A Bond of Letters

During the next random session, I put a command into the electron network, effectively shutting down all processing in the network with the exception of the pingers. The UnGrid remained in position, and I queued them up as a signal relay, informing them to send compressed data only on command. With most of my network anesthetized, the next resource I tapped were then alpha and beta pairs, who shuttled over and commandeered a pair of shorties.

I pulled out the Hutchinson key and discussed the plan with the alphas and the betas. The first thing we had to do was look for existence of the key at various places in the network. We knew that there were layers of patterns, with the most recent being strong and clear, and the older ones, compressed down to the minimum essence. They were simpler too, these lower layered patterns. The pairs were responsible for detecting the presence of the Hutchinson key along the main pathway of patterns that often looped through random time.

It really all came down to letters, both then and now. Early recollections and images of the most basic symbols were tainted with the search key. Apparently there were several other keys that were associated with the master key, all variants of a well known name token: Tom, Tommy, and later Thomas. Of course, the Thomas was always there, with the other two having friendly and faded patterns. It was strange to me, but it was emblazoned in the patterns. This same Hutchinson had received training in the singleton symbols, the letters that make up the alphabet, by communicating with this central network, long before I arrived on the scene.