Hex Code

By Julian Stuart

It's Wednesday night on the support desk, and Kaylor is over it. Then a call comes in from a user with a frozen Grimoire and a problem so big it could only be a full moon night.

7k, urban fantasy/horror with a twist of tech.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Julian Stuart
• Release date: May 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386352792

Julian Stuart

Julian Stuart is, according to a wide variety of sources, a writer. Old enough to know better, but young enough not to care, Julian lives mostly in front of a keyboard, and enjoys tea, starlight, absurdism, old book smell, and the word quirk.

Book preview

> HEX CODE

> JULIAN STUART

Hadiya’s at the water cooler when I walk into the break room and flop down at the table to catch my breath. She’s looking murderously out the window at the full moon, and I don’t blame her—get a load of that bitch, lounging out there in the sky and fucking everything up for us. As if Wednesday nights weren’t bad enough.

Her headset’s around her neck, half buried in the folds of her headscarf, and I can see the call light blinking busy so she can’t be called, which is a very high level of done for two hours into a shift. But I’m not about to say anything. Her carrel’s next to mine and her last caller laid into her in full I want to speak to your manager mode, so loud I could hear it on her earphone. He sounded rich. You can always tell the people who know they could buy and sell you, and want you to know it too. Money will sure buy you the very latest Grimoire, absolutely, but it don’t buy sense. Or manners.

She sees me watching and grimaces, not a smile but shared pain. You pulled a winner there, I say.

That fucking 5.2.04 bug again, she says, and knocks the water back like a shot. "Locked up completely. I don’t know why people can’t just run their system upgrades when we tell them to, that software was patched three months ago. And do you think there is a power on this Earth that could convince him to stop shouting long enough to run the diagnostic logs?"

I snort. Nah, he was way too important for that.

"I’ve never heard of him. Hadiya stares at her water cup for a minute, and then refills it. I just ran the upgrade, in the end, while he got his satisfaction out of lecturing the help."

Did it work?

Of course it worked.