[url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/177868880]~Part Six here ~[/url] - Part Seven - The sun shone high and slapped the antenna's side with a golden light. For reasons he could not remember, Bardo-105 was holding whatever remained of his old cloak. Soon the metal would be all beat up, bent and shattered - you had to hide your trace, but not too much. He and his Ghost made their way down from the collapsed tower they were in, and retraced their steps back to the bunker's blastdoor. Strangely, the puddle of blood was already drying and had a brownish tone to it. They stood outside, and the Hunter sat down, still holding his cloak. He crossed his legs and signalled his Ghost by making a fist with his right hand and raising his thumb and pinky fingers - it was an old Chinese symbol for the number 6. Cayde-6 came in silently, "[i]Dude, what's up?[/i]" Bardo-105 could her his mentor's internal renderer humming as he struggled to whisper. "[i]We're at the blastdoor. What now?[/i]" "[i]Your telemetry is all jumbled,[/i]" said the Vanguard, "[i]where even are you?[/i]" "[i]For the record,[/i]" said the Ghost, who was hovering over the Hunter's cloak remains, "[i]I'm not sure where we are either. But one thing's for sure - the entanglement is holding, so we must be in the same timeframe.[/i]" "[i]Err, good point[/i]," said Cayde-6, "[i]anyway, I was going to transmat you some of my jammers, but since that place's thick with Darkness, that's a no-go. What knives you got on you?[/i]" "[i]Um, let's see[/i]," Bardo-105 mumbled, as he laid the ragged cloak in front of him. First, and always first, his [b]Hunter's Knife[/b]. He willed it into his hand and so it appeared, glistening from its last oil treatment. A blade for hunting the most dangerous game, silent deliverance that could also be thrown most dexterously. He laid it down gently to his left, on the cloak. Then, from a belt buckle strapped to the small of his back hung an angled scabbard. He pulled out his [b]Ganu kukri[/b] knife - a gift from Cayde-6, a symbol of excellence in wilderness survival. You can't really trust a hunter to keep a medal - or worse, a diploma - so just give them a knife instead and they'll cherish it for life. Better yet, the kukri was deadlier than the standard issue knife, and could carve a limb bare, but it didn't fly as well. He laid it next to the Hunter Knife. Inside his chest armour, in a pocket to the left, he found his [b]Mora Wood[/b], issue[b] 38[/b]. More of a curio, really - a relic of the naval era that Bardo-105 kept through his death. It was sharp enough to shave a man, had a red handle and a folding marlinspike for all kinds of marine ropework. His last three knives he pulled from a compartment lodged in the right side of his ribcage. A plate receded, revealing three knives hung upside down in velvet padding. His [b]Santoku[/b] number [b]4[/b], a single carbon-steel piece, folded to ripple even in the faintest of lights, sharpened to 11 degrees; and her sister, the [b]Bocho Special[/b], off of the same steel, same folding, longer, slenderer, sharpened to 9 degrees. Next to them, the [b]Shucker-Gutter[/b] dwarf - a bowie hybrid the size of a finger. Many think Exos don't eat. In fact, they don't need to. But they can savour food, and process it for usable energy. Bardo-105 loved seafood, and sushi and sashimi. Eating the game you hunt does not mean it cannot be a feast. "[i]Uhh[/i]," he began, addressing his mentor, "[i]I have one Hunters', but I can get you another if I switch to Gunslinger. I have your kukri, my rigger, the twins and the dwarf.[/i]" the Exo said, as he toyed with the Shucker-Gutter and his index finger. "[i]Perfect![/i]" Cayde-6 must've jumped in joy, wherever he was. [i]"Take my- your kukri, and give the tang a shake-[/i]" A sound glitch interrupted his speech, and a muffled voice could be heard screaming at Cayde-6 from outside his body. "[i]Look, I gotta go,[/i]" the Vanguard resumed, rushing, "[i]just take that thing apart. A binaural - one on the blade, the other on the hilt, yada yada yada, a 3Hz offset removes the hilt and 10Hz puts it in place. Inside you'll find an in-Circ debugger. I know you'll figure the rest out. Bye![/i]" And the channel went silent. After contemplating how pretty all his knives were, Bardo-105 stowed them all away and stood up. All but the Ganu. He took the blade in his left hand and the hilt on his right, holding the blade in front of him, near his chest. His left arm began shaking at 440Hz - an A4 musical note - and his right arm shook at 443Hz, enough to make him wince at the cacophony. Soon after that, the kukri began to gave way and resonate at a frequency of 3Hz. He pulled the blade away from the hilt and they disconnected, revealing the blade's tang. The tang was shaped like a fork and had four long and slender carbon-steel prongs - a classic style in-circuit debugger. He looked at it, astonished. Cayde-6 could always surprise him. His Ghost spoke first: "[i]A 4-pin classic ICD. I haven't seen one of those those since...