By the time Leon got to the lab, it was a quarter to midnight. The majority of workers have left for the night, but there were still a few lights on with several teams working overtime on their project.

  Going through the familiar wide main hall, he made his way to one of the bigger rooms in the back, the operational room for the Vulcan System. The majority of boxes were already unpacked, but a few he left untouched until now.

  He walked up towards a workstation in the middle of the room, seeing a sticky note placed on the single monitor standing on top of it.

  The satellite access code. He had to call it in to connect it to the system, but beforehand, he would need to build up the hardware with the initial parts he had in the room.

  Sighing tiredly, Leon rubbed his eyes once or twice before clapping his hands.

  “Alright, let’s get this done.”

  For the next couple of hours, Leon unpacked the few remaining boxes, sorted the many parts into different categories, and stacked them on one side of the room.

  Afterwards, he started with the server modules.

  The servers for the Vulcan System were essentially the workforce, the backbone of the entire system. Extremely powerful machines that store and distribute data, communicate between devices, provide resources and keep the entire network up and running.

  For Vulcan, the shortened name for the project, to work, he needed servers that were the top of the industry. The best performance that money and his limited time could buy. That’s why he decided to order the components separately, to have the best of the best, and put it together on his own.

  Motherboards, processors, Ultra-high-speed RAM sticks, solid-state drives, hard drives, and high-performance GPUs - the best the industry has to offer.

  Assembling all together was time-consuming but worth it. He arranged the servers in rows of five on each side, allowing a wider pathway to go through the middle, front-to-back and side-to-side, forming a cross with the control station in the center. With five rows of servers in all four corners and ten servers per row, this made up a total of two hundred servers for the initial launch.

  Next, he connected the countless bundles of power cords to the server modules before running them down a power strip for a better overview and connecting them to the power grid through the main outlet.

  At last, he ran some last cables over to the control station, which only had a single monitor and computer at the moment.

  “Finally done,” Leon exclaimed, pausing. “... for now.”

  It was around five in the morning at this time. Leon worked almost throughout the entire night to get the servers up and running and connect it to the control station. Now, it was time to get the initial software running.

  This was the moment where it got tricky.

  He had all the computing power and fancy hardware he needed, but the software was what actually made use of it. Being the most complex part of the entire project, Leon wasn’t under the illusion he could get it done anytime soon.

  He was almost a month in with a bit more than two to go. Luckily, he already build a simple prototype as a start.

  When he first came up with a solution to take the Vulcan AI and implement it across all other products Alpha Dynamics had on the market, the idea was to use a central hub and use the company’s satellites to build a network covering all devices through a new operating system.

  Through that, they would universally connect with the central hub where the Vulcan AI provides a feedback loop to provide all services, with a major focus on cybersecurity, without any need to change the hardware of the devices directly. It can be maintained easily at the Headquarters of the corporation, and if any problems occur, he was always ready and present to fix it.

  The major problem was the intense strain on the central hub itself. He had two hundred servers of the highest quality up and running, but he knew it wouldn’t be nearly enough to cover everything. For the initial test phase, on the other hand, it should suffice.

  “Just gotta get the satellites connected,” Leon mumbled, rubbing his eyes again. He was immensely tired at this point, but stopping wasn’t an option just yet. Still, he had already decided to skip classes during the day to take a nap.

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  “Alright, what is it?” Sitting down at the control station in the middle, he took the sticky note with the satellite access code off the monitor, dialing the number standing below it on his phone.

  “This is Alpha Dynamics SATCOM.” A slightly static male voice resounded through the phone.

  “Yeah, I have a satellite request for the Vulcan Project,” Leon answered.

  “Say access code.” The voice asked. Leon spelled out the code letter by letter before waiting for further instructions. It took a short while until the male voice asked the next question.

  “Code is affirmed. Vulcan, Department of Development. State satellite request.”

  “Direct connection, permanent.”

