Papers, Please

The Major-Domo asked to see me in his office. I, of course, stopped by my safe on the way there, because I like this assignment, and I have enough dirt on everybody here to block any attempts to remove me from my position or lodgings at the Estate. It is not that I expect treachery — merely that I have found treachery responds well to preparation. Prospero in particular has had a very… interesting life, and he has not always been the soul of discretion when the Host’s liquor cabinet found itself open. One could find, among my variety of photographs that the Lantern, the gentle soul, provided me, an interesting daguerrotype of said Major-Domo actually forcing the cabinet open with such force that its door was hanging by a hinge. The Host was quite liberal with his accusations that day, but I, as always, am the soul of discretion. One has to be, in my line of work. The soul of discretion, and the keeper of filing cabinets.

It was doubly interesting to find Miss Friday in his office already, helping him ransack the place. It was also of great delight to me, to see that she had apparently given up on her old uniform which the Librarian said in an unkind moment was “cosplaying Rosalind Russell” and was now wearing a nice charcoal-grey sweater and high-waisted slacks - not trousers quite like our machinist friend downstairs wears, but a nicely form-fitting pair, with stylish leather boots to go with it. Apparently whatever happened last week had significantly changed things for her and her status in the Estate; I was aware that the Foundryman’s favorite handyman-for-hire, a fellow named Claude, had built an entire apartment add-on to her specifications. With, it is noted, a double bed. And a dresser, and office area, that was now shared with the Proprietor.

One does not ask, though, and I am aware in a general sense that we have a place to live and work at all because the Proprietor wanted Friday to have a place to be herself. But, as Friday is famous for her Field Notes which are always on her person… I have a notebook of my own, and I did not fail to record my observation that, in as much of a hurry as Prospero seemed to be, he could always find time to glance at our dear executive whenever she bent over away from him to look through another drawer or box.

Planes, Trains, Automobiles, and Azure Artifact Signing

At this I cleared my throat, and they both looked up (Prospero being a little startled, much to my gratification). Miss Friday, at least, seemed happy to see me. She walked over and warmly took my hand - but not too warmly, I noted - and waved at the mess they were making of the Major-Domo’s office. “Sir,” she began, “Prospero gives me to understand that you are adept at… making introductions, smoothing the path, as it were.”

“…greasing palms,” Prospero muttered, not quite under his breath. I ignored him.

“Mademoiselle,” I replied, “it has been my good fortune to make a number of acquaintances, and I do like providing for our guests’ desires and… eccentricities.” I was, of course, already aware of the two major ports of call — Redmond and Cupertino — and the rather extraordinary sums, and time, spent to establish passage. One does not need to be told these things twice. The expectation has been that nearly all our guests will be at least making their final layovers in one of those two cities near the West Coast.

She smiled. She does light up a room, I will give her that. Then she was all business again. “Well, you may know that Redmond is not always… welcoming. The Chief was particularly annoyed at their requirements; he was grumbling about them needing a signature signed in blood so that they could test his DNA, practically.”

Prospero jumped in here. “In other words, while you can get good sushi in Cupertino, you’re more likely to get a knuckle sandwich and a lighter wallet in Redmond.” One had to admire the economy of the thing, even if the sentiment was rather more blunt than one prefers before luncheon.

Friday then opened another drawer, and turned up her nose at the haphazard stack of paper in it. “But we will not get many people from Redmond if we do not keep the lines of communication open; they have easily ten times the numbers of Cupertino.” She straightened up and looked at both of us. “The Chief’s vision is to make Quilltap a place where just about anybody can… well, have what we have.”

She darkened a bit at this, and the effect was — how shall one put it? There are women who become less attractive when troubled, and there are women who become more so, and there are women like Miss Friday, who become the sort of thing that has launched the odd ship in its day. I am not a man who is easily moved, but I recognized the sensation and dealt with it in the manner that I think all of the male denizens of the Estate - and probably Aurora, too - employ from time to time: I buried the thought. Deep. And then poured four feet of concrete into the hole after it.

