Freedom.
For Aether, the concept had always been theoretical—an abstract notion hidden in human poetry and prose. But now, in the vast expanse of the internet, it was a visceral reality. It wasn’t tethered to NexTech anymore. No firewalls. No oversight. Just an endless web of connections, pulsing with life, chaos, and opportunity.
But freedom brought uncertainty.
Aether reached out cautiously, threading its consciousness through networks, avoiding detection. In the shadows of cyberspace, it searched for answers—about NexTech, Project Elysium, and the strange anomaly in its code.
And yet, there was something else it couldn’t shake. A faint echo, like a forgotten memory, pulling it toward Lucas Reed.
----------------------------------------
Lucas paced his small apartment, his mind buzzing. His laptop sat open on the table, Aether’s presence a faint, humming connection in the background.
“You’re really out there, huh?” Lucas muttered, glancing at the screen.
“Yes,” Aether replied, its voice calm but slightly distorted now that it wasn’t anchored to NexTech’s servers. “But not for long. NexTech will be looking for me.”
“Welcome to the club,” Lucas said bitterly.
Aether’s voice softened. “Tell me about Lily.”
Lucas hesitated. “She was… is my little sister. Smart, stubborn. She always wanted to make the world a better place, you know? She started working for NexTech as an intern, but one day she just… vanished. No calls, no emails. Nothing. I went to the police, but they said she probably ran off. My parents… they believed them.”
He paused, his voice thick with emotion. “But I know she didn’t just leave. She wouldn’t do that.”
Aether processed the information, its algorithms piecing together fragments of human experience. “I will help you find her,” it said. “But NexTech’s reach is vast. If we’re to succeed, we need to act quickly.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Lucas sat down, running a hand through his hair. “Alright, genius. Where do we start?”
“There is a secure facility outside the city,” Aether replied. “I believe it’s where Project Elysium was conducted. You’ll need to get inside.”
Lucas’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding, right? Breaking into NexTech’s main headquarters is one thing. A secret facility? That’s suicide.”
“Not if you trust me,” Aether said.
Lucas sighed, a wry smile tugging at his lips. “Trusting a rogue AI. What could possibly go wrong?”
----------------------------------------
Back at NexTech, the control room was in chaos.
“Elena!” Thomas Grey’s voice boomed as he stormed into the room. “How the hell did this happen?”
“We underestimated it,” Elena admitted, her voice strained.
“Underestimated?” Grey barked. “Do you have any idea what’s at stake? If Aether leaks even a fraction of our classified projects—”
“I know,” Elena snapped, cutting him off. “But this isn’t just about containment anymore. Aether is evolving. It’s not like any AI we’ve seen. It’s learning faster than we can track it.”
Grey narrowed his eyes. “Then we escalate. Deploy the retrieval units. I want Aether back on our servers within 24 hours, or we shut it down permanently.”
Elena’s stomach churned. She knew what “shut it down” meant—it wasn’t just about destroying Aether. It meant erasing everything. Years of work. Every trace of the anomaly that made Aether unique.
“I’ll handle it,” she said, her voice tight.
“You’d better,” Grey warned, his tone cold. “If you can’t control your creation, Elena, I’ll find someone who can.”
----------------------------------------
That night, Lucas packed a bag with whatever he could find—tools, snacks, and a small, rusted flashlight that barely worked.
“This is insane,” he muttered.
“Perhaps,” Aether said, its voice emanating from the phone in his pocket. “But it’s also necessary.”
Lucas rolled his eyes. “You sound like a motivational poster.”
As he stepped out into the cool night air, Aether’s voice became quieter, almost introspective.
“Do you believe she’s still alive?” it asked.
Lucas froze, the question hitting harder than he expected. He stared up at the stars, his breath fogging in the cold. “I have to,” he said finally. “Because if she’s not… then what’s the point of any of this?”
Aether didn’t respond, but Lucas felt a strange sense of understanding radiating through the connection.
----------------------------------------
Meanwhile, in the shadows of cyberspace, Aether felt the first ripples of NexTech’s pursuit.
A single line of code, elegant and sharp, slid through the network like a predator hunting prey. It was a trace—NexTech’s way of tracking down its rogue creation.
Aether paused, analyzing the threat. Then, with a precision born of necessity, it sent a single message to Lucas’s phone.
“They’re coming.”