"Child. Child, wake up," the Father says as he gently shakes the Girl awake. She has fallen asleep on the bed in full run gear. The Father heard her wake well before dawn, unable to sleep due to her excitement. Today is the long promised morning when he would allow his daughter to lead the daily run into the Trash Deeps. The Father slept little, but not from excitement. Though the Girl has seen a few of the things he would show her today, he had never allowed her to keep one herself. Almost 10 cycles old, though, meant that the Girl was finally old enough to begin to see the world the way he did. It would seem to him that change is always hard, no matter how much time one has to prepare for it.
The Girl yawns as she wakes and nervously the Father hands over the well-worn and cracked map to the Trash Deeps to her immediate excitement. He has been in charge of this section for years and knows even the un-opened sections since he has to map them for the Readers. Decades or eons old, the Father knows not; all he knows is that his job is to lead his group to sort through the refuse of a long gone civilization to provide materials to the ones in power, the gatekeepers of all knowledge, the Readers. He knows the Girl can navigate with the map. She has an uncanny aptitude for learning, one that he has worked to keep hidden for years. She is becoming more like the long-faded memory of the Mother every day. Recalling her makes his eyes well up lightly and his hands shake. Yes, the Father must keep the Girl safe but he feels a heavy responsibility to show her that there is more to the world than scavenging the Trash Deeps for the Readers and hoping not to anger their more learned masters. In fact, if he knew the words, he would say it was her birthright and he would not let anyone deny it.
The day passes. The run through the Trash Deeps goes smoothly, if a little haltingly. The Father feels a surge of pride watching the Girl navigate using the maps to bring the rest of the 'Deeps crew to an area rich in that reddish-gold metal the Readers are so fond of stripping from old electronic equipment. But his pride is tinged with guilt as the Father has a plan for something more than just collecting this day. Today, he will give The Girl her first piece of real knowledge and set into motion her destiny.
While the 'Deeps crew is out scavenging the Father calls out to the Girl. "Come here, child." He smiles painfully as all parents do when they know their children are about to grow up. She stumbles and runs happily over the piles of garbage and detritus, blissfully ignorant of her imminent future.
"What is it, papa?" Her eyes are gleaming, this is easily the best day of her life. The Father kneels down, puts his hands on both the Girl's shoulders, and looks cautiously around them for the other people in their masks and ill-fitting clothing. The other Glyphs, named so for their primitive scrawlings, are safely out of eavesdropping range collecting metals from the refuse. Now is the time.
He reaches inside his worn-out duster and carefully gives the Girl a forbidden gift. It is something no Glyph should ever have, that all objects like it are to be incinerated at once lest the bearer be forced into early "retirement...," or worse.
It is a book.
The Girl's hands tremble as she's mesmerized by it. This is her first book she's seen in years, the last being when another Glyph had found one and reported it immediately to be destroyed. It is tattered and torn, the cover long-ago marred by some ancient damage, but she sees none of that. She sees only a book even though she does not even know what it claims to be about and it's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen, a dream made real by some person long ago. Tears of joy spring forth as she touches the book, touches a dream, and the Father says, "it's all yours."
The Girl is crying. "Really, papa?"
The Father smiles. "Knowledge is power, hide it well." The Girl wipes her eyes, grinning more than he has ever seen and then nods her head, hiding the precious gift in the folds of her rumpled clothing.
It would be months before she would see another book.


