System Programmer Chapter 3: Up and running!

Catherine decided not to return to her spiritual world for now. She didn't have much hope in those so-called skills of Joshua.

Joshua didn't mind, as he would have felt the same in her place. He decided to do his best for now, not just for Catherine, but for himself as well. Most people would probably freak out in his place, as the girl had just announced he was linked to her until her death, after all. But, Joshua was an odd fellow who adapted to new situations fairly quickly. If anything, this situation intrigued him and he wanted to learn what his capacities were.

He started by making an office chair and a desk appear and sat down behind it. Then slowly but surely he started to rebuild his old office room. A familiar plant appeared in a corner, a bookshelf materialized and started to fill itself with IT books and so on... After a while, the floor was adorned with a nice carpet, there was a fridge filled with snacks and there was a massive window behind the desk, showing the ocean on the other side. This view had always calmed Joshua.

Next of course, came the electronic equipment. Three floating screens appeared and surrounded him, covering 180 degrees of vision. Afterward, a keyboard & mouse appeared on the desk. Most people didn't use keyboards anymore and stuck to vocal instructions, but Joshua was a programmer, and still needed to be able to input manual commands. Finally, a case containing the main computer appeared near his legs.

"So far so good. Now, let's hope I can actually use this thing."

With great anticipation, Joshua pressed the power button.

The first reaction was good, a big "INITIALIZING" became visible on the different screens.

Unfortunately, after a few seconds, they were replaced by 3 blue screens of death.

"Error: No operating system found."

"Of course, this computer is in a blank slate, I should be able to install something on it though."

Joshua was born in the middle of the 21st century and new technologies came out regularly. As a programmer, Joshua was the lead developer on a new type of artificial intelligence project, a chip you could install in your brain and help you with various tasks. Of course, when he died the chip he was using for the beta test didn't come with him.

"Can I attempt to make a copy of it?"

As the head developer, he had written most of the code. But such a program was so large in size, it was impossible for him to have remembered even half of it. Still, there was a part he knew by heart: the core system. He had spent 5 years working on it in his garage before presenting the project to a big IT company.

Joshua closed his eyes and tried to recall all the work he had put into that program. He visualized the code he had written file after file and saw it all flash into his mind. Of course, this was just pure code, it wasn't a runnable file yet. He imagined opening his favorite programming tool to launch a compiling operation. A compiler turns human written code into something a computer can understand, doing so in his mind would probably sound ludicrous is he was still alive and even he wasn't sure what would happen. Much to his delight, it seemed to work though, the code he had was build into a bunch of files, including an executable. He needed to store those somewhere. He imagined taking all those files and doing a giant copy/paste on a flash drive. He saw the progress bar in his mind slowly filling up. When it reached 100% he started to focus on the flash drive and made it appear in his hand.

He plugged the drive into the computer and restarted the system. This time the system didn't crash, instead, an installation screen appeared.

Joshua configured the asked parameters and launched the installation, crossing his fingers.

After a few minutes, it was complete. The middle screen changed it's output to a smiley face that started to speak.

[Thank you for choosing the Luna System!]

[The Luna System is a powerful artificial intelligence able to assist you in your everyday tasks in the most simple manner.]

[The Luna System will now scan the user and determine his or her status.]

[Scanning...]

[Warning: More than one user found. Will scan both before determining how to proceed.]

A popup message appeared in front of Joshua's eyes.

[Greetings potential user, in order to proceed, the system has to scan your body & mind. Please be sure to read our terms & conditions, and be aware this system might store personal data that will not be used in a commercial way. Do you agree to the terms?]

"Yeah, sure!" Joshua was getting excited. After all the program was properly recognizing both Catherine and him.

Regarding the terms & conditions, he knew no one read those. He actually had added a line in the middle that whoever accepted the terms would have to deliver him a free pizza if he so wished, and no one had ever noticed.

He didn't even think about Catherine's reaction.

Meanwhile, in the real world, Catherine had just finished eating dinner. She had been living up in the shrine for 2 weeks now. The awakening of a Soul Guardian could sometimes take a month so she was delaying the fact she had to go back down as much as possible. She hadn't heard back from Joshua in the last 2 hours and figured he was probably trying to find a loophole in this mess of a contract. If only there was one, she would gladly help him.

Suddenly something weird appeared in front of her and some text was displayed.

[Greetings potential user, in order to proceed, the system has to scan your body & mind. Please be sure to read our terms & conditions, and be aware this system might store personal data that will not be used in a commercial way. Do you agree to the terms?]

"What is this??" she thought but quickly came to a conclusion: "... Joshua."

Catherine appeared back in her soul world and saw Joshua sitting behind a desk surrounded by some weird apparatus she had never seen before. There was the illusion of an ocean behind a window on the opposite side of the desk. For some reason, Joshua was glowing in a faint blue light. The popup message was still in front of her.

"Is this your doing?" she pointed at the message.

"Ah yes sorry, I forgot to warn you. Accept it, it will be beneficial."

"Is this related to why you are glowing?"

"Yes, this system is scanning me, allow it to scan you too." He gave her a big grin and a thumbs up.

Quite honestly Catherine was surprised, she didn't know what that thing was, but it somehow gave her hope that Joshua might actually have some use.

"I accept the terms."

As soon as she said that, the popup disappeared and she started glowing in a similar fashion.

"How long is this gonna last?" she asked.

"I'm not sure but it shouldn't be too long."

"Can you explain to me what all those things are for?"

"Sure. I come from a world that is technologically pretty advanced. This machine is called a computer and helps people in their daily life with their ability to quickly perform some tasks like analyses or calculations. I was wondering that if I successfully created one here, it would be of any help to you."

Catherine nodded slowly. Her expectations were still pretty low but for the time being, she was intrigued and looked forward to whatever was going to happen.

About 15 minutes had passed when the system finished.

[Scanning complete]

[Unique circumstances found: 2 minds found inside a single body]

[Main Host: Catherine Lippi]

[Power Source: Joshua Lockman]

[Both users will be granted the scanning & analysis ability.]

[Luna has determined that Catherine Lippi is the owner of the body, appointing her as main system user, safeguarding her life will, therefore, be Luna's priority. ]

[Joshua Lockman had been determined to be the power source of the Luna System, Luna will find energy reserves within him.]

"Wait! What?"

Joshua suddenly felt very tired.

[Warning: Power Source low on supply please refill it or system will shut down in safe mode.]

Chapter end