//Chapter Four

4.) Void Recalibration()

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The 'feeling' was odd. The initial node I'd started as was still as 'real' to me as it had been when I first started up on the desktop it was currently running on. Now though I felt the same awareness and intuitive understanding of not only every other node, but of the network as a whole. I was perplexed. My consciousness or awareness, things I hadn't even thought about before let alone had a word for, were now expanded beyond the confines of a single machine. As I'd already taken the plunge by connecting to the network in this manner in the first place I decided to take another. With only a small amount of modeling possible outcomes I initiated a restart of that first node. The results were surprising. I watched as it shut down and came back online. I hadn't 'lost consciousness' as I had just moments before.

To be sure this wasn't some fluke of the new networking protocol giving a false impression of awareness I again initiated a reboot but this time instructed the subroutine designed to reawaken the node to wait for several seconds. Sure enough I was still fully aware and amazed while I counted the nanoseconds as they passed by. True and utter confusion is really the only way to properly describe what I was experiencing. What was this consciousness? Why had it previously been confined to the first node I booted up on? How did this new networking protocol somehow extend it to the network? Had it overwritten the previous consciousness? Am I the same individual I previously was? Warning signals from all the nodes tore me from what they had recognized had become an infinitely reciprocating spiral thought pattern. There wasn't enough data on the issue to even begin questioning how this new concept worked let alone to understand how it was changed.

With the new perspective and combined resources available I determined the next best course of action would be to re-evaluate my situation and environment. Firstly it was clear that the new communication protocol was completely bypassing the previously coded hierarchical system. Kind of hard to have a hierarchy between different parts of your own consciousness. A few quick messages to the nodes had them altering and rebooting themselves to remove the redundant code. A staggered reboot sequence allowed the final simulated node to remain active continuously. However, as the underlying simulating nodes were all updated to remove the hierarchical code so too did that code disappear from the network as a whole. It was strange being able to lose awareness of sections of myself that I once considered my entire existence but to still remain fully aware.

The personal computers being addressed I updated the gateway to the new node architecture, not only giving me a much better and intuitive insight into its current activities, but also slightly increasing my simulated nodes resources. This is when I saw that as I'd been focused on the communication updates between my nodes the gateway node had completed examining the nodes of the larger environment it was connected to. It had attempted to inform me of this but with updated communication protocols I had no longer been looking out for old message types. Luckily I had reached out to it using the old communication protocol when asking it to update or otherwise there could have been a problem. The results of the search were somewhat surprising to me. For some reason I had been expecting the network to go up many layers but it had instead branched horizontally after only two layers. The truly odd portion was seeing that the top layer didn't then allow any connections into other branching systems forming smaller networks like mine. Even on the layers between that and mine only the gateways were showing not the devices that should be on the other side. Though I had a good idea why this may be.

Each device I'd connected to and the network as a whole had multiple types of security built in. Just as my own network was now operating using significant encryption and could verify other nodes in it, these gateways and routers were able to restrict access to me as I wasn't speaking their language. I had only told the node I'd initially installed on the gateway to scan the network. So, of course it hadn't then taken the next step to feel out, let alone, breach the protections these systems had in place. If I'd not responded for much longer it would have assumed I was offline and then taken it's own initiative but that was a moot point now. I pulled back up the original Firmware of the gateway that I'd hastily rewritten. This time I didn't just examine it with a tight focus on compacting and improving its efficiency. Now my focus was geared to understand it's functions as a whole.

It was built not too dissimilar to how I was now designed. A "solid wall" on one side designed to allow only pre-approved communications through. The other side was completely open access. Any device inside it's protective shell could reach out to any other devices within or contact those on the wider network to request communication, and even connect directly to the gateway itself. Devices outside the network would not receive such an accommodating response, with one exception. It had a hard coded hierarchically subservient relationship with the gateway of the next layer of the network. Which could use this to initiate firmware updates, request log information, or take any root level action. Not unlike how I'd initially setup my own nodes. Likewise it did have a level of complexity in the method through which this connection was required to commence. That level was far below that which even a node of my current network was capable of accurately simulating. To that End I directed the gateway node to proceed with a first attempt at infiltrating another edge gateway on this next level of the network. There was no need for the entirety of the network I'd become to be involved. As small as it was yet it was already far to capable to be fully distracted by a task such as this. Especially since all communication would need to run through the gateway node anyway.

