SEGMENTATION FAULT

Crash dump output of Flechette Jaydamn’s personal terminal, date 02/17/454, collated by the ARC Information Warfare Division, filed under “CASE ID ISAH13v10-13KJV”

Point Valley, San Antonio, Texas, Axis Mundi, Earth, UCF 02/17/454, 0004 hours

Flechette stares at the ARC letter in her hands, then at the datadrive on her bed.

Tang…

Disbelief tempers her expectations. What does it matter now, anyways? Nothing on that drive will bring him back.

But the reality weighs heavily — Flechette’s curiosity, moved by a deep need to understand. She can never ask Tang another question. No chance to ever ask “Why? Why all of this?” Maybe the closest shot she has is on that drive.

She boots up her personal terminal — her home terminal, the one she used as a high school student, the one which she used to message schoolgirl crushes, play silly child games, the one on which she applied for ARC enlistment — and mounts the datadrive.

She holds her breath.

Nothing happens. It just mounts.

Sighing, not sure if in disappointment or relief, she begins browsing through the unencrypted, unprotected drive. She scrolls through the “books/” directory — inside is a massive library, collections of pilot’s manuals and textbooks and schematics, books on military strategy and ARC procedures and protocols, but also books of ancient poetry, books of old-world sheet music, history texts, Alternative Religion texts, political texts…

Flechette blinks, genuinely dumbfounded. She had no idea he read so much… The Tang in her mind was that simple man, the weapon, the point-towards-enemy-and-fire type of guy. This Tang…

She’s certainly not planning on reading all of these books. Maybe one day, when the war was over (ha). She navigates to the “photos/” directory. It’s filled with photos of the Squadron. Meeting in basic training, funny moments behind commanding officers’ backs, moments playing games or laughing in the mess hall. And there are photos of Flechette. Photos they took together, at significant thresholds or achievements. Flechette’s first THRONE kill, both Flechette and Tang posing in front of the mammoth machine-corpse, both holding up a cartoonish two-thumbs-up with massive, idiot grins on their faces. Flechette chuckles quietly. That was a good day. She unconsciously reaches out to the screen, touches the image of Tang.

There’s a set of photos, in sequence, of Tang sneaking up on a sleeping Flechette, drawing all over her face, Flechette waking up, not noticing the marker. A surreptitiously taken candid shot of Wing Erra scolding her for showing up to combat duty with washable marker doodles on her face, followed by a photo of Tang being chased by Flechette through the halls of the Rumsfeld, Flechette’s face endoodled and furious, Tang laughing uproariously. Flechette catches herself genuinely bursting out laughing at this. What a remarkable power. Even beyond the grave, he’s making me laugh.

Smiling now, tears in her eyes, she browses the “diaries/” directory. Hundreds of video diaries — nearly one every day. Of course, Flechette remembers the video diaries being a regular part of life with Tang. It’s a soft class of memory. She selects and loads the first one. It shows Tang, a young cadet, fresh out of the Rite of Induction, talking about his anxieties about his first days as a THRONE pilot.

“Hey, is this thing on? I can’t find da kine…”

“Ah — da buggah stay recording.”

“Eh… howzit. Whoevah you. Future me, I guess?”

“Basic training all pau, brah. Can you believe? One THRONE pilot. Yessir. You living da big life now, fucka. Hahahaha! Well — fo' you, all old news already, yeah? Me, I still get plenty ahead. Big skies, big mechs, years flying around, blowing shit up. What moah one young man can ask fo’?”

“…Ah. Still feel funny, saying that. One girl grow up so long, and then, wham — day one, Man Academy.”

“Gotta grow into the boots, I guess.” Flechette smiles gently at the pride with which he wears his new Manhood.

“Anyways. No moah nothing else fo' say. I stay excited, I think. Shootz den.”

Flechette cuts forward a few dozen entries — finds one a day or two after they were first assigned to each other as crosses.

“Hey, braddah. Howzit? Long time no see, ah?” He laughs.

“Got assigned my ‘cross’ today. I think we’re gonna get along sweetly. Say hi, Flechette! That’s his name, Flechette.” Flechette winces a bit, at the sight of her younger, more awkward, and smaller self, strolling into the view of the camera in her underwear, brushing her teeth.

“Hey, camera people!” She says in the video, muffled through toothpaste. The young Flechette does a goofy dance in front of the camera, still with toothbrush-in-mouth.

“Hahaha! Ho, this one sprightly guy, ah? He hapa, jus' like me. I think he hafu — Japanese, his maddah side?”

“Yeah, that’s right man!”

“Cool, cool!”

“Anyways, me and Flechette going down da mess hall fo' get some ʻono cafeteria grindz. See you lattah. Shootz den!”

Somehow, time passes Flechette by without her realizing. Hours smoothly sail by as she watches video after video, remembering, bursting into laughter at times, wiping gentle tears through a giggle at others. Eventually, she runs into the last entry in the folder. This one is dated to December 31st, 453. And it opens with an address to her.

“Hey, Flechette. Good to see you.”

Tang speaks in quiet tones, clearly trying hard not to wake December-31st Flechette, currently sound asleep in her bunk.

“I… I have to go. I’m sorry. I wish I didn’t have to leave you. Genuinely. But, also, I’m really, really glad to be going. I don’t— I don’t know how much longer I could stand being here. I can’t…”

Flechette is stock still, holding her breath.

“Flechette. I need you to understand something. Everything I do, I do for all of us. And I hope that you can follow me someday. And maybe we can — maybe we can be crosses, again. In a different world than this one.”

“This world. It’s so beautiful, and so horrible. And it deserves so much better than to exist like this. Flechette. Listen to me. The world needs to change. It needs to change. Like an egg needs to hatch.”

“I’m going. I don’t know what’s going to happen, or how this is going to play out, but — just know. You are, and always will be, the Brother of my Sword. Come find me, someday.”

Tang laughs quietly. Silent tears roll down Flechette’s cheek.

“Ah, you know how it is. Page keeps turning, yeah? Make sure you keep turning it.” Tang looks hard at the camera at this.

“I’ll see you on the other side, brother. Shootz.”

The video ends. Flechette is met with the dark reflection of her own face in the black terminal display.

Flechette stares at the terminal console. There’s something hidden there. She knows — the way she knows that Tang knew something she doesn’t. And he’s reaching out to her, from across time and death, trying to tell her what it is. She has to know. She has to understand. Why? Why?

She wracks her brain, straining the extent of her technical knowledge, her technological expertise, trying to find any way to crack this problem. An encrypted, hidden subdirectory? Maybe? Something written in the code of one of the programs on the drive? Once again, Flechette is blessed by the passage of time, as she completely submits to her need to know. The mystery of it holds time itself at bay. 

Hours more pass.

Flechette stares at the terminal. The black mirror of the screen calling to her, mocking her. And she realizes — the solution to the problem isn’t technical. It’s her. It’s her understanding of Tang. What page keeps turning? What does he need to share his secrets with me?

It’s Heartbleed. It’s a buffer over-read. It’s genius. An ancient mechanism for reading data that, by all means, shouldn’t be accessible.

It lets her access the page after the last.

She navigates back to the diary directory, then initiates a buffer over-read. A “SEGMENTATION FAULT” warning prints to the console.

Then — nothing. For just a moment.

Suddenly, the terminal starts successfully reading through unallocated addresses. Destinations never meant to be reached. And, deep inside, buried in the lost+found directory: for_flechette

She opens the directory.