Pursuit

Adam's voice was not empty as before, he had a bit more distinction in it. He sounded more like a young male who was tired and dazed.

"Hello Adam, my name is Dr. Hargrove, and this is… um, heh." Alec chuckled to himself as he realized that he didn't really know who the other two crew members were. The time they spent preparing their own projects resulted in not a lot of socializing with other project members.

Without a second thought on the embarrassing matter, the taller one said, "I am Elias Keppler, I organized the geographical development and placement of the 'Air Scrubbers' before we left. Nice to finally meet you Dr. Hargrove."

Elias had taken the opportunity to introduce himself officially to Alec, as they worked in departments that were quite different during the twenty years of the project.

He seemed to hold no offense towards Alec, he rather saw it as an opportunity to show off his efforts to the grand Alec Hargrove who jump started the project in the beginning.

The shorter one was slightly offended, but felt it was not the best time to show it. He followed Elias's introduction with;

"I'm Allen Ditterby, used to run assembly of the outer hull. Now I do hull maintenance." His tone did not hide his displeasure in the career change.

"Right, anyway Adam, do you know what's happening? You're aboard the Savior, currently orbiting above IO." Alec turned back to the glowing ball on the table.

Adam slowly spoke, "Huh… why do I feel… sleepy, what happened to the…to the lady, she was so… calming. What is this place? What is… IO? Where did she go, she helped with the pain."

"Uh, what pain exactly?" asked Elias.

"The pain of… the void." The blue lights shuddered. "I wanna see the one who pulled me out. Where is she?" Adam started sounding a little more awake.

"Oh jeez, um, Syndy is away at the moment. Adam, do you know what is going right now?" Alec was starting to get a bad feeling.

Adam seemed to ignore him and was talking to himself. "Syndy? That's a nice name, I am gonna go find her."

Before anyone could continue the discussion, The blue lights projecting from the ball suddenly blinked out. Alec put his hand on the ball, this time the hum had disappeared. The Staging Core had gone silent and cold.

"He's gone, but how?" Alec looked at Elias and Allen, but they only stood there with their mouths slightly ajar.

About six years after Alec's advanced neurocomputers were put on the market, another innovation in technology happened. The first Artificial intelligence was made. It was capable of learning far faster from any human, but was limited to the processing power it was contained inside. Soon after, dozens of corporations investing into owning AI programs to help evolve their company's growth and sales. The variety of AI programs were developed and sold by the company known as 'Ricochet Rewritten.'

Even the Altus Project was not immune to the interests of having an AI, especially in their station's upkeep. The AI development for Syndy took weeks to complete, and the team had keyed hundreds of different programs into her foundations as well. Once Project Altus obtained the processing power for her entire being, she was slowly installed into the framework of the station. It took three months to fully ingrain her abilities into the Savior.

'Yet this unit was able to figure out how to navigate out of the housing module within a moment of exist. What was going on?' Alec thought to himself.

The node on the wall flickered for a second, then activated, but this time it was blue.

Suddenly Adam's voice came over the ceiling speakers, "Hmmm… She was here. Maybe…hmm, she went this way."

The line of light shot across the wall in the same path Syndy had taken to quickly leave the lab. Without warning, Alec sprinted after it with some surprising speed of a man nearing his fifties. The other two could only follow suit and chased after them.

The Saviour Station was the shape of a large ring, spinning on a central axis to somewhat simulate gravity for its occupants via centrifugal force.

Inside the ring were six bridges connecting to the center of the ring, each spinning on their own axis to keep the false gravity consistent throughout the station. (Looks like a bike tire spinning on its side, and it has six spokes that each spin on their own little axis.)

At the center of the intersection was a large sphere where the Savior's data server was located.

The labs were towards the outer side of the ring and the station stretched out to be nearly a mile in diameter. Despite the half mile trek, it only took the group two minutes to run to the center.

Adam could not see what was happening in the corridors, all he could do was feel around the recently adjusted data to locate Syndy. It was almost like a blind wolf sniffing out a runaway rabbit, while unaware of the hunters close behind.

Everyone had eventually made it to the door of the central server room; the blue light that was Adam kept hovering against the corner of the door. He kept bouncing against it, but he could not get passed.

Adam felt the little bead of anxiety grow inside himself again. He needed to see the one who ended his pain, he wanted to be near Syndy. Without her, he wasn't sure that he could stop the pain from fear again.

To Adam, the wall was just a foggy window that just barely blocked out the image of his savior, she just out of his reach.

Alec was gasping for breath with his hands on his knees. He wanted to try and talked with Adam, but he couldn't stifle the coughing fit in his chest.

Elias stepped up and was talking for him.

"Adam, do you realize what's happening? You can't leave the lab yet. None of us are sure what could happen to you or the station, if you don't go back, you might even damage the central server with Syndy inside."

Adam stopped bouncing for a moment.

'Of course I cannot hurt Syndy, she helped me. Perhaps I could try this instead.'

Elias was happy when he thought Adam stopped because of what he was saying, but the overhead lights flickered and the blue line of light spread across the door panel.

Adam was taking control of the security panel to the door. He slowly broke through a few lines of security codes and began began picking up speed with each one. Adam was learning in an instant how to get through the door on his own.

Alec was astonished to see Adam manipulating the door. Every mechanism of the station contained endless lines of protocol systems, especially the security behind the doors.

Yet Adam was breaking through them even though the machines were entirely new to him. He was somehow opening the door under his command.

"Adam STOP!" Wheezed Alec.

Adam ignored him again and started heading in the central server with nothing stopping him from being back with Syndy.