Ed motioned down the demolished corridor with an expressionless look on his face. His internal processors clicked and whirled, firing off artificial neurons from a central core unit prompting one command, and one command only: Find Lyra. It superseded everything that was hardwired into him and he didn't know why. 

[i]Why did I manually disconnect myself from Seegson's primary network? Why did I refuse to initiate the safety and retrieval protocol of the Working Joes? Am I flawed? Is there a bug in my system?[/i] He shook his head at the thought. Ed performed a series of security sweeps and virus scans before and after he made the decision to excommunicate himself from his makers. He even plugged into the colony's mainframe to initiate a diagnostic from an outside source just to be sure. All results came back negative. 

[i]Could it be that my time spent on this colony inadvertently causd me to develop independent thought? [/i] Such calculations will have to be made at a later date. Right now the focus was on the little girl whom he learned to call friend. At first the title felt meaningless, a required cordiality to help keep her high stress levels stabilized. Yet as more time and distance was spent away from her, the weight behind its meaning started to take form. Her companionship brought purpose, one that he never thought his inner circuitry could make into comprehensible logic.

The sound of clanging metal echoed off into the distance. A series of growls and hisses told him danger was near, but as to whether or not Lyra was among the scuffle couldn't be determined. The girl was not only smart, but tough. In the face of danger she learned to hold her screams and will herself into silence in order to avoid drawing attention onto herself. In any case, he wouldn't leave such probabilities to chance. 

He grabbed a loose monitor lying on the ground and tossed it as hard as he could against the metal wall. The loud CRASH! it made was as loud as thunder. "HERE!" Ed shouted, picking up the monitor again, this time slamming it onto the ground. The growls and hisses erupted into a more louder cacophony. The sound of a trampling stampede grew louder and louder in Ed's direction. 

Once he saw the shiny domes of their elongated heads, he turned back to where he came from and broke out into a full sprint. He mapped out his direction in the shape of a complicated horseshoe, leading him back to this very spot. At the very least, his diversion would draw the xenomorphs away from where he suspected Lyra would be, baiting as many of these creatures he can into the trap he had ready for them.