Rubble Tea, Then

From the tanning salon, I walked to my favourite tea house. Rubble Tea was a comfortable place to sit and work when I didn't want to be at home or the academy. Feeling unsettled as I was, I definitely didn't want to be around my housemages or my peers.

After selecting the 'surprise me' option from the auto-server and selecting an empty table for one in a corner, I set up my scryer and began investigating the state it was in. Not only was it displaying a hex I had not requested it to, it was displaying a hex that hadn't even been in my scryer. It was a hex that couldn't have been in my scryer. It was a hex that I hadn't written, and certainly no one else had written it. But it was a hex I recognised.

That was something of an exaggeration. Hexes all looked like page after page of the same sixteen symbols repeated almost randomly. At a distance, they all looked about the same. They were far too large to even begin to memorise, so it's not like I could remember seeing the same sequence before. And yet looking at it felt eerily familiar. It looked like my work, and some of the sequences of instruction codes reminded me of some of the segments I'd written previously. Most of the numbers were rather meaningless to a reader, because they were entirely dependent on the order in which the pieces happened to be assembled.

If I finished Project Hexplexer, it might look a lot like this.

A wild question occurred to me: could I have finished Project Hexplexer and forgotten I'd done it? The answer was obvious: of course not. That was ridiculous. I'd outlined how it ought to work, but actually crafting it was still a daunting task. Even the task of manually entering a hex of this size into my scryer would take days. Just reading it all would take days, without even beginning to trace how it worked. Of course, if it worked it would only take seconds to turn a formal description of itself into a functional hex. But that required it to already exist in working form, so it couldn't have been created before it existed.

I knew there were ancient hexes in my scryer that had similar functions to my proposed project, but none of them could be responsible. From my rudimentary testing, none of them could understand my operational descriptions. I hadn't expected them to, since I had based the formal format on the structure of the Codex of Purity. By trial and much error I had succeded in making one of those relic hexes generate something like a very basic hex instead of an inexplicable error message, but I couldn't make it do anything even halfway to slightly useful.

I instructed my scryer to stop showing me the contents of the hex. Examining it wasn't telling me anything. The only way to find out what something that complex could do was to try it. Invoking an unknown hex was dangerous, but my hunger for understanding exceeded my caution. I wiggled the fingers of my right hand in the proper patterns to start the hex, feeling some residual frustration at the slowness resulting from my diminished finger count. The scryer responded with a familiar complaint: the hex could not function unless it was provided with additional information. That was a good sign. A longer sequence of finger motions reinvoked the hex, this time telling it to look at a very simple hex description I had named 'first_100_evens_hxd'.

My instinct was to hold my breath until the process was complete, but it was done before I could register that it had started. There were no errors, just a message reading 'hexplexing completed for source description first_100_evens_hxd to destination hex first_100_evens'. It seemed to have worked, but it was too soon to celebrate. My fingers were trembling as I displayed the new hex. It was short enough to see it all at a glance. I took a few minutes to look it over, barely remembering to breathe. It looked like it could be correct.

At some point my tea had arrived, and I'd drunk half of it. I didn't remember doing that, which was a common enough occurance. I took a long draw from the provided straw to centre and calm myself. My excited jitters had grown too strong and would have interfered with my gestures. When I felt ready, I invoked the new hex.

2 4 6 8 10 12...

It was working!

...196 198 200

It was such a simple hex, but it had worked perfectly! I almost let out a whoop of exhaltation, but I remembered where I was just in time and instead smiled broadly into the mostly empty teahouse.

I'd done it! But that left the mystery of how and when I'd done it. I'd worked out all the steps I needed to take to complete Project Hexplexer, but the reason I needed Project Hexplexer was because of how long it would take me or anyone to tediously follow those exact steps. To create Project Hexplexer from the formal description of it, I essentially needed to be Project Hexplexer. That simply wasn't possible. I could think quickly, but human brains didn't work at all like the hardbrain segments scryers used to perform their aetheric logical calculations. I knew how to follow my instructions of how to produce a hex, but a scryer could do in fractions of a second what would take me hours. Unfortuanately, my scryer could not follow my instructions as it only understood hexes. So how had the completed Project Hexplexer come to be on my scryer?

That was a problem for later. Now, I had work to do. Having Project Hexplexer functional was only the start. I'd had to keep my formal descriptive language as simple as possible so I had any chance at all of creating the hex that could understand it and make a hex from it. That had required me to leave out many powerful features. Keeping the structure simple meant it was more verbose than I wanted it to be, though it was far better than a raw hex. But now I could make improvements to my design, and use the hexplexer I had to turn that design into a better hexplexer that understood more expressive design features. That would let me specify what a hex should do in fewer words. Hex descriptions would be easier to write and to understand. And then...

My grin widened even futher. Then I could be the most powerful hexmage under the chroma dome... and eventually anywhere underground.

Rubble Tea, Now

After the news about Dead Drop and the strange encounter with Liner He, I gravitated to my favourite hexing spot. Rubble Tea had a quiet atmosphere, which I found excellent for my productivity. The decor still felt foreign, but I hardly noticed that when my mind was deep in 'hexing mode'. The randomly generated fruity tea combinations were often rather odd, but I had never paid enough attention to find a favourite. The only downside of this being my regular spot was that now my teammates knew where to find me.

