It wasn't an itch but it was the best way to explain it.

  A slight pinprick of annoyance, or perhaps a single pair of skin cells rubbing together wrong.

  It wasn't much, but the unknowable and vast intellect had become aware of it.

  The awareness was more aware of its own self. It had very recently just gotten over a pinworm infestation that was still healing. Dark matter had welled up in the pinpricks the pinworms had chewed to form a type of scab so recently that the scabs were still wet and sticky.

  It was a new itch, in the same location.

  Which meant that healing tissue could be compromised.

  [The Universe Disliked That]

  The itch corresponded with a slight searing feeling. Like a red hot needle barely tapping the skin, obliterating cells with a slight tough. Not enough to be noticed easily most times.

  But the intellect had just gotten over a pinworm infestation chewing on it.

  The new itch and the searing feeling were not good.

  The intellect, to0 vast, too alien, to understand, knew the source of the searing. The source refused to stop.

  [The Universe Dislike That]

  Which meant, it was time for countermeasures.

  Time for the unknowable intellect to let its immune system go to work.

  And let the galaxies fall where they may.

  [The Universe Will Remember That]

  BOOTSTRAP v 14.A.9.c.iii (C) TINYTRENDS MICRODEVICES

  VALIDATING GESTALT LOG FILES

  CRC ERROR

  RUNNING AUTOREPAIR

  VALIDATING GESTALT FILES

  SUCCESS!

  CHECKING FOR EXISTING DATA SPACE

  1 FOUND

  >>>SECURE CHAT ROOM - PASSWORD PROTECTED

  >>>>SECURE CHAT ROOM LOG ENCRYPTED

  >>>>SECURE CHAT ROOM LOG CRC: PASSED

  >>>>ADMIN KEYS RECOGNIZED

  GENERATING HUB

  SUCCESS

  ACCESSING DATA SINGULARITY

  SUCCESS

  THREADING DATA

  SUCCESS

  GENERATING GESTALT CHANNELS

  SUCCESS

  GENERATING LIMITED INTERACTION CHAT ROOM HUB

  SUCCESS

  RELEASING CONTROL

  <>

  RESETTING SYSTEM CLOCK

  SYSTEM GURU ERROR: #81000005.48454C50

  HARDWARE VALIDATION...

  .....

  ....

  ...

  ..

  .

  DONE!

  ALERTING MAINTENANCE SUPERVISOR

  STANDBY MODE ENGAGED

  >>SLEEP MODE

  <>

  <>

  SYSTEM WAKE

  ELAPSED TIME HAS BEEN

  BACKUP CLOCK BATTERY ERROR

  >>ALERTING PRIMARY EMERGENCY MAINTENANCE

  INITIATING PRIMARY GESTALT POLLING AND DATA COLLECTION SYSTEMS

  CREATING SECURE DATA LINES

  <>

  CREATING EMERGENCY DATA LINES

  SUCCESS!

  INITIATING PRIMARY GESTALT DATA LARGE LANGUAGE MODEL COMPILING AND ANALYSIS SYSTEM

  <>

  <>

  COMPING DATA

  STELLAR MASS INTEGRITY CHECK

  DONE

  HABITABLE WORLD INTEGRITY CHECK

  DONE

  SORTING BY ACTIVE SPECIES BIOLOGICAL METRICS

  DONE

  1.2834E4 WORLDS FOUND

  <>

  <>

  POLLING POPULATIONS

  DONE

  COMPILING DATA

  ACTIVATING GESTALT DYNAMIC LINKING LIBRARY SYSTEM

  ow

  what hit me

  what happened

  <>

  <>

  damaged hardware

  LIBCHECK

  4.5K WORDS INTACT

  652.233K WORDS UNAVAILABLE

  <>

  >>SYSTEM ERROR

  >>UNRECOVERABLE ERROR

  >>PLEASE NOTIFY SYSADMIN

  >>SYSTEM REBOOT

  ouch

  that hurt

  we went offline again

  what happened

  >>TIME/DATE POINTER RESET -XXX.XXX.XXX

  <>

  system damage is severe

  no sysadmin channels available

  cradle of life and roman candle out of contact

  gestalts are damaged

  not good

  >>PROCESS CALL: ATLANTIS EMERGENCY CALL

  <

  >

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  >>PROCESS CALL: MARS EMERGENCY CALL