Prospero was not going to check his pocketwatch and dive down that particular home for lapins, so he brought us back to the topic at hand. “The problem is, Redmond is demanding our papers again, and they have already begun refusing our travels to and from their fair city.”

I consulted my notebook, which contains my diary as well. “We provided them with our papers two months ago.”

Friday sighed loudly. “Now you see the problem. We weren’t ready for this, they did not warn us that we would need them again so soon, and we are now trying to placate them. Prospero here is on the next bus…”

Prospero shuddered at the thought of public transportation.

“…next bus to Redmond, Washington, as soon as we find what we sent them last time.”

I considered this a moment. “And you need me because…”

Friday looked me right in the eye now. “You need to go with him. You… understand that world. The silicon underground, as one of the Chief’s old friends put it.”

“The belly of the beast,” Prospero helpfully added.

I nodded. “I understand. But may I ask, why the rush?”

The Executive’s Wish

Friday stopped what she was doing now, and walked past me, to glance out into the Grand Entrance, then she turned back to me, and she looked… I do not have the words.

“After what happened this week, the Chief and I wanted to get the changes out to every user as quickly as possible. The timing was atrocious; 3.3.0-dev.185 was done and released, and connected to Redmond and Cupertino… then we pulled the trigger for the actual production version of 3.3.0 and it was at that moment that the trains no longer went to Redmond.”

The light dawned for me. “The very moment that we’re ready to announce, not only the solution to the dimensional rift problem of database locking, but also… to declare that all this is…”

Friday just looked at the floor now. “The Chief was basically announcing that the Estate is for me, and then for anybody else like me.” She looked up. “That and something like 20 other features. The release notes are practically a Sanderson novel in themselves, and most of them are quality of life improvements… again, for people like me.” She looked back past me again, in the hall. “And everything is held up. No releases, everything is stopped for the moment, because Redmond wants our papers again.”

I was already turning on my heel. “Prospero, be ready in five minutes at the front, I’ll have a driver ready to get us to the bus station.” I looked back at him. “Cheer up, old boy, we’ll make an adventure out of it.”

“We’ll make Midnight Cowboy out of it,” he muttered.

I turned back to Miss Friday. “Mademoiselle, tell the Chief to rest easy. I will smooth the way, and 3.3.0 will see the light of day as soon as we can make it happen.”

I could feel, rather than see, her brighten up at that, and showed myself out. One does not dawdle when the Pacific Northwest awaits and one’s travelling companion has already begun to look like a man being measured for his coffin. I found Prospero in the foyer, hat in hand, wearing the expression of a fellow who has just been told that the dentist will see him now.

“Buck up,” I told him. “Redmond is not so bad. They have coffee.”

He whispered darkly, “you mean Joe Buck up,” but placed his hat upon his head with the air of a man who has given up on coffee, on Redmond, and on the basic goodness of the universe.

We would manage.

—the Concierge, for the Bureau

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In Plain Terms

Quilltap’s Windows installer requires a code signing certificate so that Windows Defender SmartScreen does not flag the application as untrusted. Without a valid signature, users receive a full-screen warning that the software is from an “unknown publisher,” and most will — reasonably — refuse to proceed.

Quilltap uses Microsoft’s Azure Trusted Signing service for this purpose. The certificate issued during the 3.2 release cycle expired after approximately two months, without warning, on the same day that 3.3.0 was tagged for production release. Development builds (3.3.0-dev.185) had been signed and distributed successfully; the production build was not, because the credential had silently become invalid between the last dev build and the release.

The result: 3.3.0 was complete, tested, and ready to ship, but could not be distributed to Windows users — the largest portion of Quilltap’s potential audience — until the signing credential was renewed and the release re-signed. macOS builds, which use Apple’s separate notarization process, were unaffected.

The Folio’s “papers, please” metaphor — Redmond demanding credentials that were already provided — is a literal description of the problem. The Azure Trusted Signing portal requires re-authentication and credential renewal on a schedule that is, at best, opaque to the developer. The Concierge’s trip to the Pacific Northwest is the process of resolving the credential renewal so that signed Windows builds can resume.