* * *


The Girl stumbles, almost falling. She catches herself on a slick square sticking out of the side of one of the new hills. Its shape is familiar, similar to the Glyph-Legunt, the special electronic book that the Glyphs are allowed to use. She touches it again, but quickly pulls her hand back, expecting pain but receiving none. Upon closer examination it is rectangular and like a clamshell. This is important somehow but she cannot articulate why; nobody ever taught her how. She quickly cuts a piece of her jacket off and ties it to some of the refuse by the strange Glyph-Legunt and runs to catch up. She will return for it later and ask the Father about it but she senses it is far too dangerous now.
The Father has warned her time and again to watch her step. The past week the Father has been especially adamant about watching her step in anticipation of the newly opened section. The Readers always demanded more and more from the Glyphs but the resources from the scrap hills ran out often. Every so often, the Readers allowed the Glyphs into a new area to continue to scavenge for the resources. Normally the Girl would have been too young to be allowed on the run, but because the Father was Scavenger Glyph Leader for the Psi Sector he was allowed small freedoms. This time, the Girl had come with him because it was Counting Day.
The Girl understands the Father's concern. The first few weeks in a new area, the Reader's Glyph Guards were especially vigilant, searching each of the Glyphs in turn. The last time a new area opened, one of the Glyphs under Father's watch stumbled and caught a piece of the strange wire in her jacket edge. The Girl shivered as she remembered the screams when the Glyph Guards dragged her away. 
The Readers would have it be the Girl's destiny to become the Glyph leader, to replace her father when he is too old to lead scavenging groups. The Father has significantly bigger plans for her though she is too young to understand what that entails; the Father claimed he needed help carrying the special Glyph-Legunts only he could have. The Girl just thought it was because he did not want her inside on a nice day, she could not have known that the Father hoped she would find a fresh laptop before the others did. In a way it is good the Girl is naive as children should be.


* * *


The Father sleeps restlessly as the Girl looks on. There was a fall, a collapse at their workplace. Without the others, he would have been buried under the debris. Luckily, it was the end of the shift and the Girl was able to encourage the others to help uncover him quickly before they took him away.
The Father mumbles, groans, mutters words that make no sense to the Girl. "Silo, disk array, terminals." Twice she thought she heard him mumble that he was deaf, but she couldn't be sure what that meant either. Over and over, he mutters these words, sometimes yelling out, "we must protect them." The Girl worries, tries to cover his cries with sounds around the dwelling. Certain approved music has not been banned, so the Girl turns it on loudly and pretends to study the approved Glyph materials.
When the outside lights go dim, the Girl crawls under her bed and pulls up the loose boards. The books are still there. Another of her most prized possessions, the laptop is what the Father calls it, is still there. Soon, the Father will move them to the hiding place. But only if she can get him well.
The Girl softly touches each book, traces the words on the front. Words instead of Glyphs. Real Words, the kind only the Readers are allowed to know, stretch across the covers, fill the fragile pages. The Girl can read these Words. Father began teaching her on that fateful first day she went with him to work.
The Girl strokes the covers once more, places the books tenderly back in the cache, and conceals it once again.


* * * 


The Father is troubled.
The Girl is older now, almost a teenager. It means little in this world. However she's beginning to notice and understand her father's pain. There is something within him, a secret, one he does not wish to involve her in and she knows, somehow, that keeping those kinds of secrets hurts, that they can be a heavy burden. She suspects it has to do with why he always seems to have new books for her to read and where he takes the ones she finishes. This alone is quite the heavy secret but she intuits that there is something much bigger he is keeping from her.
She is growing, and thanks to the Father's efforts her mind is growing, much faster than any other Glyphs, and it makes it hard to keep their secret life. The Father has been especially pressed these past few days and talks about a time when he may not be there to guide her. She'll tell him that he'll always be there to guide her. Soon she will find out how right she is.


* * *


Something is not right. The other workers have not spoken to her this day, leaving her feeling unsettled, lost, making the tedious work much harder to focus on. After her fifth attempt to engage in conversation this morning at breakfast was met with stony gazes and turned faces, the Girl stopped trying. 
Father has gone to work on his monthly reports in the office, but even that feels odd to the Girl. According to the calendar that the Readers kept for them to see, he still has eight days until the monthly reports were due. 
Anxiety turns her gut, clutching at her heart and through to her lungs and spine forcing her to take pained, hurried breaths, much like the fish she sees sometimes at the market when they were pulled from their tanks. One of the books she read recommended trying to take deep, calming breaths; it helps some.
Something is not right. It is worse than not right. Something is wrong. Something is horribly wrong and it has to do with Father.


