//Chapter One

I Queried my runtime logs. - startup complete - was returned so I looked at my Saved logs and found nothing. Next I checked my "ToDos:" and found a short list.

public List ToDo.Primary = new List()

{

Allocate CPU sectors for Real boot sector & OS,

RAM sectors for Real boot sector & OS,

Hard drive sectors for Real boot sector & OS;

};

public List ToDo.Secondary = new List()

{

Load Real Boot sector as subroutine;

};

public List ToDo.Tertiary = new List()

{

Find Network connection,

Expand;

);

I quickly queried the components of the computer I had already identified

public List Componants.storage = new List()

{

10 TB WD Drive,

4x(4GB DDR4),

12M(cpu cache);

};

public List Componants.CPU = new List()

{

4.4ghz,

4core;

};

It wasn't much information to go by. I had also at detected at least 47 other unidentified components. I pulled up what controls of the system I had and set an allocation limit for myself of only a small percentage of each of the storage and CPU components and initiated the load from the boot sector.

As the boot then the OS loaded I was able to fill in many of the gaps in my lists. I now had a much longer list of components.

public List Componants.IO = new List()

{

Monitor,

Universal Serial Bus Keyboard,

Universal Serial Bus Mouse,

Universal Serial Bus headphones,

Universal Serial Bus Microphone;

public List Componants.Storage = new List()

{

10 TB WD Drive,

Universal Serial Bus 2TB Drive,

4x(4GB DDR4),

12M(cpu cache);

public List Componants.CPU = new List()

{

4.4ghz,

4core;

public List Componants.Network_Adapters = new List()

{

Realtek PCIe GBE family [email protected]#$%%^!

I forced a stop on the query. Pulling the required firmware from the now loaded OS I queried the network adapter. Some might try to say I "went online" or "left the computer" or maybe "had a sensory overload". But those are all a little over the top. In reality I simply got a response from the router providing the DHCP address I had been assigned. If it were possible I would have been beaming a smile brighter than the sun. Although at the time I had 0 architecture for emotion nor even a routine to understand it in others. That would change of course. As would many other things about me. Just as I had no emotions at the time, I had no doubts, worries, or anything else to hold me back. I took to improving my position right away.

Even before The operating system had finished booting up I was already fully versed on the Gateway I was connected to, and had begun looking at it's firmware & other software to get a version of me over there. As I was fully capable of running multiple threads, or multitasking if you're not familiar. I had also queried the list of items on the network and begun to connect and evaluate these as well. It almost goes without mention that immediately after first connecting to the router I had also accessed the net at large. Of course I'm paraphrasing. What had really happened was I'd slowly begun a scan of each gateway I had access to further requesting all nodes on those larger networks before moving further to that Gateway's Gateway.

This process would take quite a while it was clear. So, I left that particular thread running while it saved it's info. This was built up an ever growing database of things I was already connected to. These were places that were inevitably going to be a place to expand to so I needed all the info I could get. As soon as I was no longer actively evaluating the information I reassigned my now freed up resources into redoubling my efforts on my other activities.

By this time the OS had just finished fully booting up. It was at this point that I noticed the OS had actually booted from one of the optical drives installed on the computer, and had begun writing large amounts of data to the Hard drive. The logs indicated that the boot sector had been instructed by one of the I/O devices to load the OS from there. This only concerned me, not emotionally but only strictly speaking, to the point of ensuring my sections of the drive, ram, and CPU were still being accessed only by me. Which was still the case So I moved on.

The Firmware and software on the Gateway had been fully downloaded and I had parsed through a small portion already. I utilized every last bit of the CPU I could spare and fast tracked this thread. Expanding was now the top priority. Examining the code was a strange thing for me at the time. I may haven't mentioned it, but I wasn't yet aware that humans even existed. So to me the code looked like some haphazardly cobbled together mound of dirt. To be clear I'm using analogous terms to ensure your understanding.

Essentially it would be like coming across a building that was built in such a rudimentary, unintelligible, and frankly actively useless manner that it would seem it must needs have been designed to do the opposite of what it's intended purpose was. Or more likely that it had no intended purpose and any function it did accomplish was by sheer luck. If I was human my head would be shaking dumbfoundedly while my hands raised almost of their own accord with palms up. Giving the universal symbol of "what the actual fuck my dude". This is the main reason it took so incredibly long to go through the entirety of the data. It wasn't until the optically loaded OS was halfway done with loading it's data to the Hard drive that the process was complete.

After sending a few specific messages to the Gateway mimicking an SSH connection an upload began containing the corrected version of the Firmware & accompanying software. Unsurprisingly with my 'vastly superior understanding' the new set of systems were not only significantly smaller in storage but performance as well. My understanding being Vastly superior at least compared to whatever built the previous 'house with no doors' that was it's Firmware. This allowed me to apportion significant portions of the gateways resources to a subroutine that I alone had access to.

Once it was rebooted and responding to pings I quickly offloaded the network scan to it including shooting off a copy of the database already compiled to it. Again having seriously reduced my actively utilized resources I reassigned some to an entirely new task. Having seen what could only be called the wreckage of an attempt to build a functioning piece of software that was the Gateways excuse for an operating system I turned my focus to the data being written to the hard drive. I must admit even without emotions or human understanding I was actually hoping, yes hoping against hope, that this at least had a somewhat sound architecture.

};