Book 7. Chapter 27: Reaching the Icon
Following the stream of data leading to the Icon turned out to be fairly easy. Just follow the traffic line of data, what could go wrong right?
A lot. A lot could go wrong, and now I understood why Wrath was the one who ferried me around and dropped us off like a doting Logi with their precious cargo.
The world near the ocean floor was a tangle of shimmering data lines, packets going up and down, like veins that I hadn’t noticed until I really looked for it. Once I did, I couldn’t stop noticing it.
These ones had extra data packages that made them appear to be mite-made data, to my senses that was what made them shimmer. And as I quickly found out, mite-made data usually meant junk and static to anyone reading. I think the Icon was hoping any random program with higher level functions would look over the bottom of this sector, see random streams of data going in and out of mite terminals in wild circus loops, all signed with mite traces - and understandably lump it all as worthless junk.
Hiding in plain sight. And if that by itself was fine, why not multiply the lines by a few thousand, just for fun? Make sure every one of them leads to nowhere, except for the single line of data. Keeping track of the source and riding it out ended with me having to backtrack and start over.
Seven times.
I’m not upset at all about this, I swear. I only want to talk to the Icon, peacefully. In stabbing range.
Aztu was no help at all. She had all the time in the world and enjoyed just running her mouth. She gave me a quick rundown on how tracing data lines and following them with any kind of speed was done, and then sat back and watched me flounder.
Advice was given only after I messed up, and only when I swallowed my pride and asked for help. Hexis, the stuck up bastard that he was, was at least far more meticulous with his training regiment. Felt like everything he used was precisely calibrated to funnel me down the right paths.