[i]Thump... Thump... Thump....Thudump....Thump... Thump... [/i]
 
The steady sound of footfalls echoed through the corridors of the massive Ark that carried some of Humanities last hope. Still several hours until simulated dawn Mackenzie felt the surge of adrenaline flow through her. The corridors were practically empty, except for an occasional Security Officer who stood vigilant.
 
A bead of sweat dripped down her brow as she forced her legs to push her forward. The music of Martian classical composers vibrated in her ears, dulling the sound of her own heartbeat thudding against her chest. This was the first time in several days that she had been able to get out, and it felt good. Running was the only real thing she had taken away from her time in the Martian Military. It was the best way to vent out her frustrations and the last few days weighed heavily upon her. It weighed heavily on everyone. It was times like these that she missed her father with an ever present intensity. He always knew the right thing to say to her to keep her motivated.
 
With a heavy breath, Mackenzie rounded a corner in the path and then came to a slow stop. Just up head was the corridor that leads to the central Hub where she could take the transit system to the Fabrication bay.
 
“Noah?” Mackenzie said as she leaned her back against the wall of the corridor. The soft vibrations of the power running through it grounded her and allowed her to clear her mind. She quickly turned the music off on her data pad.
 
“Yes, Doctor Newton?” the A.I’s holographic image appeared beside her and spoke through her headphones.
 
“Just call me Mackenzie, Noah. Doctor should be reserved for Medical Doctors.” She said with a sigh. She hated it when people thought she had Medical training. That reminded her that she needed to call Amara and set up that sparring match they had last spoken about.  
 
“Acknowledged,” NOAH said a second later apparently updating its subroutines.
 
“Noah, please give me my running stats.”
 
“Your cadence was 180. Your maximum heart rate was 183. Your distance was 6.839712 Kilometers. Your calories burned were….”
 
“That’s enough for now Noah. You may go.” Mackenzie said standing back up.
 
“Acknowledged,” It said and then vanished.
 
Mackenzie continued on her way towards the Hub. She knew she still had several hours until her crew would show up for the first shift in the Robotics Maintenance Bay and she wanted to get a head start on a few diagnostic tests. So she headed to the nearest Transit system, hopped aboard, and headed to her office.
 
Mackenzie was both excited and nervous that she had been given the chance to lead her own team. When she had heard how large the team was she nearly choked. Luckily she had worked out a system where only a small handful would be present at one time. Not only that, Mackenzie had repurposed a supply closet into her own little slice of heaven. It was filled with wall to wall computer screens, and a state of the art rig that could process almost as much data as NOAH could. She had built it from random parts around the Robotics bay. That and she completely disassembled several droids she had decommissioned and recorded as defective in the system. Hopefully, no one would be smart enough to figure that little tidbit out.
 
Another little secret she had was the fact that she had hacked into NOAH’s mainframe through a backdoor. Every system has a backdoor and all it took was a little persistence to find it. NOAH’s hadn’t been particularly easy to find. She had to go so deep into the system that not even NOAH, in its current form, recognized it for what it was. That’s how she knew about the cyborg woman that Security had locked up in cell block A. Several of the ARX45 Security droids had been called into action and Mackenzie had been curious as to why. Needless to say, she didn’t have the security clearance to read the incident reports, but through the backdoor she was able to get a sneak peak. She had then wiped all evidence that she had been in the system, when she logged off.  
 
When she finally arrived at her destination, it was as she expected it to be. The bay was filled with row upon row of deactivated droids and a number of other types of machinery. It was eerily quiet, and Mackenzie couldn’t help but stand for a moment and think about the cosmic beauty of it all, the robots, the Ark, and NOAH. How could Humanity not survive after creating all of this?
 
[i]Ping[/i]
 
The gentle sound from her data pad brought Mackenzie out of her thoughts and back into the Bay. She turned and headed to the back of the room where her office was located. Her office door was heavily protected. She had Gavon, head of Security, make sure it was set it up correctly. Only three people on the Ark had access to this room, Herself, Gavon, and the Captain. She had explained that any new designs and pass codes for the droids would be safely secured here to prevent anyone from tampering with them. Quickly she entered her security clearance into the screen attached to the door. Not only did it require a passcode, but several body scans as well. The door unlocked with a click as all verifications were met. Mackenzie entered and closed the door behind her.