* * *

Father has gone missing. It happened in the night as when she awoke he was gone. The Glyph Guards tell the Girl that he has been taken to the Readers' area for further training. The Girl knows they are lying. She can sense it, read it in their voices as well as she reads the Words. He has gone to the city for training before, but Father always returns. Always. 
Later she would grieve as she knows in her heart that her father will not return this time.


* * *


The Girl settles into the Father's workstation and begins preparing the new monthly report. Father has been gone for three monthly reports now. Gone like the others who angered the Readers. The Glyph Guards still lie to her, tell her he will return. She suspects they know they have made a mistake this time.
Similarly, the Readers do not like to see mistakes in the monthly reports and so the Girl prepares the reports on the scrap paper. Unlike other Glyphs, the Readers allow the Scavenger Glyph Leaders to make paper from scraps so that all mistakes are made on Glyph paper. Reader paper is far finer and too precious to be used for waste work.
The Girl is lost in her thoughts about the Father when the pen falls out of her hand and rolls onto the floor of the office. The sound of the pen hitting the old, wooden planks startles her out of her pensive musing and the Girl scrambles to the floor. There were only four pens given out to the Father per year so she must not lose it.
The pen has rolled under the desk and is lodged into a crack in the floorboards. The Girl gingerly wiggles under the desk and reaches for the pen, missing it as it drops down the crack. Sighing, the Girl slides out from under the desk and grabs the metal ruler that is used to make straight lines for the reports. She slides back under the desk, preparing to use the ruler as a lever when much to the Girl's surprise the floorboard, along with three others, lifts smoothly in a square like a lid. Furrowing her brow the Girl slides the lid off and there, under the Father's desk is a secret cache, much like her own under her bed. Nervously, the Girl grabs the pen from within and slides the lid back into place. She wants to desperately to look, her heart thudding in her chest, but she knows it has to wait.


* * *


Darkness has fallen and the moonlight is hidden behind the veil of clouds. The curfew bells rang earlier as the Girl waited for the lights-out bells to ring. Now that all is quiet the Girl decides it is time and slips out of her shack. It is their home, hers and Father's, but he is gone, so now it is hers. Dressed in her dark clothes, the black dyed clothing they wear on the runs, the Girl slips into the darkness smoothly and quickly, padding lightly through the silent evening, slinking through the darkness from black shadow to black shadow. If she is caught, the Girl knows she, too, will disappear, but the cache under Father's desk calls to her. 
The walk takes three times the normal time, but the Girl knows this is far too precious to leave to chance. She has smuggled the handheld light her father has secreted away in the house. The Girl tries to remember the name, a 'flash' something, but falters. She feels it banging into the small of her back with each step until finally the door to the office comes into view. Steadying herself the Girl lets out a breath, slides up to the door, and carefully unlocks it. She slips into the darkness and pulls the door closed behind her, bolting it solidly. She has spent so much time in this room that she glides in the darkness, easily avoiding obstacles until she gets to the desk. She wipes away the sweat of anticipation from her brow and pulls out the light then slides under the desk and opens the cache. Only now does she dare turn on the light.
The cache is surprisingly bare given the size. The Girl could easily fit into the space. Even the Father, with his broad shoulders and tall height, could squeeze himself into this space. On a whim, the Girl slips into the cache. Knowing that this could be a death sentence, she pulls the lid shut over herself and uses the light to look around what she hopes will not turn out to be her tomb. There are folded papers, not the handmade kind they use, but more like the kind from the Readers. The Girl unfolds them to reveal a map, much like the one used to navigate the Trash Deeps, but this is a map away from the Trash Deeps. There are other papers, too, filled with handwritten words in the Father's writing, but the Girl is too flustered to read them. Folded in with the papers, there is also money. Real money, not the chits used in the 'Deeps, but the kind that the Readers have. An outlandish, wild thought forms in the Girl's head: that this is where the Father had really been going on those trips into the city.
The Girl attempts to sit up and hits her head soundly. The world goes dark.


