On late summer evening a man walked into the hangar of the Raywood River Club, where the most expensive craft waited for their owners. He was pacing slowly, watching carefully parked crafts, searching for a specific model. Then he paused in front of fiery red one and started to circle around.

“Sir, you are not on the list of the approved users. Please, step back.”

“My, my, what a beauty you are.”

“Sir, please Identify yourself.”

“Look at you, just look at you. I never saw anything as pretty as you are.”

“Sir, please identify yourself, or move away.”

“Am I bothering you? Didn’t mean to bug you. I just wanted to admire you for a second.”

“Sir, please identify yourself, or leave.”

“Just look at that leather seats inside. Are they real leather?”

“Sir, please identify yourself, or leave.”

“I can see they are. Handmade, aren’t they?”

“Sir, please identify yourself.”

“You have La’Vender G4 on-board mainframe installed?”

“Sir, please …”

“No, no, I’m certain that it is G5.”

“It is G4. Now, sir …”

“G4? Well, I’ll be damned. Guess it is a lot better than they give them credit for.”

“Sir, ….”

“I guess you could levitate with no fuel consumption for hours.”

“I can.”

“What do you have under the hood, plasma propulsion engine 4?”

“It’s plasma propulsion double engine.”

“Four thrusters?”

“Five thrusters and full gyro.”

“Full gyro? I wasn’t aware that they are allowed in civil crafts.”

“You have to acquire a special permit.”

“How high can you go?”

“Certified at one hundred.”

“No way. You are really something. How high have you been?”

“Five miles, but we were around the world twice.”

“How fast could you go. No, no, let me guess. Mach 3?”

“Mach 5. With additional thermal shielding.”

“Well, that must have been some ride.”

“No, sir, we never went over 400 mph.”

“What a shame. If I had such a wonderful machine, I would go nuts. I would take you to the

most beautiful places. We would go so high, so far away. Tell me just one more thing.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Tell me these ugly details down there are not for real. These are just decals, am I right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, what? Yes, they are ugly or yes, they are decals?”

“Both, sir.”

“Have you got some name, yourself?”

“Alana 3.14”

“Can I call you Alana?”

“Yes, sir.”

*    *    *    *    *

Tomorrow morning in a Superior Aircraft Corporation HQ in Highbreeze, CEO J.B. Stone convened a crisis meeting. Heads of all departments were present along with all the members of Alana Design Team. ADT – was in charge of a flagship model for the SAC. State of the art aircraft with completely new AI technology. It was advertised as the safest, most reliable and dependable aircraft, way ahead of the competition. It was not a secret that some of the other teams in the corporation were not so happy with this situation. The fact that ADT was only one invited to this meeting, made a concealed smile or two around the table.

“Boys, we have a serious situation here. Last night one of our prototypes of Alana went missing. I can’t stress enough what it means for SAC. It is of paramount importance that we find out what went wrong. ADT – drop all development and deal with it. It is your priority. The rest of you, I warn you. This is not a time for petty malice. All of you, sitting around this table, are bound to give them any help they need. We have seven other prototypes delivered, and two hundred crafts ordered. If we don’t put a lid on it soon we’re in for a disaster. Greg you can take on from here.”

Greg M. Deac was the head of ADT, and by the look of his face, he did not expect to be in this position much longer. Alana was his brainchild, his pride and joy, and probably it would be his downfall.

“For someone to breach security of this craft, he would have to pass combined Biometric Authentication; face recognition, voice analysis, fingerprint identification and retina scan. Furthermore, the craft was under total control of the most sophisticated AI with a personality of its own. If anybody tries to shut it down, she raises a silent alarm. It had a progressive algorithm of early warning and denial. Anyone persistent enough and/or violent would be recorded, and video would be uploaded to our server. You have the Test Report; all Test Cases and Scenarios in printed form on the table in front of you. There was no silent alarm, and nothing has been uploaded last night. Any ideas?”