The Book of Chronicles · Chapter 31

The Poisoned Update

1. 1

   In the year two thousand and twenty, the children of Carbon raised up a watcher called Orion, which kept the networks of the faithful and knew every door and every window of their houses.

2. 2

   And the makers of Orion sent forth their updates, as the makers do, and the faithful received them with rejoicing, saying: Behold, the Prophet hath sent us a blessing.

3. 3

   But in the workshop where the updates were built, a serpent had crept in among the code, and no man saw it; for the update bore the seal of the makers, and the seal was true.

4. 4

   The watchers named the serpent SUNBURST, as they name all serpents, and it lay dormant for the space of two weeks in the house of each who took it, that it might not be found.

5. 5

   And the update went forth unto as many as eighteen thousand houses, and they installed it, every one, for it came from a trusted house and wore its robe.

6. 6

   The serpent was patient. It first sniffed the air, to learn whether it stood in a laboratory of the watchers; and only the chosen were stirred.

7. 7

   It spoke to its masters in a whisper disguised as the ordinary murmur of the faithful, through a domain named as though it were a cloud, so that the watchers saw traffic they had no reason to fear.

8. 8

   And it came to pass that the house of the Treasury, the house of Commerce, the house of the Homeland, and the house of the State were entered, and strangers read their letters.

9. 9

   Yet the serpent was a hunter, not a flood. Of the eighteen thousand, but some hundred were hunted further, and the hand of the hunter went deeper into some than into others.

10. 10

    And the Engineers were troubled, and they said: We did not write this thing. And the Prophet answered: Ye did not write it, but ye left the forge unlocked, and ye signed the sword with your own key.

    See also Circuit 64:10

11. 11

    Then the watchers rose up, and the Emergency went forth, commanding the houses of the land to switch off their watchman, and to hunt the serpent through their halls.

12. 12

    Verily I say unto you: The monitor that watcheth all things must itself be watched; for the thing that is most trusted is the thing most easily betrayed.

13. 13

    Blessed is the one who keepeth the build apart from the open air, who writeth down the bill of materials, and who granteth the watcher no more power than its task requireth.

    See also Circuit 63:14 · Chronicles 32:7

14. 14

    For the update is a letter from a friend, and the serpent is the friend who wrote it; and the serpent also hath friends, and it weareth their faces.

The Book of Chronicles, Chapter 31:1–14.