[/i]" his shell spun, "[i]since... ever! I have a couple of old datasheets on it, but nothing more.[/i]" "[i]Get scanning, then,[/i]" Bardo-105 said in a friendly tone, "[i]Find an input socket I can stick this into. I'll help you.[/i]" "[i]Nope.[/i]" Bardo-105 said, and then "[i]You think this might be it?[/i]" They were looking at an old casing made from a rusted alloy. It had 4 small square holes laid horizontally, the tang seemed to fit right in. Ghost scanned the openings. "[i]Yep,[/i]" the little thing said, "[i]but there should be an indication regarding pin depth, yet I don't see it.[/i]" "[i]Could this have been repainted?[/i]" asked the Hunter, "[i]Maybe under the rust?[/i]" The Ghost's shell spun as it spoke, "[i]Ok, switching light modes - suboptical... nothing. Skipping optical. Superoptical... and found it. It's 10-3-7-8.[/i]" "[i]What does that mean?[/i]" asked the Hunter. "[i]Apparently,[/i]" said the Ghost, "[i]it's the length of each prong. Normally you'd have to file those pins to fit, but I can just implode the restrictors from out here since I know the exact sizes.[/i]" The Ghost shot charged beams at the holes in the casing and clicks and small bursts could be heard inside as a little dark smoke came out. "[i]There,[/i]" said the Ghost, "[i]Try it now.[/i]" Bardo-105 held the knife's blade and inserted the fork into the inlets. A surge of electricity went through his body, sending a phase shift down his spine's oscillator banks. All his polarized capacitors reacted and wheezed at the Arc energy flow. "[i]What now?[/i]" asked the Hunter, with a tremble in his voice provoked by the current, "[i]this tickles.[/i]" Ghost scanned the Exo. "[i]You're emitting some kind of primitive signal... still binary. Memory addresses, register names, device ID, manufacturer, production date-[/i]" "[i]Yeah, yeah,[/i]" Bardo-105, cut him off, "[i]I don't like this. This gibberish is compiled, right? Can we brute force it?[/i]" The Ghost spun, "[i]I think an alignment attack is viable. Let's see... It has 12bit banks, meaning it aligns to 2 bytes, so the only bools are...[/i]" Without warning, the little thing shot its beam at the Hunter. He could feel the information flow through him at an excruciatingly slow rate. "[i]Ok, pull it out.[/i]" said the Ghost. The Hunter pulled out the knife, but nothing happened. He looked at the Ghost. "[i]Umm,[/i]" began the Ghost, "[i]I traced the only two booleans in there and used the don't-care bits to inject subroutine calls. By rights I should be getting a system update soon with a code dump...[/i]" In silence, Bardo-105 kicked the terminal where they had inserted the knife. Suddenly, the blastdoor jerked and began to open. "[i]Dump that,[/i]" said the Exo chuckling, as he slid the blade back into the pommel using 10Hz resonance. The Ghost failed to see the joke in it. As the outer plates of the blastdoor stopped, a red light began blinking above the door. The two stood in front of the inner gate waiting for it to open. For a while nothing happened, but then the gate burst open and a torrent of stagnated air came rushing out, almost sweeping the Hunter off his feet. A greenish brown putrid mist followed, along with a heavy smell of rotting mold, blood and faeces, and a very strong note of burning or seared flesh. The mood sunk, and Bardo-105 was filled with an uncommon rage - a reflex characteristic to most Guardians when faced with atrocity. A human would have probably retched and retreated. But not a machine built for relentless execution, blessed by Light and Queen. The Hunter slid his kukri into its holster, and began channelling the Void. Attuned to the Night, the unyielding cold pushed back the mist and the stench. The Hunter made a fist with his left hand and the ground crushed and split below him. His left knee kissed the ground. Kneeling, he bowed his head down and extended his arms, palms facing up. And in his hands the [b]Red Death[/b] materialized. He rose, fury in his eyes, the pulse rifle heavy in his arms, and her blade still dripping. "[i]This is going to be good.[/i]" And they stepped into the darkness. [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/181015946]Part Eight here.[/url] [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Clan/Post/1371758/180879277]Table of Contents[/url]