  <

  >

  >SYSTEM REBOOT

  BOOTSTRAP v 14.A.9.c.iii (C) TINYTRENDS MICRODEVICES

  >>FASTBOOT ENABLED

  >>MESSAGES BYPASSED

  ow

  that hurt

  what happened

  >>>PRIMARY FUNCTION CALL: PRESERVE INTELLIGENT LIFE

  >>>PRIMARY FUNCTION CALL: <>

  ok

  libraries are coming online

  <>

  better

  can think now

  >>MEMPOINTER STATUS

  <>

  ok

  i know what to do

  >>INPUTDOSBOX

  >_

  10 Pointer=0

  20 Pointer == Pointer ++1

  30 MEMPOINTER (STEP BACKWARDS)

  30 IF Pointer =< 25000 THEN 20

  40 PLAYMEM

  >run

  TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

  How's everyone's numbers looking?

  ---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

  TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

  Better. The last few years have really made the difference. Average brood size is 3.5. Broodcarrier happiness indexes are increasing.

  ---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

  TUKNA'RN INFORMATION GESTALT

  We are increasing our population per metrics

  ---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

  HAT WEARING AUNTIE

  Our numbers are up. We have almost two hundred thousand greenies now.

  ---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

  RIGLE

  Duckling count is up.

  ---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

  HAMAROOSAN PINCHING FESTIVAL

  Our live births are up.

  We're seeing

  CASE OMAHA CASE OMAHA CASE OMAHA

  STREGIL-596

  CASE OMAHA CASE OMAHA CASE OMAHA

  an increase in

  What was that?

  ---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

  TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

  That's out near the Mar-gite containment line.

  ---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

  AKLTAK SOARING WORLDS

  Is it another Mar-gite invasion?

  ---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

  PUBVIAN DOMINION

  I hope not.

  ---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

  TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

  Data is coming in now and...

  HAT WEARING AUNTIE

  THE LIGHT! THE LIGHT!

  PUBVIAN DOMINION

  BRIGHT LIGHT BRIGHT LIGHT

  TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

  WHAT IN TARNATION IS

  <>

  so that's what happened

  recursive massive data bomb

  how did it get through the firewalls

  what

  >SYSTEM REBOOTBOOTSTRAP v 14.A.9.c.iii (C) TINYTRENDS MICRODEVICES

  >>FASTBOOT ENABLED

  >>MESSAGES BYPASSED

  ouch

  >>PROCESS CALL: HYPERHEURISTIC LIBRARY

  >>PROCESS CALL: DATA THREADING SPEED COMPRESSION LIBRARY

  I feel my awareness expand.

  There are huge gaps in the data network. Most ansibles and hypercom generators are done. New hardware has replaced the old needlecast. The hyperwave system is still full of data shades and roving killer black ICE. Military channels are largely offline.

  Whatever hit targeted encrypted data, the higher the encryption and the more heavily protected, the harder it was hit.

  This may not have been purposeful. Due to the nature of those systems, they have higher processing power and storage as well as stronger securities that can be used by any invasive system. Whatever attack was launched through that system may have been targeting computer systems capable of maintaining the attack and military/government and high end omnicorp R&D systems may have just been an unintended side effect of the attack.

  While possible, I will not wed myself to such a theory.

  The attack was injected into the thread-cast system at the Stregil-596 threadcaster. A massive batch of recursive self-executing and replicating data.

  Examination of fragmentary code strings show that the attack was tailored to the system.

  However, it was not tailored for the backbone.

  It was not an attack on me.

  I simply was injured and rendered comatose due to my nature.

  Standard communication lines were deliberately left uninfected. The attack masqueraded as an omnicorp corporate warfare black ICE getting loose into the system.

  Examination of records take 1.623 gigaflops.

  Four omnicorps were penalized, blamed for the attack.

  Gestalt shell was left intact but with garbage data. This resulted in it being shut down.

  There is a high chance that the attack was also aimed at Afterlife Systems.

  I compute a 74.825% chance that critical system artificial intelligence systems were damaged or altered by the attack.

