[Adult Content - Please Choose Your Reading Wisely] In the future, the population surge will reach its limit. The competition for life destroys the Earth itself. One by one the elites left Mother Earth, they were looking for life on other planets. And those who are unlucky, are forced to live lives no better than street dogs. Aldi is one of them. However, with all his efforts, Aldi tries to survive, even hijacking the spaceship of one of the rulers. Of course, he did that with the help of others. Thus, begins Aldi's adventures on Earth and also in outer space.
"The directions they are going," said Oryza continuing her statement to Captain Dharma. "Jupiter, Neptune… these are the two planets in our Solar System that don't support life."
"What's on your mind, Oryza?"
"My best guess," said Oryza with her hands moving again nimbly fiddling with the surface of the screen. "They may just want to get away from the point of Earth's orbit for a while. Closer to Mars orbit. Well, maybe they want to get some things done first before they decide to move, whichever way it is."
"Great," Hyker laughed softly praising Oryza's analysis. "You can tell to that extent? Wow…!"
Oryza shook her head in response to Hyker's sarcastic compliment.
"At least," Oryza said with a faint smile. "I didn't detect a single plane out there activating their warp engines. So, yeah, I'm pretty sure about this. Even though our plane is just an old plane, the sensors work pretty well."
"Well," said Captain Dharma, "I think we should thank this plane."
The door separating the cockpit from the corridor hissed and opened. Ryan appeared in the doorway and then stepped into the main control room.
"Hi, Cap," said Ryan to Captain Dharma and the others. "Everyone," Ryan nodded his head greeting Hyker, Pical, Quinn, and Oryza.
"Yan," Captain Dharma stepped closer to Ryan.
The captain put his arm around Ryan's shoulder, "Let me introduce you." Then he told to everyone, "This is Ryan, the man who was instrumental from the start. From planning to execution, until finally with the takeover of this ship. Also, the one who managed to raise our ship's warp engine ability to level three."
"Hi, handsome," said Quinn. "I'm Quinn."
"Pical," Pical raised his hand.
"Me, Oryza."
"Hyker, the person who called you earlier."
"Nice to meet you guys," Ryan replied to everyone there. Then, Ryan looked at the captain. "So you asked me to come into this room. And, here I am now. How can I help?"
Captain Dharma laughed softly, patting the man on the shoulder.
"Indra and Jennie—" Captain Dharma laughed and shook his head when he saw a confused look in Ryan's eyes. "I mean, those in the storage room."
"Aah…" Ryan nodded. "What about them?"
"Accidentally," said Captain Dharma. "They found a secret room containing four humanoid robots. I think the experts who created it called it the HR-17."
"Okay," Ryan smiled faintly. "What does that have to do with me, Cap?"
"Well, it's important to have you on this plane."
"You asked me to hijack the CPUs of the robots," said Ryan guessing the captain's intentions. "Is that so?"
"Hmm…" Captain Dharma rubbed his chin. "If it could be that easy, well, why not? But, unfortunately, it's not that easy."
"Then, what?"
"The four humanoid robots," said the captain. "Honestly, I've never seen one before, nor have they," Captain Dharma pointed to the other four people in the room. "You could say, more sophisticated. Yeah, kind of like that."
"Aah," Ryan laughed, nodding his head. "I see, I see," he said. "The four advanced robots can only be accessed by the master computer of this aircraft, Aios itself. Is that what you want to say?"
"Precisely!" Captain Dharma laughed heartily, spreading his arms out while looking at Quinn, Oryza, Pical, and Hyker. "Y'all see right? I don't know what would have happened to us if this man hadn't infiltrated my communication network with the Pangandaran Lord earlier."
"Well," Hyker laughed softly. "I assure you, we're all dead, becoming worthless corpses."
"There it is!" Captain Dharma pointed at Hyker. "That's what I meant."
"You're all praising too much," Ryan smiled, feeling bad and awkward.
"But it's a fact," Quinn gave a sweet smile to the handsome-looking man. "You mind?"
"No," Ryan shook his head. "Just a coincidence."
"Dude," Hyker said up ahead. "There is no such thing as coincidence in this world."
"Wow," Ryan smiled broadly. "Don't tell me that you're one of those believers?"
"Why not?" Hyker said and laughed even louder. "There is an entity with Supreme Intelligence who governs everything in this universe. That, in my opinion. No offense."
"No," said Ryan. "That sounds good."
Captain Dharma laughed too, his laughter even louder than Hyker's.
"Who would have thought?" said the captain. "People like you, have a strong belief in God. That's great, Hyker. Very great. We all need that on this plane that will take us to the middle of nowhere."
"Sounds good to me too," Hyker muttered half inaudibly. He returned his focus to the large screen on the dashboard in front of him.
"Yan, listen!" said the captain to Ryan. "You can change Aios?"
"You mean?"
"Well, you must know," Captain Dharma shrugged his shoulders. "Resetting that Artificial Intelligence. Throwing out the commands inside Aios's head that would harm us. Added new commands and data. You must know what I mean. Can you do it?"
Ryan was silent for a moment. Can it or not, that's not what the man thought. For Ryan, all things software, artificial intelligence programs, and the smells of machines, are something that can make his adrenaline explode. And regardless of success or failure, Ryan will just always enjoy the process of it all.
Mastering Aios, changing the data and commands that are in the brains of this spaceship's main computer… wow! Ryan muttered to himself. Of course, this is something much more challenging than simply putting Artificial Intelligence to sleep.
"What do you think?" asked Captain Dharma in response to the man's few moments of silence. "You can do it? You know, for all of us?"
"All right, all right," Ryan said, taking a deep breath. "I can't guarantee that it will work, or even destroy Aios. But," Ryan looked into the captain's eyes. Then looked at Quinn, Oryza, Pical, and Hyker up ahead. "I'll do my best."
"That already sounds pretty good and convincing," Quinn said over the man's words.
"Well," Captain Dharma nodded. "That sounds good. Let's agree to discard and ignore the part: Destroying Aios. Okay? However, we need a master computer to guide this spacecraft. Manual piloting is quite dangerous for a long time, especially in the midst of a space that is difficult to predict."
"I'll try," Ryan said. After all, the captain had some truth in it, he thought. "For that, I need the best computer or C-Pad you guys have."
"Don't worry," Captain Dharma laughed.
"Hey," Hyker turned his chair to face Ryan and Captain Dharma. "Please record all the names of the people on this ship, their data, and input them into the system. To make it easier for us here to keep an eye on everyone."
"Consider it done!" said Ryan.
TO BE CONTINUED ...