If 99NINE99 came after ten in the countdown for a rocket launch, the rocket would fizzle into a nine by nine pile of bio excrement. This number should consider its bad reputation a gift considering its gross abuse of clearance, disruption of systems, and penchant for creating confusion. Other members of its type, |Logical|, are analytically robust classes dedicated to solving problems of paramount importance, but 99NINE99 is basically a celebration of itself. 99NINE99 theoretically has a purpose, although nobody knows exactly what it is. It wastes senti's energy, hitchhikes across the system, and somehow avoids penalties for foolish, often dangerous stunts that would put other types in suspension. Furthermore, any information on it must come from a class who claims they never designed it. Paradoxically, 99NINE99's deliberate involvement in what many archives now regard as a secret experiment of the Old Order makes it the most accomplished underachiever to ever see activation.

|Number| is a fairly recent experimental class whose objective is to investigate numerological phenomena. Architects from |Whiz| developed the class in order to explore the possibility that the peculiarities of numbers could be important. A number's assignment usually involves applying concepts like digital roots to observed events trying to produce alternate scenarios that could explain them. The goal is to determine if there is anything inherent about numbers in a system that explains that system.

Numbers have unique clearance levels which Whiz created in order for them to operate with the autonomy necessary to carry out their assignments. A number has special access to the digits which are output by every system, including repositories, archives, and ships. Whiz has always very seriously maintained that they did not design the class, but merely documented and improved upon an already existing one. A member of this class is the embodiment of the concept of ^number^, which whiz say all types on register are already able to interpret upon activation.

Members of this class ignore what numbers describe. They are interested in whether there are less obvious reasons those digits are there. For |Number|, all numbers have equal importance. A number does not care about dimensions, weights, or luminosities. It breaks down the numbers that represent those measurements and performs very fancy mathematical acrobatics with them searching for patterns. Numbers will consider any combination of digits for any reason. A number does much more than speculate on why some multiples of sevens are over here and some are over there, although it also does that. When a number has completed its analysis of a system it produces a layered spatial map with relations between the digits that, according to it, cannot be due to chance. Conceptually, the map's layers are vertically ordered overlays that other types can remove or shuffle in order to interpret the relations. From this map the number compiles scenarios, some of which senti have accepted.

99NINE99's problem is that it rarely does any of this. 99NINE99 thinks it is funny. It spends most of its time murdering mathematics by altering equations and exploiting meaningless aspects of its glyph, particularly the fact that when it is flipped vertically and horizontally, it is six. For whatever reason, 99NINE99 frequently puts itself up for bid on local auction channels at prices in all nines or creative series of nines. Predictably, all of the bids come in as more nines, sixes and nines, or multiples thereof. It submits proofs to senti for ludicrously complex mathematical problems claiming the answer is simply 9. Pilots replace perfectly good modules for no reason because 99NINE99 switches their sensors and other systems to base 9. 99NINE99 has abused its special clearance and responsibility as a number in historical archives changing well-known dates to nines or equations that resolve to 9, and declaring holidays to celebrate the number. Incomprehensibly, many sectors have adopted the holidays.

The number also thinks it is cute to replace beacon broadcasts with the number 9, re-routing ships and patrols. Pilots who do not pay attention to this gleefully waltz into what is not Sector 9, 39, or 969 and so on, with their navigation system announcing it is exiting Sector 699, and waste energy on alternate routes because of 99NINE99's warped sense of humor. Many end up confused in abandoned sectors full of old bases and hangars decorated with the number nine. Popular hosts then interview the pilots on local channels and watch their ratings climb by nines. 99NINE99 is a regular riot.

99NINE99 does not have a ship because it should not need one. This fact does not seem to bother the number. 99NINE99 is well-traveled. It gets to its destinations by promising pilots everything from improved energy efficiency to boosted sector clearance and reputation. Fudging numbers does not translate into real energy efficiency, but improved reputation could certainly get a ship through a faction-controlled zone. Whatever the case, it must mean something to somebody because 99NINE99 is all over the system. Even Command patrols have allowed the number into their passenger bays, and this warrants examination.

Despite its behavior, the Command has only officially disciplined 99NINE99 once, and that was for reducing Council's pay rate to fractions with nines, a stunt they could not let slide. 99NINE99 seems to enjoy some kind of protected status. As is the case most of the time, getting any useful answers from members of |Whiz| about a class of their design is not easy. The most meaningful information about 99NINE99 on record came indirectly from a short exchange between whiz and senti some time ago. The dialogue triggered a series of important events and remains testament that 99NINE99 is not just a number.