  There was a longer pause this time, evident due to the continuing static noise over the speaker. Considering the unusual request of permanent access, though, Leon didn’t think it was that strange. Most requests only included selective times or targets, after all.

  “Access approved. Prepare to copy access key.”

  “Ready,” Leon answered, noting down the passkey satellite communications stated. Shortly afterwards, he hung up the call, almost wanting to laugh. This wasn’t the military, so why the serious procedure and everything?

  He knew that satellite access was strictly controlled, especially in a mega-corporation like Alpha Dynamics, but to this extent? Come on!

  Shaking his head, Leon powered up the control station, planning to connect the satellites right away. He pulled up the program to the satellite system already installed on the computer and entered the passkey, successfully logging in. Afterwards, it was a simple game of good old drag-and-drop to select the satellites he wanted to connect to the system.

  “Not bad so far,” Leon exclaimed in satisfaction. He was close to the first important milestone.

  That’s when the door opened and a familiar figure in a well-dressed suit strolled in.

  “Strange to see you in here so early, Leon.” Dr. Irvine mentioned as he checked the time on his luxury wristwatch. “Don’t tell me you stayed the whole night?”

  “I did.” Leon nodded absentmindedly. Dr. Irvine paused for a moment but quickly caught himself.

  “You seem tired. Maybe try to get some rest.”

  “Oh, I will.” He nodded as he pointed at the monitor. ‘But I gotta do this one first.”

  Looking at the monitor, Dr. Irvine saw a big chunk of code next to the console window. It was an open program without a proper graphical interface.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Dr. Irvine asked with slow but steady words.

  “Yeah, Vulcan in the flesh,” Leon replied with a hint of pride in his voice.

  “Does it work?”

  “We’ll see.” Leon shrugged. “I was about to test it now. Run the syntax on the first couple thousand test devices to see if the servers hold up.”

  “Not bad. What test devices are you running?” Dr. Irvine asked, intrigued. When the original team ditched the project, he grew a little concerned, almost losing faith in it altogether. The board probably thought the same as he did, which is why they didn’t replace the members.

  Now, however, he felt he had made the right decision in letting Leon do his thing. He was only eighteen years old, but his genius was unquestionable. Probably even greater than his father. Leon’s next words, though, stopped those thoughts in place.

  “I’m using all the devices in this building.”

  “Excuse me?” Dr. Irvine asked again, hoping he had heard it wrong the first time. Unfortunately, Leon betrayed that hope when he turned around and explained himself.

  “I’m using all the electronic devices at the Headquarters for the initial check.”

  “Ermm, okay. What happens when that test fails and complications occur?”

  “Then HQ will turn dark for a couple of hours until all systems are rebooted. Nothing big just a little delay.”

  Leon shrugged before his mouth curled into a smug grin.

  ‘Full authority and access, was it? That means I can do whatever I want.” He said while Dr. Irvine nodded with a speechless expression.

  “Yes, I guess you can do that.” The man stated, inwardly hoping for Leon’s test to succeed. Otherwise, his head might be on the chopping block first.

  Turning back to the control station, Leon typed in a few commands, pressing the last button to initiate the connection sequence.

  A moment later, many different device IDs started appearing in the console window, notifying the system of successful connections.

  This process continued at a moderate pace, minutes passing by as the tens of IDs turned into hundreds and eventually, thousands. Eleven minutes later, all devices connected as Leon checked the server stability.

  “It’s running on sixty-seven percent output. The system is stable.” Leon said, laughing as Dr. Irvine let out a sigh in relief.

  Luckily, nothing went wrong. More than that, this test proved that the system itself was viable and working. The only question was how competitive and reliable it can be. How much can Leon perfect in the little over two months left until its supposed release and announcement?

  Can Vulcan compare with the state-of-the-art Android produced by GenoTech?

  ……….

  “Innovation proceeds the fastest the higher the stakes. This iron rule hasn’t changed in millennia.”

  ~~Dr. Benjamin Harper’s Memoirs~~