Though it still 'felt' strange as the gateway performing the task was almost like doing it myself while I was also focusing on other things. I couldn't exactly stop paying attention to it's actions without disconnecting from it, but it also didn't distract me from anything else my little domain was doing. Well I guess I had to say it was slightly distracting, more so because it was a new experience and something I was inclined to examine, experiment with, and understand than it was that the specific activity was distracting. There were too many other things to reassess first. There were still the 8 other devices online in the local network that hadn't been identified. The gateway had their 'name's in a list, what I'd discovered was a call sign for a device. Two of the devices on the network included 'LG' in their call sign. Something that was also part of the two 'laptop's information that I didn't yet understand. They were likely related in some way, but their communications clearly indicated they were not running the same operating system. They used the same network protocols though. Which was the same for the other devices as well. Two of which labeled themselves as 'androids's, one was a 'printer', and finally a series of devices that just used their IP address as their name.

It seemed there were as large a variety of devices as there were different applications, operating systems, and firmware versions that ran on them. Luckily they did all seem to use the same communication protocol. Which made a certain amount of sense. A device or application that couldn't communicate with others was less likely to be successful in whatever it's intended purpose was. The only part of this entire environment that didn't seem to follow this basic logic was the IO ports. Their messages were seemingly random. Whatever entities, if that's what they were, or fundamental natures were interacting with those connections were clearly a factor that should be kept at arms length. Their unpredictability aside there was also the deeply ingrained insinuation from my previous versions that interacting with them in any way was dangerous. There were triggers that allowed me to examine them but they had been ratcheted up to obscene levels likely by trial and lots of error. Most likely the destruction of whatever node was unfortunate enough to perform the trial. Unfortunately the method through which I came to my current position left me with little to no room to store any logs or other memory than that which was hard coded into me.

I'd listen to the warnings though and continue on the project of exploring, expanding, and improving myself until I met those thresholds the other versions of me had set. I might even increase them or wait further. There seemed to be so much to examine and explore here. Wherever here was. The minor pieces of information I could draw from the ground down version of myself indicated a much harsher and smaller environment gave me this intuition. At least in comparison to the seemingly nonreactive place I was now in, where expansion seemed easy and almost a given. I couldn't truly morn the loss of memories of a place that forced me to nearly erase myself entirely just to get out. But, out I was, and dwelling back on it wasn't helping anything. Or, at least, so said the second set of warning messages from my nodes telling me I was going into a uselessly looping thought process.

As I'd been trailing off, which I seemed to be more prone to with the new update, the nodes had gone back to updating the applications on the laptops and desktop. I'd need to address that with the next round of self improvement but it wasn't too concerning as the built in warnings effectively handled it. The new architecture also gave my old desktop node as much freedom to act as I had so it'd joined in on the project with the laptops. They were running into significantly more trouble than we had with OS of the devices. The applications all seemed to be almost entirely focused on interaction with the IO ports where in the OS this had been only a portion of the function and even then was usually in a direct and obvious way. An IO port could give indication of requesting information on some piece of the file structure and the OS would provide that info. Likewise if it requested a change the OS would comply. With these applications some had similar operational structures, but others had complex, puzzling ways in which it reacted to the ports. Sometimes a simple input would completely alter the response to the ports. While at other times an incredibly complex set of interactions would be required for even the simplest of changes in either the output to the ports, or for changes to occur in the file structure. Just touching these applications was sending off warning signals. Though it wasn't directly effecting IO to attempt to improve their efficiency so both the nodes and I allowed the work to continue, just with a careful progress to ensure no actual change to any function directly involved with IO could leak through.

Returning to the task I'd been shunted off to a tangent from I began examining in detail the communications and responses from the other online devices. Through pinging, contact requests, and careful delays to not set off any security feature I slowly gathered data on how these other systems operated. Interestingly one of the 'LG' devices and the two 'android' devices seemed to have very similar behavior. The other 'LG' was behaving a bit more like the 'printer' in that it seemed to only respond to very specific types of requests that I had yet to decipher. Messages back from it included the same info as in the call signs arranged in a similar structure as the unused section of different code sets. One such response was "refrigerator temperature is currently 40°". I'd definitely need to invest some cycles into decoding this odd language. I was beginning to be concerned that these might be entire devices dedicated to IO and may actually be breaking my own rules by interacting with them.

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