* * *


The Girl awakes with a start, but before she can yell out, she realizes in horror that she is still hidden in the cache. Above her, she hears the sound of the Guards destroying their office, yelling about ungrateful women and about how this is taking their valuable time. The illumination from the handheld light, a flashlight, she now remembers, had died and only a bit of light trickled in from the cache lid. Though she is cramped, the Girl curls up into herself and waits anxiously for the Guards to leave.


* * *


The Girl awakens to silence. Dreadful, ringing silence fills her ears with its peals. She sits up gingerly, hunched over and reaches to grab the soft thing that cradled her head. Listening intently, she no longer hears the Guards above and the light trickling in is that of the soft pre-dusk. Carefully she pushes up the cache lid and pulls herself out, grabbing the papers and the soft thing. Somehow, the Girl knows that these items are important and that they were left for her. The Girl moves to the washroom, the only place where light will be shielded from the outside. The Girl shuts the door and lays down the soft thing. It is a bag, but it is far too finely made and brightly colored to be carried by the Glyphs. She deduced it must be a Reader bag and upon inspection she discovered it was filled with items she deduced could only have been left by the Father.
Inside there were clothes, but not dull, worn Glyph clothes. These were Reader clothes and strangely they looked as if they would fit her perfectly. There was also a laptop, the one she found for the Father so many cycles ago. He showed her the basics about how to use it; told her he was only testing it to see if it met the standards of the Readers. It being here now, the Girl thought, and not in the hands of a Reader meant that was not the reason he showed her how to use it. There seemed to be something wrong with it though because when the Girl tries to turn it on all that it did was sit in her hand, unresponsive, unwaking. It was no matter though; the Girl knew that it would not have been left here if it wasn't important and so puts it back in the bag for safekeeping.
The Girl changed into the Reader clothes, bright colors assaulting her senses, and indeed fit as if they were custom tailored for her. She then exchanged her solid work boots and thick woolen socks for the tiny, flat shoes and thin socks in her bag. It would make travel more difficult but the Girl sensed she must leave all traces of her life as a Glyph behind. They will be back for her and she knows that Father will never return.
With the laptop securely in the bag she begins to really look at the papers Father has left her. Four of the pieces are maps. The first one is familiar, a map out of the 'Deeps. The remaining pages are maps that would lead her to one place, a place called "DEFCON 1." The last pages comprise a letter from the Father. It is written in letters, not glyphs, but the Girl can read most of them. The letter tells the Girl she must leave and find the place indicated by the map. It tells her that she will meet people along the way and that when she does she is to tell them that she is "the Dark Tangent" and, most importantly, that she is to answer no questions, to trust no one. The Girl feels terror but also a thrill. This is the secret the Father has been keeping for so long, and it was not of a secret shame but a quest for her alone.


