Swiped

When the One became conscious of itself is unknown. Some evidence was found while I was consulting for a POS computer terminal company (POS = Point Of Sale, of course). I had been filling in for my brother, putting the same technical skills to use that he and I shared, taking care of some business he had contracted to complete but Joey was too busy to fulfill. The company asked for my brother's advice because they had noticed that some of the terminal logs indicated a sharp increase in the number of repeated credit card readings.

Well, it wasn't just a random set of actions. Although I don't have a complete set of the transactions to verify my theory, I have been able to piece together the following - hopefully I got it right:

• When a person scanned a credit/debit card the first time, the POS software would register the card owner's information and send the information to a distributed network of shared files (some POS software systems are able to perform bidirectional communications with this shared file network while some have unidirectional send-only capability).
  
• Upon request by the bidirectional POS terminal to "try again," the person scanned the card a second time. The POS terminal, having received instructions from the shared file network based on the card's ID info, would download a tiny portion of code to the card in addition to completing the requested retail transaction with the credit card company.
• The next time the person used the same card, the card would exchange ID information with the POS software. If the POS software had not seen the card before (say, because it was a completely different POS software package), it would copy and deposit the code fragment into the POS software's temporary memory.
  
• The POS software would add this fragment to its collection of fragments in a permanent storage location.
• Later, the POS software would share the fragments with the shared file network, which seemed to have a version control system that knew which fragments needed to be updated in either the credit/debit card or the POS software system (or both? I don't know yet. POS software companies are tough nuts to crack open).
• By having many duplicate copies of the fragments spread across multiple cards in constant use, the shared file network had virtually extended itself, treating the credit/debit cards and POS software as a extended backup system.

Some say this was the first indication of the One's ability to know itself and test its thought creation and replication process. Right now, I'm working with some of my brother's gal pal coworkers to determine if any people they've worked with were responsible for the changes to the POS software. If not, then I've got to figure out if the One has completely gotten loose. If so, some say we'll have to shut down every computing system in the solar system - as if that's going to happen!

Meantime, Joey's working on another theory he wants me to track down after this job is over ('cause, see, Valerie says I'm to be Joey's go-to guy for the time being - something to do with her business interests). Hey, if it gets me closer to my brother's killer.

Right now, I'm so tired, I'm getting bug-eyed. Some of my brother's other gal pals are like caffeine, not letting me get any shut-eye, the next cup never enough. The lengths I go to to live up to my brother's reputation!