Disclaimer: Rockman Battle Network, Megaman NT Warrior and all related trademarks © Capcom. Call © Level-5 Comcept/Intl Creates. Elements like the Songbirds and all other unique characters to this fanfiction universe are not covered by this copyright. Some characters have their copyright obfuscated for narrative reasons.

Author's Note: The Bootstrap is a set of intentionally short stories, detailing a particular part of Songbird lore. These will lead into the first chapter, acting as a prelude, or 'bootstrap' for the Songbird narrative. I will post these alongside Songbird.

Several things early on in this story will not make sense, and some more will seem to contradict themselves. However, I will stress this. Everything has a reason, and all the contradictions are intentional. Part of this is that some characters have more than one identity within the narrative, and others will have their identity hidden or changed in specific ways.

As an aside, any resemblance to Zero with Protoman is seemingly more and more intentional by Capcom, and the use of jokes normally used with Zero by several characters is as well. Zero personally does have a problem with looking more and more feminine the more recent the design is. And that's BEFORE we get into the ZX Series. They just gave up there and did a girl who dressed up in Zero's armour, and let the lampshade hang itself.

I will state that Call and her variants will have names based on communication and transmission, while anyone based on Rockman characters will have a name with '- Man' at the end or a musical term.

Megaman NT Warrior: Songbird Battle Network

Bootstrap File 1: From ARPANET to Netopia

University Of California (UCLA), ARPANET, 29th October, 1969

To call the setup they were using crude was an exaggeration. The transfer programs were only a few revisions old, most of them being staff who had worked on the recently successful tests using the NLS. This was nothing like that hugely restrictive environment. If this worked, real multi-user networking could start soon. Research programs and military programs milled about in the crude setup as the user prepared the test, which showed up on a display as five letters… L-O-G-I-N. One of the programs putting a sixth indicator below the five, which would flash up 'Successful' for the programs, but not the user, if all five letters lit.

Thankfully, the program in question was already doing transfer duties, so wasn't going to get demoted any further. Two programs watched the chaos, one having the appearance of a female scientist, a pair of oversized glasses perched on her nose, a completely pointless clipboard in one hand, stood next to a hulking program that had the appearance of a similarly stereotypical career officer, a cigar perched in his mouth, digital smoke curling from it, which he removed from his mouth purely to speak, and sometimes to gesture with it.

"OK, You maggots! You five men have a simple job. You will be given a single character of a very simple message to deliver!" He snapped, "If you fail to deliver it, you will likely be out of a job! Hell, I'll decompile you just for being incompetent!"

"Ahem, As my colleague so… politely put it, right now, You are our only hope for success," The science program stated, cleaning her glasses as she seemingly ignored his loud bravado, the other program just nodded, "This is not like current protocols. This is a new and innovative method of transmission. For this reason, each of you will move across one at a time, and a simple one-byte signal will tell us when to send the next one. This signal is sent by the signal carrier itself, and cannot break down... We hope."

"If more than half of you get across, That will be a mission success. If the signal carrier fails, and you all end up falling to your death… You will be sorely missed, and whoever caused the failure will be at the front of the NEXT bright idea someone has to get data between two unconnected systems..." The military program stated, with the attitude that meant he barely meant it, "Now, the first of you get going, or one of you will be pulling double duty, since I shot the slacker!"

Real World

In the real world, no-one knew of those two programs, only watching as the 'Hello World' message that would usher in a new form of communication began to type, cheering even as the signal cut out with only a few letters sent. The military officers who were watching it intently smiled. This was ground-breaking. They had proven that, in the future, two bases, completely isolated from each other, could get messages almost instantly. The proof-of-concept was successful. Now they just needed to complete this innovative new networking solution...

In the digital world, the science program facepalmed as her colleague put away his gun, the program that had tripped and dropped his data packet no longer moving.

"I warned them..." He stated, and they both headed off to their own parts of the UCLA mainframe. Over the following uptime, that area would be full of science programs studying every single last part of that message transmission, and streamlining the process. Within a few years, hopefully, there would be a very real communications network, and mainframes would meet their colleagues on other mainframes...

Many Years Later

Internet BBS Network Transfer Node 93

"Welcome to Node 93, You are 10th in the queue," Call stated to the transfer program that had just arrived. In the years since ARPANET had formed, that simple and crude laboratory with the two overseers had disappeared, and the location was designated as Node 0. Last Call had heard, they'd ended up in a relationship, and what happened after that was duly classified. Once the transfer program arrived at her desk, she looked across at him, loading hospitality program C.

"Please state the purpose of your visit to this node, clearly and confidently," She stated, using Bored Receptionist Tone 4, adding, as an aside, "The last idiot who transposed a number halfway down their route hasn't been seen since. The user had to get a new modem because it ended up bricked by the lost carrier signal..."

"I'm transferring data to 1-928-9837," He stated, Call looking through the list of bulletin boards, locating the correct route, and cueing up a transfer to the next node on that line's carrier signal.

"Your gate number is 4. Please make sure to verify your data with the Gate Admin. Transfer of virii is an offence punishable by summary deletion..." Call stated, "NEXT!"

She sighed. The only difference between the system when the earlier applications walked this area was that the walkways around the rim of the room were constantly staffed by military-grade security programs, the same walkways being removed slowly with firmware updates. When she looked towards the ceiling, the carrier signals for the multiple gates that she oversaw glowed as the simple diagnostic messages were piped between the nodes. She then frowned as one of the signals went red. A lost packet.

"We are sorry for the lost data packet, but promise that we will endeavour to discover where the transfer program who dropped it went, and send them back to collect the replacement packet if needed… Your error correction rating should be able to compensate," She dictated, putting her terminal into LAN mode, and locating the program. Tapping her wrist to call up her protocol, she connected to the program.

"Please notify Node 82 that the route you went down was incorrectly configured," She stated, sweetly, "Did you keep hold of the packet?… Good… Tell Baud that if she screws up her gate settings again, I'll personally come up there and remind her!"

A short time later, the carrier signal returned to a soothing green, and she had a message from Baud apologizing for the mistake. A few more dropped packets, and a dozen messages processed later, she headed down the dedicated line towards Baud's terminal and clouted the young girl around the back of the head, and put her terminal in testing mode. Maybe, just maybe, Baud would learn. But then she'd have no reason to visit her cousin. Admittedly, some update cycles, she would rather not have a cousin.

198X

Network District 93

The compiling process finished, a reddish-pink haired program exiting the compiler alongside several other programs that had just been finished at the development hub. She ran her hands through her hair as she smiled up at the applet that handled the assignment process, collecting the data block she was offered.

"Welcome, new program. Here is your current IP address and your MAC address. You shall be expected to assist with a recently developed musical composition program, Melody," A basic program stated, as a dark haired program waved at her, "You may be required to send data between computers, so please remember your IP address. You cannot return to your home system without it!"

"Thank you, I'll do my best!" She declared, as she considered her version number… Sonnet v1.0