My captain's face immediately hardens into his business visage and he straightens his back. "I'm going to have to see some ID."

He who calls himself reverend doesn't flinch. He merely reaches into the pocket of his garb and pulls out a patient ID and holds it out to Orion.

Orion takes it and glances down to where the face of the man in front of us matches the name of the man we've come to rescue.

Reverend Shipping presses his lips into a thin line. "Now, are we done fooling around? My son is in serious danger."

"You don't want to see any ID from me, sir?"

"I know everyone on this rock," Shipper answers, turning toward the door Nicholas had escaped from. "You're not one of them. And right now, I don't care if you're space pirates or space police. I want me and my son off so we can grieve for my wife somewhere we won't be given the same fate."

Orion nods and grasps where his revolver is hidden under his pants. "Then let's go get him."

The Reverend moves past Orion. "They'll be bringing him to the left elevation deck.

My captain and I follow Shipping through the halls sparsely populated with individuals in scrubs and smelling like disease and decay.

As we pass one room, a man on the bed cries out, his face bandaged by cloth in desperate need of a change.

"Please!" he cries out when he sees Orion's scrubs. "I can pay! Don't listen to them. I swear I can pay for the necessary parts!"

Orion wisely doesn't turn his head and keeps walking. I do too.

The man's screams follow us, and Shipping bows his head. I wonder if he knew this man, or this is just an example of human sympathy for others not in their circle but merely human like them.

I have never felt such connection to other AIs despite being to download them into my own system and vice versa. Just another way I will never be human, no matter how humanoid I may appear.

Then a metal elevation deck slides open at the end of the hallway, revealing a gurney being guarded by two women in scrubs. One of them being my woman.

We keep moving forward as Killa and Stella drag the gurney out of the elevator and begin to maneuver it toward us.

Orion reaches to touch the comms unit in his ear. "Nicholas, what is your location?"

"I'll meet you outside in five minutes."

My captain frowns. "Nicholas, I asked where you are, not where you will be."

"Just get out, okay, sir?"

Killa glances at Stella, as if to make sure he's not in a closet snogging her again.

Shipping glances at my captain. "Sir, my son needs to be plugged into another system asap."

Stella looks down at the person on the gurney covered by a shroud. Despite that shroud, I can still analyze his life statistics.

And his heartbeat is getting more unsteady.

I turn back to my captain, who is still standing frozen between the rest of the building where Nicholas is somewhere and the door that will take them all to freedom and safety. "Get them to the ship."

Orion snaps back to focus on me and nods. Because he knows what I didn't say.

While they turn to go, I move deeper into the building.

Someway, somehow, without a physical body, I will find Nicholas and I will get him out alive.

-Banner by CannibalisticNecro

-Signature by-krystallite