This rough sketch takes place a close to 800 years before Hlau’s investigation of a string of hacks on some computer mainframes. Atosa, being one of the things on his list, is the site of a gigantic engine mainfame complex, built during a period that is comparable to Earth’s 19th century. Jing, the protagonist of this sketch, is witness to some of the early events of the Great Engine Heist. There is a discrepancy in the calendar system and the dates used here and some of Hlau’s stories. I’ll definitely correct it in future drafts. This part picks up from the first part.
On the rasterizer viewscreen, Jing monitored the requests that came in from all the engines networked with the Great Engine Complex. There was always a code identifying the engine and location requesting data, and this was all recorded on the spools of punch paper. Once he saw a spool was running out, he tapped the code for “halt.” Below the monitor was a keyboard with the 60 syllabic characters of Phonic, with a key to tap a few times to select a Universal Character. Each syllable key on the keyboard automatically emitted the series of beeps – the longs and the shorts – but Jing preferred to tap it out on his singular telegrapher’s key, as the engines operated on a binary code, which was easily rendered in longs and shorts.