While I was curious about the growth pod hex, I had enough restraint to put that aside. I had a couple of new academy assignments to solve. Figuring out the logic of a hex that would solve the stated problems was rather fun now that I didn't need to follow it up with several hours of mindless hex translation. I was nearly done with the first problem when I heard someone pull up a chair to sit opposite me.

I looked up to see who it was, and was puzzled to see a tight orange shirt. The shirt had no sleeves to obstruct a pair of massive arms, nor was there any collar around the trunklike neck. The neck held up a wide head on which was a flat face. The nose was just slightly crooked, the lips seemed perpetually bruised, and the teeth were artificially perfect. The blue eyes reminded me of a sky I had almost forgotten, almost hidden by wispy clouds, or rather by runaway locks of blonde hair.

"Punnt, hi. Um, I didn't expect you here."

"Can we talk, Drift?" Punnt asked, rather than engaging in any small talk.

"What's on your mind?" I was rather curious to know, as Punnt was not in the habit of sharing anything personal.

"It's about Skids."

I felt some details click into place. That explained why dro had approached me away from either the team or my home. "Is this about sa's origin?" That would explain why dro hadn't approached me at the academy. In most places someone might try to listen in, but that was discouraged in Rubble Tea by social convention and by the design. The soft background music was carefully chosen and adjusted to make it difficult, and the tables were well spread out so eavesdroppers were obvious.

"Yeah, well, it's more about the trip. I'm concerned."

"You don't have to..." I started to say, but Punnt's raised palm stopped me.

"I'm concerned Skids might not come back."

"I'll make sure sa stays safe," I promised.

"No, you're not getting it," Punnt said with a frustrated headshake. "Sa might choose to stay."

"That's Skids' choice. But I don't think sa would leave me behind."

"You wouldn't leave Skids behind. But do you have any compelling reason to return here?"

I gave the question a minute's careful thought, looking up at the artificial cavelike ceiling of the teahouse and around at the thin support columns glowing with cool blue aetheric light. "There's a lot to learn here, but there's a lot to learn in other places too. I'm not tied here. Why, what's it to you if Skids doesn't return? Is this about the future of Cheesy Goodness? Even though Skids started the team, I'm sure Swipe will..."

Punnt's palm cut me off again. "Of course Swipe will find replacements! But this isn't really about Skids. Do you realy think the team has a chance without you?"

"Me? You don't need me. Just my hexes, and I'm sure those will be far out of date next season. Actually, by then any hexmage should be able to exceed anything I've done."

Punnt shrugged. "But without you and Skids, no one will care. The rest of us aren't particularly interesting players to most viewers. We have a few loyal fans but you and Skids are the ones nearly everyone cares about. People will do a few favours for the winning team, but thall will do a lot of favours for Drift and Skids' winning team."

I felt as though an aetheric pathway had been completed, inducing a flood of magically induced luminescence in my brain. Punnt's concern wasn't so much about the team's success as it's popularity, and the correspending financial benefits. "So..." I stopped and tried to figure out how to say this. "It would be bad for the rest of the team if Skid and I don't play next season."

"That's right," Punnt said, nodding eagerly. "Or if yall's reputations suffered for any reason."

Such as Skids being known as a Titan, or me returning with Titan augmentations, possibly. I hadn't voiced that plan to the team, but it was reasonable to guess that I might. "Hmm," I said, filling time. I hadn't given future seasons of chroma much thought. The impact of getting my arm or eye upgraded to something more functional on my reputation as a chroma star wasn't something I'd properly considered either. I wanted to know if it was possible and achievable. Until I knew that, there didn't seem much point in worrying. If it was possible, I antipated I would go for it, regardless of the consequences. I had not realised the consequences would touch my teammates as well. "Sorry, Punnt, I never anticipated people relying on me like this."

"You joined a team, Drift. What did you expect?"

"I've never been on a team before, so I didn't know what to expect," I said, trying to keep my voice light despite all the memories evoked by referring to my past.

"Oh. Yeah. Well I signed on because Skids is something of a legend after that whole mess with the demons last year. And because you're something of a curiosity."

"But you joined before I agreed to," I said, feeling like I'd been pushed off balance.

"Oh, really? Skids was saying you'd be involved from the beginning."

I felt my mouth twist into a frown. "Skids was presuming a lot." I sighed and shook my head. "Never mind, that's not your problem. Um, look, I'm not certain what my plans for next season will be. I can't guarantee that Skids or I will be around to participate or that we'll have the same positive attention as we do now. But if you're not happy with how things go, I'll owe you a couple of favours, alright?

Punnt nodded slowly. "Alright. I can respect that. But..."

"But?"

"But I still think you need to consider what you'd lose if you get involved with the wrong sort," dro said circumspectly. Even with the relative privacy of the teahouse, we had both carefully avoided mentioning the Titans by name.

"I suppose that means you're not joining us on the trip," I figured.

"Actually, it's the reverse. I think I should go to make sure you don't make any dumb decisions. And since the others seem interested in tagging along, I think it looks best if the team sticks together. No one has to know where we're actually going"

"If that's what you think is best, I don't have a problem with you accompanying us. But that's something to worry about later. For now, we have to be concerned with surviving Dead Drop. Do you have any thoughts about the upcoming match?" I had work to do, but asking drome about dro's own interests seemed to be the friendly thing to do. Trying to brush dro off seemed like it would lead to unwanted conflict.

Punnt smiled, and it was one of the most pleasant expressions I'd seen dro make. "Yeah, I've been thinking about ways to improve our goalkeeping..."