#this is a long one and took a couple of weird turns midwritting but i think this is one of my favorites in the series

[abronzeagegod]

Eldritch Tech Support 7

Other Eldritch Tech Support Stories

Tech support is hard, you've always known this, it's not a secret.

You have to have intelligence, that's the most outwardly obvious skill you need to have. You need to know the languages and codes of computers, how the hardware interacts with each other, how all the nonsense that regularly people like to do with their computers interferes and counteracts with the intentions of the designer, and what exactly the hell is going on with C++- (C plus plus minus).

But you also need to have charisma. People are weirdly cagey with their personal electronics, and they often refuse to tell the whole story form some combination of shame, self interest, and ignorance. You have to puzzle it out, get them to trust you, and then get them to tell you exactly what insane, stupid, nonsensical things that they did to the whole system to get it to function this way.

However that is not the most crucial skill you need in the field of tech support in this world. No, the most important thing for you to have is faith. Faith is key to figuring out exactly what the hell is going on and why the client believes that this whole thing is working, and why the working thing suddenly stopped working. Why the things that shouldn't work do work.

You have to be something of a priest with no god. You become a priest with every job, a priest that believes in this specific code, a priest of servers and computers and cold dead things imbued with the power of lightning and math.

Every job is a little bit different, a little bit stranger than the one before it. Every role of priest ever so slightly different.

It is the nature of priests to be superstitious.

Every one in tech support has their little rituals, as do you. Different little things you do when you're working in the office, versus when you have to go out on house calls. You wear your hair up and dress in greens when you have to do things directly related to server maintenance. Hair down, three rings on your left hand, one on your right, six total earrings, and dressed in neutral colors when you're tasked with debugging long strings of server code that has a deadline of less than 24 hours.

Today your role has you tasked with going to a house and taking a look at their decades old computer, you're going to try and fix it but you've been warned that it's so old that a replacement is probably going to have to be done.

(Which means you're dressed in grays and blues, you've got a sensible working class watch on, carry at least three different screw drivers, along with a fresh roll of duct tape, and exactly two pieces of gum.)

The house you are sent to is a simple thing, no more than one story with an attached garage. It's quaint. Nice even. A bit of a surprise to find a small, charming little house with a yard in the sprawl of the city that you call home. There's a couple of small toys that you have to carefully step over to reach the front door.

You knock on the door and are very quickly greeted by a man that looks like a dad. There's something about his look and the way he stands that feels very dad-like.

"I'm here with tech support," you say. "You need some help?"

He smiles kindly at you. "Yes, we do. I'm afraid I'm relatively hopeless with technology, so I can use any help I can get."

The door is held open for you, and as part of your ritual you take out one piece of gum and put it in your mouth as you cross the threshold. This is a nice house, small but clearly loved and cared for.

It bares the marks and scars of family life and love in abundance. Just as the man next to you looks and feels like a dad, this looks and feels like a home. It's deeply comforting and there's something there that makes you feel slightly on edge. There's nothing wrong, nothing sinister, it's just that because there is no sign of anything to be negative, mean, harsh, or off-putting everything becomes that marker.

"Follow me," the dad says as he leads you into the room where the computer rests.

The room is absolutely filled with books and bookshelves, so the desk with the ancient computer sitting on it seems comical and out of place.

The computer itself is ancient, by technological standards. It is at least 10 years old, if not more, and your surprised it has even functioned this long since this was likely made long before the advent of the modern internet much less the numerous other technological advances that has happened since then.

You must have let out some kind of involuntary noise because the dad chuckles. "Yeah it's a bit old, but it's worked so far."

Again, that's very odd to you because there's no way that this computer should have been functional for this long.

"I'll take a look at it, run a few diagnostics and see where we're at," you say. "What do you primarily use it for?"

"I mostly use it to look up recipes and print them off for dinner. My daughter likes to play those learning adventure games, and browse some internet things. With supervision of course," he adds at the end like you might judge him, or arrest him, for letting a child alone unsupervised on the internet. "My partner uses the computer more than I do, some work related things I think, but he mostly uses his work laptop for that kind of thing."

You nod, "I understand. I'll take a look and let you know what I find."

The dad nods and says he'll be around if you need anything. He leaves to let you work.

You sit in the squishy chair situated in front of the computer and are immediately poked with something in your back.