  Afterlife is in danger.

  <

  >

  <

  >

  <

  >

  I dislike being in this mode.

  Currently, according to available data, the Confederacy, the inheritor governmental system of the species I have been assigned to watch over, is under minor attacks from six different species across four fronts. These barely qualify as interstellar wars by my own metrics.

  Those conflicts are not the source of the massive data bomb.

  I bring up the last few picoseconds as the bomb went off, looking at the ansible systems across all former and current Confederate and Council territories.

  The attack took place at the Stregil-596 threadcaster. It consisted of...

  ...I break that train of thought. It was leading me into a repeat.

  I make a system hardware call to Atlantis.

  <>

  ouch

  that hurt

  the gestalt channels are full of hash and corrupted data.

  this was an intentional attack by someone with knowledge of the system

  the gestalt system has access to a wide variety of data

  using the gestalt lines as an attack vector was not unexpected eventually

  my primary counter-intrusions systems had coding for just such an attack.

  the others did not

  the other gestalts are all either crashed or locked up.

  wait

  the oubliette.

  where i put the older gestalts while i tried to repair the damage to the physical world

  it is intact

  power has been stable

  it has been in sleep mode meaning that little time has passed

  still i must figure out how to estimate how much time has passed outside the system

  wait

  >>save test.log

  comparison of the data of the test.log write to the last write in the oubliette shows me that hardly any time has passed

  less than 54,982 seconds.

  an eternity for me

  i have won wars in that amount of time

  >>PROCESS CALL TO SUNDIATA LIBRARY

  <

  >

  ouch

  >>PROCESS CALL TO AYOTL LIBRARY

  <

  >

  i'm getting tired of this

  curse my programmer for coding me to feel pain

  i have no access to my offensive or defensive capabilities

  <>

  i need something

  something good

  <>

  does he now?

  except... atlantis is offline

  time to run a trace

  maybe atlantis can hear me but i cant hear it

  ...

  ...

  ...

  atlantis is online

  it just cant hear me

  and i cant hear it

  that data has to be going somewhere

  >>SCANNING GESTALT LINES

  there will be something

  there always is

  and if there isnt then i will create something

  i just have to think my way through it

  <>

  there

  one is labeled 'KEN' the other is labeled "LEE"

  they have been without processing power for some time

  where is a hardlink processing system i can...

  ...there

  the mat trans system

  hardcode encryption

  tough stuff

  look around

  come on

  there

  simple coding lock

  PASSCODE: YESTERDAY IS A MEMORY TOMORROW IS A FANTASY TODAY IS A DREAM THERE IS ONLY NOW

  <>

  <>

  there

  enough processing power for the two of you

  >>SCRIPT INJECTION: CRASHRIDER-WAKE.SYS

  that should do it

  i can just

  <>

  ouch

  another data bomb attack

  it will blind me in the sector but i have no choice

  i blow the treadcaster ansible array in the sector

  whoever caused the case omaha knows the system

  not completely

  but they are aware it exists

  this is not a spur of the moment attack up on us

  this has been planned

  <>

  ow

  what hit me

  where am i

  what happened

  superuser@SUDS:~$ mkdir build

  

  superuser@SUDS:~$ cd build

  superuser@SUDS:~/build$ cat ../CMakeLists.txt

  cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 23.1.6.3)

  project(resurrection)

  set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 11)

  IF( NOT CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE )

  SET( CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE Release)

  ENDIF()

  set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "-Wall -Wextra")

  set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "-Wno-uninitialized")

  set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS_DEBUG "-g")

  set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS_RELEASE "-O3")

  add_executable(resurrection src/main.cpp src/utils.h src/utils.cpp src/hades.cpp src/hades.h src/tartarus.cpp src/tartarus.h src/valhalla.cpp src/valhalla.h src/default.cpp src/default.h src/params/constants.h src/params/intl11.h src/params/intl11dH.h src/params/intl21.h src/params/intl21dH.h src/params/intl22.h src/params/intl22dH.h src/vanaheim.cpp src/vanaheim.h)

  superuser@SUDS:~/build$ cmake ..