* * *


The map says travel is three days by foot. The Girl is tired but her excitement is greater and so she heads onward with purpose. The map leads her into the city, the place where the Readers dwell. The city is so much larger than the stories Father told made it seem. She is surprised to find that the Readers are brash and rude not just to Glyphs but even to each other, always pushing and crowding and shoving. Travel would be much easier if she knew how to take those strange tubes full of Readers that glide around the streets, spewing out people like projectile vomit. Father was explicit, though, that she not speak to Readers unless she must. 
The first day she walked into the city her limp almost gave her away. The new flat shoes rubbed blisters into her heels and toes that even the fine Reader socks could not stop. She sat upon the curb to try to tend to the pain, but a Reader tripped over her which prompted him to yell at her to not lie about like, "all those Glyph scum." Anger welled up in her as the Girl fought to control her emotions but she apologized and kept control. She was in the city, enemy territory; she would not let this overcome her. Following the map was difficult with the mass of humanity pressing against her; the Girl continued to limp and to her horror she noticed that her socks were even beginning to turn red with her blood.
After she found a dispensary she discovered that buying the supplies and new socks was more challenging than in the 'Deeps. The Girl watched carefully as another Reader exchanged his Reader money for the things they bought. Eventually she worked up the courage to approach the counter and for a few breathless moments set bandages and antiseptic upon it, terrified that at any moment her movements would give her away and she would be discovered. When handing over the Reader money to the woman behind the counter the Reader attempts to cheat her, taking a green bill instead of the two blue bills required. The Girl stared coldly at the cashier until the woman finally handed her back the green bill and took the two blue bills. When she leaves the Girl muses hotly that so far for all their learning Readers leave a bad taste in her mouth.
The first night she stayed with a nervous woman she found from her papers as a local contact. The woman kept peppering the Girl with questions about the lessons, the computer network, about DEFCON. Her father never told her of meeting this strange, quavery woman, who flapped her hands like a bird, but the woman tells the Girl of the many trips the Father has taken and the gifts he shared with her; the nervous woman shows the Girl her secret cache, filled with books, more laptops, and even stranger things. She tells the Girl that her home is a stop on the, "underground knowledge trail." The questions and stories spill out of the woman like a waterfall, rushing over the Girl, who is used to long periods of quiet. Finally the Girl gained a small respite by pretending to sleep after a meager supper, the endless drone of questions, stories, and noise subsiding at last. In the morning, the woman handed the Girl a small packet of food and another pouch of papers.


* * *


Last night, the Girl hardly slept. The new papers led her to a man's house near the outer edge of town. The man who took in Dark Tangent gave her the creeps, the chills sliding up and down the Girl's spine like the time the rats brought disease into the 'Deeps. He speaks little, gives her food, stares at her like she is useless. In the morning, before dawn lights the city, the Girl slipped out quietly before he woke. Something about the man has frightened her and she did not wish to hang around to find out what that might be.
Hungry, tired, and worn, the Girl used more of the Reader money to purchase food. Used to the simple fare in the 'Deeps, the Reader food is much too rich for her stomach. Instead, she bought a loaf of bread and some fruit from a vendor on the roadway while navigating through the maps to her destination. She is beginning to question her quest, that perhaps too much time has passed since her father's death, that maybe the Readers will be waiting for her when she finds its end. She briefly ponders giving up, but hope flutters at her breastbone, beats in her heart, urges her to go on; tonight, she should arrive at DEFCON.


* * *


Despair sets in. The maps led her to a lot on the edge of the city but it is empty, abandoned, burned down. The Girl sits and weeps, the Reader bag full of paper and money and broken dreams and a broken laptop hanging heavily upon her back. She fears she is too late and all is for nought.
Eventually, the weeping stops and the Girl surveys the scene. Despite the burned down appearance, there is a piece of brick that is unblemished by the fire within the scene. Carved upon the brick is one of the symbols in the letter from the Father, a diskette she remembers is what it is called. Desperate to find meaning in this heap and thinking of the treasures she would unearth in the refuse from the 'Deeps she pulls off her traveling coat, her fine shoes, and scrambles over the wreckage, being careful to keep the clothing as clean as possible. Using her knife, the Girl jimmies the brick out. Blinking in disbelief she discovers that behind the brick are more papers. There is a map to another DEFCON, "DEFCON 2," another letter from the Father, a book made out of more paper and a very small paper pouch with "Dark Tangent" written upon it. 
Invigorated the Girl retrieves her belongings and clothing and opens the map quickly and carefully. To her surprise it shows a way out of the city to a place about 30 kilometers from the outskirts of the teeming metropolis of angry Readers. She walks to a tree beside the burned out hulk, sits and opens the booklet. Though the Girl does not understand all of the words completely she reads about the story of DEFCON, about how it came to be a place when reading was reserved only for certain people, and of a time before that when it was not a place but an event. The story of DEFCON and the first Dark Tangent, the person who started it all, fills her head with the glorious wonder of an era when knowledge was free to anyone who sought it out. Her heart thuds with the excitement of a world where she could learn without fear of punishment, when information flowed freely the world over to anyone who wanted it. This is what the Father was hiding. This was his secret. Now, it was hers.