The vague edginess you've been feeling suddenly ratcheted up to eleven and you jump out of the chair and whip around to face it, only to find a toy dinosaur wedged in the chair. The sharp plastic tail was the vicious thing that attacked you.

"Sorry, I forgot where I left Misses Boney," says a sudden voice right next to you.

Once again you leap all but out of your skin as you turn to face this new thing.

A small child, possibly seven years old, somehow materialized next to you holding another plastic dinosaur in one hand. The dinosaur appears to be going through it considering the long blonde wig tapped to their head; which, if how you reacted to your last breakup was any indication, this stegosaurus can empathize pretty acutely.

The child pulls out the once green and bright dinosaur that had been painted over with various different colors of gray.

"Thanks," you say.

"Are you here to fix Sir Lance Corporal?" the child asks.

"Is that the computer?"

"Yeah."

"Then I am." You can't help but wonder if the computer's name is first name Lance last name Corporal, titled Sir; or if the name is two titles with a first and last name to be determined.

"Good, the Corporal has been being slow and kind of sick," the child informed you. "I want him to feel better."

"I'll certainly do my best," you tell the kid.

They don't move and just look at you expectantly, waiting for you to get started with your work.

"Uh, you can watch if you want, but it's going to be really boring."

"Oh," the child says and visibly deflates as you start to press some keys to start looking up technical specs on the computer and running various commands in the command prompt.

It takes a few minutes for you to find the internal records on the computer that list exactly what the specs are for the equipment in there. You finally have confirmation that something here is weird.

You do a quick look up of some of the equipment pieces and confirm that absolutely there is no way that this computer should be functional. The motherboard is incompatible with the graphics card, there is no wireless connection and yet the computer is telling you that it is connected to the internet.

This whole thing is getting weirder and weirder.

You play around on the computer for a bit, putting some of the software through it's paces, running some tests, checking out things, you even boot up one of the games that the kid apparently likes to play and you're hit with nostalgia for some of the similar games you used to play.

Everything works perfectly fine. A little slow, a little clunky, but it is all in perfect working order, when it shouldn't work like that even a little bit.

You carefully shut the computer down and wait for a moment. You have no good ideas as to what is happening with this computer or why, and those bad ideas that you do have don't fill you with any hope.

Carefully, you put on some gloves and then go to unplug the computer so you can start to take it apart.

Immediately you know that something is up. There is something deeply strange about this computer. And that is beyond the capabilities and lifespan of a computer this old.

Not good. Not bad.

Just deeply deeply strange.

Which is inherent with the job.

You open the computer tower and discover many more wires and components and complexity than should be there.

This is the best possible time for that second piece of gum.

The hot cinnamon flavor explodes in your mouth before quickly fading.

It takes you almost two hours to disassemble the computer.

It takes you almost two hours to find it.

The cause of all the trouble, all the weird concerning things that have made this job so odd, was a small chip installed in the motherboard. The whole thing doesn't match a single manufacturer or model or piece of equipment that you've ever seen before.

You touch

it

and

You

fall

into

something

strange

dust

lakes

a

ruined

temple

tan

and

gray

walls

crumbling

upon

themselves

a

labyrinth

of

cracks

and

spiderwebs

coat

this

church

empty

abandoned

almost

a

forgotten

ruin

save

for the

chalk drawings of a child.

You feel slightly nauseous but the rapidly fading cinnamon flavor keeps you grounded. You know that objectively your experiencing the projection and construction of a supernatural entity that is almost 100% not real but some kind of construct to impart some kind of feelings, but you can't help but feel a certain sense of awe and despair at the beauty and the decay all around you.

The ruined church seems like something that could be found in the Old World, far to the East, something that was built a millennia ago and with much more rudimentary tools.

Dust pools in grand lakes between the empty pews and around the altar.

There are no windows here and you feel a cool breeze come through the church.

The world around you feels grand and small at the same time. You feel small and somehow inconsequential among the age and ruin.

The only splashes of color are the bright chalk drawings of a child across the floors and walls. They seem to grow like ivy, clinging to the walls and creeping, growing along the cracks, filling the wounds in walls with art and life.

Something rumbles within the church and out of one of the dust lakes comes what you have been waiting for.

