looks like widechar input from getline in awk - awk

Question

I'm having trouble with AWK that I've never seen before.
I'm reading in a file, no special chars, and printing it back out.
When I read a text file, it prints out with a NUL between every char.
Reading an HTML file works exactly as expected and prints out what was read in.
Code snippet:
while ((getline line < In) > 0) {
print ":0:", line, ":0:" > "out";
reads the line "signature1"
and prints
":0: xFFxFEsNULiNULgNULnNULaNULtNULuNULrNULeNUL1NUL/r
NUL :0:/r/n"
as viewed in Notepad++.
"In" is the input filename.
I assume it is some Language setting on my machine, but I can't find anything.
A second print line, redirected to a file, prints every other line in Chinese.
TL;RD; Complete text of the app:
BEGIN { ProcessFile(); }
function ProcessFile() {
In = "default.txt";
Works = "NoProblem.html";
Out = "quote.txt";
RS = "/n";
while ((getline textLine < In) > 0) {
print "*0*", textLine, "*0:*" > "out.txt";
print textLine > Out; # prints every other line in Chinese ???
}
close(In);
close(Out);
}
Output of the second print line:
signature1
਍猀椀最渀愀琀甀爀攀㈀ഀഀ