System Programmer

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.

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 those 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 thumb's 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 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 went by when the system was done.

[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.