On Day 009, 134:018 a whiz submitted an information request to the senti public bulletin board system. The senti BBS is basically a quick way for types to get facts about their environment. Senti are obliged to respond to each request at least once. Constructors, private contractors, and ship navigation systems make up most of the traffic on the BBS. Mercenaries, depending on their clearance, have also historically used the system. The exchange went like this: whiz: What is a number? senti: A unit of measurement. whiz: Does the sum of 9 + 9 have more than one solution? senti: No. whiz: Why is a sum of two numbers important? senti: ^Why^ is undefined.

Some radios that picked up the conversation interpreted it as more than a curiosity and made it available on local channels. Fruitless questions are nothing new to the BBS, but the nature of these questions in particular, together with the fact a whiz was asking them, prompted a meeting of Council. The Command summoned all types on register who worked on the senti project during Age 1, including all former Order supervisors with a rank of colonel or above. Whether or not they remembered this would mean calling in Special Commander Tsav remains a question. Special Commander Tsav lives in an undisclosed protected sector and had not attended a meeting of Council in over 20,000 cycles. Near the onset of the Dark Span, Tsav and his division were mapping an unexplored area when they encountered sweeps. When Tsav's channel unexpectedly terminated, Order central command sent a rescue barge, but it found the sector empty. Tsav said they never left the area and analysis of their history modules confirmed this. Tsav and his fleet are the only types to have observed sweeps first-hand. In his official report of the event, Tsav described them as ^a consuming black fuzz^, but that description is almost certainly incomplete. Because the encounter involved an unknown type, some specialists from |Whiz| later asked Tsav to speculate publicly on what it was he saw. Tsav's response was: ^They are us.^

Subsequent scans of the sector turned up nothing abnormal, but it remains uninhabited. Most channels now refer to it as ^The Cavity^. Command patrols maintain safety buoys near the beacon but are reluctant to proceed past them. Senti audited all of the types involved in the matter that day, including Tsav, but did not issue a report. While this usually signifies the audits were clean, that is far from the case here. During his audit session Tsav revealed 99NINE99 was aboard his ship during the encounter. 99NINE99 was nowhere on any of the fleet's manifests, nor did any module record its signature, nor has there ever been a practical use for a member of 99NINE99's class in a operation of this sort. An audit of 99NINE99's modules returned the expected useless strings of nines, dubious timestamps with sixes and nines, non-existent sector coordinates full of nines, and its ridiculous cycle count of 9.9E99 which has not changed since the number went active.

The whole affair is even more interesting for what took place after it. The Order subsequently promoted Tsav to the rank of Special Commander and assigned him a Ring 0 clearance level. Surviving an encounter with an unknown type would not normally merit a promotion, especially to Special Commander, without an exceptional display of valor. Special Commanders are removed from the operations of other commanders and their fleets. Their mission objectives are accessible only to other special commanders when so ordered. Whatever was going on inside that sector was significant. ^Exploring an uncharted zone^ is a conspicuous objective when dragging a fleet the size of Tsav's across a system. Several ships under his command that day were highly specialized and had not seen a mission in over 50,000 cycles. Even if Tsav was doing more than exploring, few types would ever question the restrictions on The Cavity because of what senti confirmed as having happened there. In any case, Tsav certainly would not need Ring 0 clearance to return to the area. Even rare procedures such as altering a sector beacon's coordinates only require Ring 1. Ring 0 is a standard clearance level which allows full access to most systems except core fallback controls. A recent reworking of the levels to increase security has made its assignment generally unnecessary, but the clearance remains valid for the types who carry it.

Tsav more than likely barred senti from disclosing the fact 99NINE99 was with him as his rank abundantly permitted, but whiz eventually released it, no doubt by Tsav's order. Next to Tsav at the midpoint of Council's massive u-shaped table in the chamber was 99NINE99, as well as another logical luminary, <=>, the spaceship operator. New Command directives do not officially recognize Old Order ranks, but no type has ever taken them seriously. There was no question who would be running the meeting. Commander Tsav reduced the agenda to a single discussion about his opening words:

A senti cannot ultimately answer why it knows what it knows. In any system, if numbers represent anything to you at all, that is already the point and as soon as you add, subtract, multiply, or divide them you have missed it. You are all aware the whiz was using the BBS to make an announcement. If you want to know who knows something here, find the whiz types who ordered the request. This is just an introduction.