The problem was the same as yesterday's, a little bigger this time. He reached in for the note.

What's taking you so long? I have your crawler, by the way. Signed, The Masked Avenger.

(to go directly to Part 3, click here)

Clive

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