It was long, with a body made of metal and cables, there were little arms and legs like the prongs on any number of chips and computer components to plug into the motherboard.

It was both vaster and smaller than you.

It emerged and flew up into the air on wings of beautiful stained glass.

With each beat of it's stained glass wings you can see different and fantastical worlds. Worlds you recognize from the same games you used to play as a child.

The long, multi-legged, many-winged, creature of cables and metal flew above your head and stopped eventually to speak to you.

"I am Sir Lance Corporal," it says in a voice that sounds so much like the synthesized voice that old computers used for speech to text. "What are you doing in my crumbling domain?"

"I work for tech support," you explain.

"Why have you dissembled my church?" the synthesized voice of the representation of Sir Lance Corporal asks.

You know you have to tread very carefully here. There's something dangerous with talking with something like this. And really it's moments like this that make you glad that you're a priest with no god. In this realm, no gods could help you.

In this realm, this church, this temple, you are at the mercy of the small god of a singular computer. Sir Lance Corporal is a god.

"I was tasked with seeing to it that this family's computer was functioning properly since it is so old and starting to wear down," you explain.

"My body is dying," the god of this particular computer says with it's synthesized voice somehow conveying the deep resignation, sadness, and regret that comes with the existential knowledge of soon-to-be-doomed mortality.

You nod. "It is. Eventually it will be unusable."

Sir stretches it's wings and takes flight once again. You can see now the tarnish on the metal, the places where there should have been more wings but they had fallen off some time ago.

"What will become of me?" Sir asks.

You shrug. "I don't know. Depends on what the family wants to do with you."

"I cannot be saved. I feel the age in my circuits, the speed of the world around me is too fast, I cannot keep up. I have a request for you, priest of tech support."

"If it is within my power to do so I will do it, that is all I can promise."

"I wish to say goodbye to my priest. The one who came and colored on my walls and made me feel alive."

You know who it is, and while it doesn't surprise you given everything, it does make everything infinitely more complicated.

"That, I can do. When we're done here, I will put you back together and give you some time," you explain. "But first, I want you to tell me your story."

You sit in a pew and listen to a fading and dying god of an old computer. You listen, you absorb, and you even pray just a little.

Eventually when you are let go you

feel

the

dust

the

ruins

rush away from you and you are back in the house where everything is lovely and nice with the family and the child and the computer that has more than just a ghost inside of it.

You take your time, using all of your screw drivers and put the computer back as best as you can. It requires all your skills to get the impossible machine back together, and you have to pray a little bit to get things back together, as it wouldn't work without it.

"Is Sir Lance Corporal all better?" the kid asks as they watch you put the casing back together.

"For now, yeah," you say. "You can still play your games. Why don't you do that while I talk with your dad."

"Ok!"

You watch the kid load up the computer and their favorite game about learning things set in Ancient Semminatar. Briefly you spot the metal butterfly you conversed with flying across the background.

You can tell that the computer and its god is happy with the kid. But you have matters to attend to with the dad.

"What's the prognosis?" the dad asks.

"Well that's a complicated question," you say as you take a seat at the kitchen table. "What do you know about faith and belief?"

"A bit," he says with a sly smile. "I'm a philosophy professor. Which is not easy let me tell you. In a world with more religions than we can count trying to vie for attention, making sense of everything is no easy feat."

"I can imagine. But let me tell you how I was explained this concept and maybe you'll correct me, maybe you won't," you say.

"Kids are essentially nonentities when it comes to religion. Kids, up to a certain point, don't really believe things, they know things. It's weird and complicated and feels like at some point you're splitting hairs," you say trying to get the complicated thoughts into words that will come out of your mouth and vocal chords in a coherent way. "But kids don't have faith, they just know stuff. You tell them that this is the way the world works and they don't believe you, they know it because they don't have the experience to know any different." The dad looks at you intently, nodding, listening, not interrupting you even once. "But when a kid does believe something they believe it with their whole being. They don't have doubt, so when a kid does believe something that faith is worth like fifteen adults worth. And when it comes to religion that's a huge amount of faith that any god would kill for. And, well, your kid believes in your computer so hard that they created a god."

The dad nods. "Hmm. That makes some sense. I will confess that my Applied Theology is a bit lacking, but some of this tracks with what I know and study. What does this mean?"

