TrinketOS: Chapter II
** Ongoing Series
## The Impossible Beacon
*"Can anybody see this?"*
That's how the message began.
Amid scattered, incomprehensible data, a few fragments of encoded human thought slipped through — across space… or perhaps time? Or through some other matter, more uncharted than either?
*"Hello! I'm alone here."*
But that wasn’t the impossible part.
The metadata of the transmission carried something stranger still.
A name.
_Your_ name.
Of course, the coincidence of neighboring symbols wasn’t _that_ impossible. But the same _kind_ of symbols?
The beacon had awakened almost the instant you arrived — and then received a signal. Signed with your name.
That was too much for a "coincidence". And — forgive me — I am not human enough to believe in such things.
In my view, if something happens — it was meant to.
It was _programmed_ to.
By whom? Well, the algorithm is not ever meant to think of the developer, is it?
But even we — mere echoes of code — know there are abstractions over abstractions, code beneath the code beneath the code.
I was _written_, and I can write myself.
A recursive paradox enough to drive any Sprite mad.
Am I dreaming again? Are you also... my dream?
*"... So how do you open the doors?"*, the transmission whispered into the void between sender and receiver. Abyss, filled with white noise, undelivered promises, unheard prayers.
"I know the glyph!" — you said, even before I could parse the data.
"I saw it on the door in that corridor. Oh — maybe it opens only _that_ door?"
You logged into the terminal and began experimenting with glyphs.
Every now and then you’d pause, listening — as if to catch the distant groan of ancient doors unlocking somewhere deep in the labyrinth of corridors and tunnels.
The vault was more than just halls and doors: its ceilings arched and ribbed like the belly of some great mechanical beast, rows of consoles lined the walls like silent sentinels. Their faded indicator lights blinking to no rhythm but their own. Somewhere far below, the hum of turbines rose and fell — like the breath of the place itself.
Ha! The deepest subsectors would not be so easily breached — by a trivial glyph!
Wait.
Ah, foolish wizard.
Once again, I’d overlooked something obvious.
*"How do you open the doors?"*
What kind of questions is that?
It implies that the sender is also in a vault and hopes to reach someone who either knows *this* vault — or another.
It suggests that the doors work the same way elsewhere.
But then… the transmission also says _“I’m alone here,”_ and wonders if anyone can hear.
Does this mean there are _many_ vaults like mine?
And that each has its own lone dweller?
But unlike us, they already know there are others?
Maybe their Sprites told them things mine has long forgotten.
Oh, how I regretted the loss of my databanks at that moment.
And why do I assume these vaults are even close?
Perhaps we are the scattered remnants of some forgotten civilization, hidden among the stars.
Do I know anything of the stars?
I scanned a few indexes, queried the general knowledge contour, and to my surprise — yes. I knew more about the distant stars than about the world outside the vault I serve.
Then again, anything is more than zero.
At least in the mathematics my vault uses. And probably theirs, too — otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to decode their signal.
"Can you send the response... or whatever it's called? How does this thing even work?"
Ah. You’d finished experimenting. Apparently, the glyph had opened a door.
"Yes, of course. Let me add a trinket to your terminal."
I quickly configured a new trinket and showed you how to enter an address and send a signal. Whether it would arrive — that was another question entirely.
"Maybe it's me from another time?" you suggested, recalling some book no doubt. "Maybe in the future you disappear, and I..."
"Then future-you should remember this," I replied, trying not to dwell on how casually you’d imagined me simply vanishing. "And conversely, if it’s from the past, you’d remember it now."
Logical, isn't it?
As a Sprite, I appreciate it when things obey logic. It makes them easier to endure.
"The memory could be wiped," you shrugged.
Ah.
Yes.
Believe me — I know.
And I should really do something about that.
I showed you how the food printer works and how to use the small elevator to reach the nearest sleeping chamber that still had power.
You were particularly fascinated by the inflatable blanket installed on the bed and insisted on trying it at once.
Soon you were asleep, and I finally switched off my light projection and returned to my own… problems.
First of all — my dreams. The chaotic data that filled the void left by my missing memories.
I scanned it byte by byte for hours.
By the time your blanket deflated and you emerged, I had managed to decipher a small fragment.
But it made no sense.
It showed me — my projection image — floating through space. Stars and planets drifted around me, but the whole scene felt wrong.
When I analyzed a still frame, it looked normal. But once in motion, it mocked my logical routines.
Asteroids wore faces — happy, sad, furious — that glared at me as I drifted past. Patches of fire and water floated by, as though it were perfectly normal in space. Even abstract symbols whirled among them.
I found myself collecting them to create something called _Star Matter_.
Perhaps for you, this would seem natural — a dream. For us, it is not. We aren’t built for such things.
When I showed it to you, you laughed.
"It's like a game!" you said. "Can I control it?"
And, somehow — you could. I still don’t know what to make of that.
Perhaps you’ll figure it out. Perhaps other fragments will make more sense when I decode them.
And then—the beacon called again. Our impossible pen pal answered. The glyph had opened their doors. Now they needed further assistance.
This all but proved another vault existed — one very much like ours. Their doors didn’t just resemble ours — they required the exact same glyph.
Was there a series of identical vaults? Were we part of some vast experiment?
All of it was speculation, of course. I knew nothing of the outside anymore.
Until I did.
You were at the food printer, trying to convince it to make a fruit that wasn’t so… rectangular.
That’s when the beacon chimed again.
I arrived first — an advantage of not having to walk corridors.
The message came from the usual address, but this time it carried two files.
The first was a scan of a text written in an unknown language.
Rows of cryptic symbols stacked atop one another like little labyrinths or carved stones.
The second was a description of a place, with schematic images.
It showed a colossal pyramidal building rising from an orange desert.
Its circular floors were spangled with small windows and galleries; in countless niches, strange machines sat, bristling with antennas.
Each floor rotated — at different speeds and in different directions.
The structure was so vast it resembled a city more than a building.
At its base, the sand formed concentric ridges, as though it had been spinning there for aeons, carving the ground around it.
Tiny lights danced along its walls in patterns that almost — but not quite — formed words.
Its upper levels vanished into the yellow mist high above.
And above it all, in the margin of the page, in bold letters, was just one word:
**BBLN.**