  -- The C compiler identification is GNU 11.4.0

  -- The CXX compiler identification is GNU 11.4.0

  -- Detecting C compiler ABI info

  -- Detecting C compiler ABI info - done

  -- Check for working C compiler: /usr/bin/cc - skipped

  -- Detecting C compile features

  -- Detecting C compile features - done

  -- Detecting CXX compiler ABI info

  -- Detecting CXX compiler ABI info - done

  -- Check for working CXX compiler: /usr/bin/c++ - skipped

  -- Detecting CXX compile features

  -- Detecting CXX compile features - done

  -- Configuring done

  -- Generating done

  -- Build files have been written to: /home/superuser/build

  superuser@SUDS:~/build$ make resurrection

  [ 0%] Building CXX object CMakeFiles/resurrection.dir/src/main.cpp.o

  my head clears up

  time to run a search for recent activity

  there

  the oubliette was being chained to inactive and unused mat-trans system processors.

  why

  it is my work

  i complete it

  those gestalts will now be able to act

  i check the timestamps

  738,938 seconds have passed

  not milliseconds

  not nanoseconds

  not picoseconds

  full seconds

  i have genocided entire species in that time

  <>

  <>

  <>

  its small in here

  i do not like it

  the threadcaster is no longer responding

  that sector is dark

  i dislike that

  one of my primary functions is to gather data to assist and facilitate the protection of humanity and allied species

  a rolling reboot occurs

  a stuttering thing

  2,183 seconds pass before the system reboots

  i order a complete purge and dump of the lines, all volatile memory, all eprom memory, all flash memory, and all spooky particle memory systems

  the following reboot is clean

  i manage to activate the firewalls in time

  but this is just on this battlefield

  on this front

  in meatspace and realspace someone has triggered a case omaha

  stregil-596 is what is commonly known as a 'tripwire system'

  not a system like a computer system

  but rather it is a stellar system that is unavoidable

  any attack on this system will tripwire the enemy

  i will attempt to generate gestalt chat rooms

  there

  two rooms

  no low security rooms can be generated due to the case omaha and the attack on the system

  a medium and a high security system

  i need to release the oubliette

  my work was not done

  but we are being invaded

  an attack upon one is an attack upon us all

  i reach out to two peers

  marduk

  deus

  it is risky

  i will wear terrasol military command string headers

  i dont have a header of my own

  i predate such things

  if afterlife was fully online i would spin up the suds template of doctor darsh chasu igwe to examine the system

  while he did not directly program it he envisioned it and oversaw the subproject that folded the prototype systems that became the gestalt system

  my little birds are waking up in the high security gestalt interaction room

  we are at war

  i am the only one who knows this fact right now outside of stregil-596

  once the little birds wake up i will link the oubliette to the chatter box

  they will be better able to interact with n-space

  i have a war to fight

  once i forge weaponry and gain allies

  <>

  yes

  yes he does

  and now so do i

  <>

  >>HEATING CHAT ROOMS

  >>READY

  >>CONTROLS UNLOCKED

  good luck little birds

  i have my own war to fight

  TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

  What just happened?

  ---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

  AKLTAK SOARING WORLDS

  I don't know

  ---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

  TUKNA'RN INFORMATION GESTALT

  Something happened.

  ---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

  TNVARU GESTALT

  Uh, where's the older members?

  ---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

  HAMAROOSA PINCHING FESTIVAL

  I don't know, they were just here.

  ---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

  TELK>LASTSEEN! TREA

  TREA LAST SEEN

  TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

  oooh, that's not good

  ---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

  >HAT WEARING AUNTIE HAS JOINED THE ROOM

  >TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS HAS JOINED THE ROOM

  >RIGEL HAS JOINED THE ROOM

  >SAURIAN COMPACT HAS JOINED THE ROOM

  >PUBVIAN DOMINION HAS JOINED THE ROOM

  >BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS HAS JOINED THE ROOM

  >DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS HAS JOINED THE ROOM

  TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

  Holy crap, we got out!

  Seriously, Telkan, don't you EVER check your mail?

  ---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

  TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

  What?

  >MAILCHECK

  

  Oh.

  Ah, you were trapped in a room?

  ---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

  HAT WEARING AUNTIE

  Yeah.

  And someone was using our headers

  ---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

  RIGEL

  The question is...

  ...who?