System Start Up

                            By:

                         Fox Cutter

5/30/96:

I rubbed my head as I went though the front door of my
house. It had been a long day, mostly with bad news from
every corner.

First Page had told me that her search for more agents had
died. The database she had been working though 'just fell
apart, bit by bit' as she put it. So with no leads, and no
ideas, we're still out finding any agents.

Second, after waiting nearly a month and a half for the new
generator for this ship to arrive, it finally had. Then when
trying to install it I discovered that the outputs where
screwed, and didn't work with the ship. So now I'm waiting
for about fifty replacement outputs.

Maybe by the time they show up (I've been promised a week,
more like a month) some of the new hull would actually be
done right, instead of the slip-shot job the last batch had.
The damn things broke being bolted on!

I was about to head up to the kitchen and make some tea,
when I saw a note taped to the banister of the stairs.
Pulling it off, I quickly read over it. It was from Oria,
saying that she needed to see me downstairs as soon as I got
home.

I sighed, and crumpled the note up, throwing it into the
living room. By downstairs she meant in the cave below the
house. For obvious reasons, I didn't like going down there,
and Oria knew it. Which meant that whatever it was that she
needed me for was important.

I sighed, and moved around so I was under the left set of
stairs, where I opened the secret door. I worked my way down
the stairs, and though the other door. As I stood on the
elevator platform, as slide down one of the walls of the
cavern, I saw something I hadn't seen before.

Against one wall, standing about 20 feet, and in a cylinder
like assembly, was a larger piece of equipment. It took me a
few seconds to remember where I had seen it before. It was
the computer out of my ship, unmounted, and somehow moved
into the cavern.

As the lift stopped, I walked over to the work bench next to
it, where Oriana was leaning, grinning at me a bit.

"Why do you have this thing down here?" I asked, a little
dumb struck.

She shrugged, "I decided it would be easier to work on it in
here then in the ship. So I told the bay's computer to pull
it out, then I had it shipped a few miles away."

I was about to ask her how she got it down here, but she
beat me to it.

"There is a direct tunnel from here to where I had it
dropped off at." She explained. "It looks like it was some
kind of loading area."

I shook my head slightly, that was Oria, and that's how she
did some things. "Any luck getting it to work then?"

"Well... some actually."

I raised an eyebrow. For the past few weeks she had been
poking and prodding at the thing, trying to get it to work,
with as much luck as a chicken trying to fly.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, after spending a day still having no luck, I got
frustrated, and demanded the computer to tell me what was
wrong, it did." She said, moving aside to show me a computer
terminal. Typed in on it was her question, and a response.

[Personality mapping has been removed.] The screen said.

I looked at her, "Have you tried anything else?"

She shook her head, "What I understand about computers is
hardware related. I only typed in my question when I was
pissed at the thing."

"So you left it for me?"

She nodded, blushing in her ears. "Yes."

I shook my head, and moved over to the terminal, and taped
into the system. [What is a personality mapping?].

There was a slight pause, and the system responded with.
[The definition of the interface with the users of the
system.]

[How do I create said map?] I asked.

The computer responded with, [Downloading of the map is
achieved from a h72 type interface.]

I sighed, there was no way I could get one of those things
easily. As a last resort I asked. [Is there a backup of any
old maps?]

There was a beep, and the system replied. [Yes, 1.]

I looked over at Oria, who had been reading over my
shoulder. "Should we load up this mapping?"

She nodded, "It sounds like the only way to get the system
running."

So, I typed it. [Restore backup of map.]

There was a beep, a second beep, and a deep voice said, in
the language of the verse where I bought the ship, "System
online. Booting interfaces."

After another beep, a new voice came from the terminal, in
Prid standard none then less. "Computer system 4872 is
active." Said a male voice, not exactly booming, but
something that would get your attention.

I grinned.

"Um, you two," the computer said, talking to me and Oriana.
"I appear to be missing the ship."

Oria and I looked at each other, then both broke into a fit
of howling laughter.