Follows Good and Bad, but Mostly Good.


The hope that her Wonder had been fully restored was quickly dashed by the walk back to her quarters. While there were lights, yes, that was about all that had returned–and they were dim lights at best. Maybe emergency lighting of some kind? But apart from that, a few extra working doors (the ones that weren’t broken or destroyed in some way, shape, or form along her path), and possibly some kind of camera system (she saw a blinking light from out the corner of her eye on the way out of the Second Grid), nothing else had changed. Which was…

Frustrating.

To say the very least. She tried not to let it discourage her, though. Tonight was a good night! A productive one, though maybe not as productive as she thought it would be.

Stepping into her room, Lulu greeted her with a little yip while Boo happily floated over to and soon around her head in greeting. Ekstrom felt her mood significantly lift at the sight of both, and she briefly regarded Boo with a smile while she stopped over to Lulu’s space and pressed a kiss to the pup’s forehead.

“I’m back,” she said quietly, looking between the two and finally pausing to gather her thoughts. Not wanting to get lost in the surprise development (or non-development, as it were), she was already trying to think of what to do from here. She did what the Code had told her, so why didn’t the power fully come back?

The Knight blinked at that, eyes moving to the sole console in her room.

“The Code…” she muttered, paused a moment, then hurried over, and took a seat. Sure enough, there was a window open again with the same, slowly blinking cursor as the last time. So she started typing.

    Hey, what gives?
    I went where you told me to and fixed the Grid there but the power’s still not back.

Without even realizing it, she held her breath as the cursor continued to blink at the start of the next line. She wondered briefly if it wouldn’t respond to her this time, that the open window was just a glitch due to a sudden (and probably very brief) surge of power through the Wonder. When it finally did start moving she let that breath out, biting her lip in quiet anticipation.

    Then there must be damage elsewhere.
    A conduit might have rusted.
    But given the precautions in place, I suggest the path is just misaligned.
    The power is generating, but it’s not fully flowing.

She read the response a few times, brows furrowing deeper and deeper the more times she read it.

    You could’ve mentioned that before.

    I couldn’t foresee that sort of damage.
    It was only diagnosable once the power was properly generating.

Ekstrom squinted then, not wanting to give it an out but seeing the validity in its reasoning…she relented with a sigh.

    ...Fine.
    Can you tell me where the damage is?

    Do y–

Ekstrom bit back a swear word or two (or three…) when the screen flickered for a few seconds before coming back.

    –ou need a map to find me?
    Hold on.

The cursor continued to blink slowly as she sat figuratively and quite literally on the edge of her seat, waiting in anticipation.

    [...]

One minute. She was up and pacing.

    [...]

Two minutes. She had tossed her shield onto the bed, followed by her hat, and then her jacket.

    [...]

Five minutes. She had her head in her hands and was intently staring into the screen now, just…waiting as patiently as she could. Normally had a higher threshold, but she’d been working so hard and she was so close! She couldn’t help but be a little bit impatient.

So when the cursor finally moved to the next line again, she sighed out a quiet, “Finally,” as she started reading along.

    Download this file.
    I can give you the layout but I cannot guarantee you will be able to pass through unhindered.
    Some doors may need repair.
    You should be able to run a diagnostic scan to pinpoint where the power is flowing weakest.

She clicked the provided file and watched a second window open. A bar quickly loaded and before long she was staring at what looked like a floorplan, except there was something…different about it. The Code wasn’t quite done typing, though, so she shifted her focus back to the original window.

    I’ve marked on the map where you can find me.
    There’s a suggested path but I cannot identify any blockages that may hinder your travels.

She glanced to the other window, and sure enough there was a lined path and a marker in place at the end of that path.

    This is the best I can do for now.
    But you should know that I only have limited power to communicate like this.
    Make use of these resources, I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep this up for long.

There was a slight wrench in her chest at the thought of losing contact with the Code, so she quickly typed.

    Got it.
    I’ll work as fast as I can to bring the power back.

Her fingers paused on the keys before she could continue typing the next phrase. She had a feeling about what would happen once she said it, though there was no way of knowing whether that would be the trigger even if it did happen. It was only a moment’s hesitation, though, before she typed it out anyway.

    Thank you.

Sure enough, there was only a brief pause before the cursor faded.

Ekstrom leaned back into her chair, going through the conversation a number of times before finally closing her eyes. Exhaustion was creeping up on her, but there was still something sitting on the edges of her mind that she wanted to look into before calling it a night. There was obviously more work to be done, and considering what went into fixing the Second Grid she had a feeling it would take longer than a few hours to fix whatever she would eventually find so she didn’t feel rushed at all.

Concerned, maybe, but certainly not rushed.

She let out another sigh when she opened her eyes again, this time turning her attention to the window with the map file that the Code had generously provided her. “Wish it’d given this to me the last time,” she said through a half-amused huff as she leaned in again, resting her chin on her hand as she looked on, gliding her fingers over the trackpad to try and maximize the window for proper viewing.

It disappeared, though, off to the right of the monitor, much to her surprise.

Her eyes narrowed slightly at that, and carefully she moved her fingers so the pointer came back into view on the monitor.

“Huh…”

She was only vaguely familiar with this type of thing back on earth, having done her fair share of presentations that required the use of a projector, and also having a younger brother that was very passionate about computers and technology in general, she had an inkling of what was going on. Except…

“There are no other displays,” she said aloud as she tested moving the cursor to the other edges of the monitor. The pointer disappeared past the edges each time, much to her surprise.

“But it has to be going somewhere, right?” she continued talking aloud, as though it was helping her move through her thoughts on what exactly was happening. It was alien technology, sure, but like with the rest of everything else on her wonder that she’d found, the ideas came almost naturally. So what came next was what made the most sense to her, between what she knew of Earth technology and the natural instinct she seemed to have here.

She dragged the map file off to the right hand side of the screen and let it go.

The map came to life before her eyes–a large hologram of it floating above what seemed to just be an empty surface of her desk.

Her eyes went wide, and her mouth hung ever so slightly open at the sight of it. It was…hard to believe, but there it was. A 3D map of a portion of her wonder. Standing from her seat, she slowly moved to stand in front of the hologram, eyes moving from one section to another as she took it all in. Curiously, the edges seemed…cut off?

So she instinctively reached out and pinched her fingers together.

As if on cue, the map zoomed out, though the edges were still cut.

“No way…” she whispered as she repeated the gesture. It zoomed out again. She gestured to turn, and it turned. She gestured to pan, and it moved in whatever direction she indicated, highlighting a different section of the map. When she was fully zoomed out, gesturing up or down moved her between floors. Portions were greyed out, others were glitching. There was some kind of color code going on, though there was no legend in sight so she had a feeling she’d have to be the one to make one for herself, or slowly go through the whole map to see if maybe it’s noted somewhere, or perhaps somewhere in the map window when loaded on the normal monitor.

Even without a legend available, everything was labeled, though she couldn’t read the language any of it was written in.

Something new to learn, though maybe after she found the Code.

Ekstrom studied the map for a few more minutes before going back to the marker the Code had provided and tracing the path all the way back to what she imagined was the Knight’s Quarters (she recognized the symbol from the Circuit). It didn’t look that bad, but the Code had warned her that it had no way of knowing what she would find along the way.

Not that that was going to stop her.

Nothing would at this point.

At least, not if she had anything to say about it.

1513 (gdocs; Ekstrom only)
Backdated to 12/1/24.