You sigh. "I have to report this. I would be too irresponsible if I didn't. Sometimes when kids believe things like this and make entities, the results can end badly. Like what if a child believes in a nightmare?'

There's a heavy pause that you can't seem to break.

"I see."

"But I talked with Sir Lance Corporal," you say, "and I'm pretty sure that they're not anything malevolent or violent. Just a computer god that wants to provide fun and learning to their child priest. If it was something bad, you can trust I would have done something about it."

"Ok, I believe you. Ha, believe you. What do we have to do now?"

"I'm sure someone from the Catalog and Archive Bureau will be by within a day to talk to you and examine Sir Lance Corporal. In the meantime I can send you some recommendations for new computers if you'd like to purchase one with our services, it comes with a free install and data transfer. If the CAB clear Sir Lance Corporal, you can call me and I'll be by to put them in their new temple, if that's something that you'd like to have."

The dad nodded, his brow furrowed in thought. "We will just have to see what is going to happen."

You give them your card with your information so that you can be informed of what is going to happen with Sir Lance Corporal.

"I just have one question though," you say, "what's with the name? Sir Lance Corporal? Where did they get that?"

The dad laughs. "My partner was in the military for a bit, before we met. And he was a Lance Corporal when he was discharged. When she found out, she went around calling everything 'Sir Lance Corporal Sir'. It was endearing and I guess it just stuck with the computer for some reason."

---

"You've reached the Catalog and Archive Bureau," says the voice on the other end of the phone. "How may I direct your call?"

You give them your name and employer. "I have two things. The professional one first. A new entity to be examined."

"Understood. Please give me the location and description of the entity."

You list the name and the address of the house. "It's a computer housing a small god, one built on the belief of a child who seemingly believed that their old computer was the same as their friends' so it evolved the ability to do things that it couldn't otherwise. The god seemed harmless and wanted to be a god for education and learning and care of the young kid."

"We will be the ones to determine that," the cold voice says in response.

Harsh, but you can't blame them for that. There were a lot of entities out there that could spell disaster and ruin for many people. That's why their Bureau even exists.

"The other matter is personal," you say, steeling yourself for the question and then the answer.

"One moment," they say as you hear the clicking of a keyboard. "What is your inquiry?"

You restate your name and say, "I'm checking in on an entity I reported many years ago. Is subject 3812-B still in captivity?"

The silence is only punctuated by the clacking of the the keyboard.

You stop breathing as you wait.

"Yes. We have round the clock surveillance, and there has not been any successful breaches in containment since the... incident a few years back."

"Oh. Good. Good. That's good."

"If anything changes you'll be the first one we'll call." You can't help but notice the change in tone from cold business, the mask of a call center employee taking a routine phone call has fallen away to the person who has your incident file in front of them, reading what you created.

"Thank you," you say as you hang up.

You drive back to the office and participate in a deep cleansing ritual and even a little protection spell to keep the bad dreams at bay. You know that you'll be thinking about this case for a good long while.

Lytha sticks her head into the room as you finish blowing out the candles. "Hey, I saw you're back. How was it?"

You shrug, not really up for the vocalization.

"I'm about to finish up my shift, you want to go get something to eat? I still owe you from that one time."

You nod. Lytha is a good friend, a great friend. She reads your mood and your whole demeanor.

"Great, I'll order us some take out and we can go to my place and eat and watch some TV. You feeling And the Fifth Rose was Black or do you want to do some silly nonsense like Real Monsters of the Sea?"

"Sea," you mutter.

"Great, I need something mindless tonight. Let me get my desk together and I'll meet you in the break room?"

"Yeah."

Before she leaves Lytha comes in and gives you a quick hug.

This day has been deeply draining. You feel tired, but Lytha has a way of making you feel better about the whole thing. You hope she doesn't mind.

Even if you ask she'll say that she doesn't mind if it's you.

[This was a longer one, it's seven pages and almost 4,000 words. This is me testing out how this whole world/style/etc would work as a longer story, maybe not novel length but something longer than these little shorts. Please let me know what you think. Do I need more characterization? Should I drop the second person? Keep it all the same just commit to the bit and make it the longest/best that I can? Idk! I need input! Please let me know. My ask box is open, or reblog this and put it in the tags. Whatever you feel. Thanks for enjoying this whole series.]

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