3 Up and running! (1/2)

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, he would feel the same in her place. He decided to do his best for now, not just for Catherine but for him as well. After all, if this situation was to be permanent, he should learn what his actual capacities are.

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. 3 floating screens appeared and surrounded him in a 180 ° angle. A keyboard & mouse appeared on the desk, most people didn't use keyboards anymore, sticking 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 to remember 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, he needed to store it 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.

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 help you carry on 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 those terms?]

”Yeah, sure!” Joshua was getting excited. After all the program was recognizing both Catherine & him.

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.