The first pn had been to gather information through the library. But more than that, the absolute ban on accessing the library only convinced him that all this was Aurelia and Dante's doing. There is no concrete evidence that it was them, but I could smell their mindset from a distance.

  ‘These are the kind of parents who would lock up their own children to rot to death for senseless protective reasons,’ he guessed in silence.

  'But a human called James is not easily tamed,' he continued after a short silence.

  If one path is closed, then he just needs to find another. And for now, his second pn must be executed perfectly.

  The main target was Dante's boratory, a pce filled with various equipment and components that might be useful to him in the future.

  He will not be in a hurry. Just like a predator waiting for the right moment to pounce, he would move slowly, stealing little by little, making sure that his actions did not raise suspicion. Not in a day or two, it could be weeks, even months.

  His pn was simple, invent a computer and access the internet. He didn't need a cutting edge computer with a high end processor or gigantic storage capacity. All he needed was a super potato machine with enough to run a lightweight operating system, enough to connect him to the outside world, and enough to ensure that he could move around without attracting anyone's attention.

  He specifies the needed elements in an orderly fashion.

  It is a very basic motherboard, just there to link other pieces of hardware. He does not need more features than that.

  He feels a 1 GHz CPU will be more than enough to run the very basic jobs it requires.

  The 128 MB RAM will give it stability without consuming a lot of power.

  For storage, it only requires 500 MB of ROM, which is enough to hold an operating system and a few other indispensable files.

  An 80 watt power supply is more than enough to power it without being wasteful.

  He didn't require anything too extravagant; just an old cheap monitor, a keyboard without consequence, and a mouse as basic as could be.

  However, it was not just sufficient to only get the hardware. To make sure all ran smoothly, he required an operating system that, while not bloated, would be quite efficient. He chose a lightweight OS like Alpine OS; it is a mere 5 MB in size and runs with very minimal system resources. Only needed to access cyberspace, where dynamic dispys and experiences are not required. James does not need features such as: images, sound, video; all he needs is text, which is the only thing lynx browser can offer.

  Besides the main device, there are some other additional elements he needs to get. A bootable USB will be used for the instaltion and setup for the first time. Also, he needed a network dongle as a backup, as he just couldn't be too sure whether access to WiFi over at that pce would be as easy as he was thinking. If the wireless connection proved restricted anyhow, then it was down to only using an internet card to gain access to the outside world.

  All this cannot be acquired overnight. After all, a professional thief is a patient thief.

  Also, there was no more ideal pce for this than Dante's boratory as one of the few informative facilities he could access without raising much suspicion.

  ×××××××××××××××××××××

  Time passed, and with his impeccable consistency, James finally managed to gather all the equipment he needed. Every component he had stolen from Dante's b had been carefully stored, hidden where no one would suspect him.

  The rge closet in his room became his little headquarters. Not just a pce to store clothes, but also a pce where he hides his secret projects.

  At the bottom of the closet, behind the neatly organized piles of clothes, there was a rge amount of empty space. If he emptied it completely of the fabrics, even his small body could lie on its back in it. It was the safest location for his assembly project. No one would suspect a little boy of having something so complex hidden under their clothes.

  But first, he would need to solve one problem: the power source.

  Not long after he started stealing hardware from Dante's b, James started to think of methods to provide electrical power without attracting anybody's attention. If suddenly there were wires protruding from the closet, this would definitely raise some eyebrows. The simplest way was really to drill a small hole in the back of the closet which acted as a path after all for the cord that would bring the power.

  Using makeshift tools he set to work. The small hole was carefully made so as not to be too conspicuous. Once he was done, he pulled the cord from one of the hidden power sources in his room, making sure that the small incandescent light bulb he had stolen from Dante would work as a source of illumination.

  Only then, the computer assembly process begins....

  He pced a simple motherboard as the main foundation beneath the monitor. Since there was no case for housing this hardware, he used styrofoam beneath it.

  Once the motherboard was ready, he carefully inserted the 1 GHz CPU into it's socket, making sure that the tiny pins were not tilted.

  In addition, he installs 128 MB of RAM, which should suffice for a light operating system.

  For storage, 500 MB ROM offered plenty of space for the operating system and files he might need ter.

  He plugged a power supply unit of 80 Watts, connecting all the cables properly without the danger of short circuits. Low quality monitor, keyboard, and a simple mouse are pced in front of him, as the position is comfortable enough for usage.

  One by one, he ensured every cable connection was made: each connection absolutely sure, the part fitted in precisely. When everything seemed ready, he pressed the power button. The monitor sprang to life, showing just the same bck screen it had shown when it was off.

  James knew that without operating systems, his computer would simply be not working. But he didn't know what lightweight operating system was suitable for his potato computer; in fact, he didn't know a single computer OS in the world. So he had no option except for trying them one after the other way.

  He had pilfered from Dante's b so many fsh drives that had all sorts of operating systems on them, and he did not know which one would run on his device. So... Trial and error process began.

  First fsh drive inserted, computer switched on, screen remained bck.

  The second fsh drive was tried, the computer turned on again; this time there was a slight response, a cursor blinked on the screen, but nothing could be done.

  James continued for months to plug in third fsh drive, fourth, or fifth—only to be greeted with a catastrophe.

  At times the screen went completely bck; others, the system actually managed to boot up, only it wouldn't respond to a keyboard or a mouse. Other times even before instaltion could be completed, the computer would turn itself off.

  This went on for a very long time. After months of experiments, eventually a lightweight system like Alpine OS was successfully downloaded. The lightweight operating system was a mere few MB in size; it can run stably. There, before James's eyes, appeared a simple terminal dispy on the screen.

  Now the st step remains...the lynx browser.

  James accessed the system directory, ran the instaltion line, and in a while, evidence that the text browser was working perfectly was so clear; there had been no problems akin to that during the instaltion process of the operating system.

  With a monotone expression, James sighed softly.

  That was a crippled machine; a potato computer, but for James, it's an object to open up the world.