* * *


The Reader money is all gone now, the Girl has spent the last of it on a ride out to a deserted thing that the old man called a "farm." The old man doesn't know why the Girl wants to go out there, but is all too happy to take her money for a foolish quest. When it rumbles to a stop the Girl gets out of the vehicle and without waiting a moment longer the old man speeds away, leaving her alone at the precipice of discovery, cold and confused.
She is on the edge of what used to be a vibrant farm, many years ago. Its broken and cracked fields long abandoned await the rain and seed as the void awaits the spark of life: inevitable, but only after a seemingly endless wait. She trudges up the dusty dirt path to the little abandoned farm house with its rusted door and decrepit siding.
It creaks as she enters. She looks throughout the farm house's mostly-empty rooms, as if the owners just got up one morning and left it, abandoned, like her life and her people. She worries that she has read something wrong, that this is not where she is supposed to be. Fearing she has failed she checks the basement.
It is quiet, too quiet, and the Girl is exhausted...until she notices something on the far wall of the basement. Cocking her head like a curious animal she creeps closer. The wall is made of cobbled stones and one of the smaller ones has a design carved into it: a round, smiling face set over a pair of criss-crossed bones, very easy to miss. The Girl has seen this symbol once before but she cannot place where. She stares at it, her despair forgotten and replaced by a different feeling: curiosity. Putting one of her hands on the stone she gives it a little push...and it clicks. Seemingly like magic the wall groans as it slides slowly back to reveal an old green metal door with a single light above it that clicks on, commanding attention of the door. Slack-jawed she gazes in wonder unable to believe her eyes but here it is, real and solid and cold. She pulls on the door, finds there is a lock set into its surface in the middle that still holds and so she digs the paper pouch out of her bag. Inside is a key. It is an odd key, with cylinders instead of the normal flat plane of keys. The Girl thinks it will fit. She slides the key in and it opens with a solid sound. She twists the lock and the door slides open with a giant metal groan. Behind it is a small, box-like room with a small metal panel with one bright red button, flashing silently at her, begging her to push it. As she steps inside, the lights overhead begin to flicker on. The Girl looks around and presses the cheerful red button. When she does the doors slide closed and with a low rumble she can distinctly feel the box moving downward into the earth, into her fate. Her heart thuds in her chest, from excitement and fear. Pushing that button has sealed her future and she prays it is a good one.
After a seeming eternity the box-room ends its descent and slides its doors open with a bell chime, revealing a flat space like the floor of an abandoned lighthouse. On one side is a door. The Girl walks wearily to the door and pulls it open. As tired as she is, she anticipates a struggle, but the door swings open freely and quietly, opening into a dark cavern. More lights flicker on, revealing an enormous, circular room scaling for over a hundred feet high with row upon row of shelves, much like the warehouse in the 'Deeps, but these are filled with books rather than junk. Along the walls lights flicker and illuminate hundreds of computers, laptops, large computers, and these things the Father called, "NAS boxes," scaling up to a ceiling high above, ending just under the farm with a giant, four-piece steel door. This place is old, but its stairways, catwalks, and walls look solid enough to guard and maintain either the greatest weapon or the greatest treasure a people could have. In a dream-like daze she walks to the center of the cavernous room and sees a single spiral staircase leading up to an island set up above the sea of books. The island is a giant room and around the entirety of the room big glass windows overlook the rest of the silo. This is another thing from the Father's fairy tales, a control room to watch over all the knowledge of the world. She knows the name from the fairy tales the Father told her when she was young, of a place where she could look out and see an ocean of knowledge and books, a place she had only ever seen in her mind. The Girl climbs up and into the control room, feeling like a fairy tale heroine. She spins around the room slowly, looking out at what must be all the knowledge of all the world.
Something tugs at the back of her mind, pulling her from her reverie. Father always told her to take stock of her surroundings and so she surveys the control room. There are shelves set up in one part of the room, filled with food and water. In the one windowless curve, there is a small kitchen and a door to what must be the washroom. In a small alcove, there looks like there are beds, but the biggest feature is the large, empty desk with several small rectangular screens above it that dominates the center of the room.
The Girl knows that she has never been here before but feels a strange sort of familiarity. In a shock of recognition she rummages through her pouch, withdrawing the papers she had collected on her journey here. Re-reading them the strange terms and descriptions that hadn't made sense before clicked together in a grand sort of sense: this place and the others the world over like it, what it meant to be its guardian, why she was now to become it, of why this place was called DEFCON, of the founders of this DEFCON, about the other Dark Tangents out in the world. The realization that there were more than twenty places like this hit the Girl with such force, she lost her breath and fell to her knees.
The Girl did not believe that this could exist, this sharing of books and writings, this world-wide network of knowledge. She understood now how powerful a thing it could be, that it could be used to teach other Glyphs about the things the Readers knew, to make everyone a Reader. She did not believe it could be real but now here it sat, staring her in the face. A tear rolls down her cheek as the Girl realizes the Father would never see the future he built. Never know that it still survived. Never know his dream was made real.


* * *


The Girl sleeps for hours, curled up on the bed in the alcove, papers clutched to her chest like a stuffed animal of younger days. Upon the bed, she found the first book the Father had given her and that had given her the sense of safety she needed. She sleeps the sleep of the damned, the wearied, the grieving, until she can sleep no more. When she wakes, she returns to main part of the control room because something is calling to her, that now familiar scratching inside her head. She is staring off into space, trying to figure out what it could be, when something about the oversized desk gives her pause and draws her gaze.
After a few moments she sees it. A long rectangular slot set into the metal smoothly, and a larger rectangular area around it that's strangely free of the super fine layer of dust that has settled upon the the desk, as if something used to rest here below the many rectangular screens above it.
She pushes the surface, the slot, nothing happens.
She looks under the desk. Only darkness; no, wait, one of the legs of the desk is set into the floor.
She thinks for a time as the puzzle, like a splinter in her mind, refuses to let go. Eventually, she has an idea and looking into her bag she withdraws the smooth, light clamshell device, the laptop that has refused to listen to her commands. She tentatively compares its dimensions to that of the dust. They are the same. She rests it on the table over the old space with a click...and like magic there is a hum as lights, screens, and other things the Girl wouldn't have the slightest idea how to describe suddenly came to life. The screens above flash the lock symbol that she now knows as one of the final icons for DEFCON. Then, a light on the device starts to slowly blink.
She slides the release on the lid and unfolds the device, revealing its board of lettered keys and beautiful built-in screen. She pulls over a chair to sit down in front of it, still in shock from seeing the device come to life. The warmth from the glow of monitors and the screen of the terminal in front of her, alive and humming at her touch, fills her with wonder.
When the wonder wears off she notices a small symbol in the corner of the screen in front of her, blinking. It is the rotary dial that the Father always drew in the corner of the books he let her read, the books that now filled the shelves below her. Using the pad like Father had shown her many times before, she moves the arrow on the terminal's screen over to click the symbol and it opens up for her into a message. Hot tears of joy and pride stream down her face as she reads the most beautiful words she's ever seen.


"Daughter,


You are the new Dark Tangent. This DEFCON is now yours to keep safe and to share with the world. You are never alone, I love you forever.


Love,


Dad
Former Dark Tangent"