Chapter 56: Meeting Face To Face Part Two

A week had passed since Ai took in Kuri and Ayase, the two young girls were now becoming used to their harsh training. Luckily neither of them complained nor cried about the training. Being so young in this kind of world, Ai knew they must have seen some horrible things already. During this week the three men left alive and locked up, got one small meal a day and three bottles of water to keep them alive. It was the maximum of which Ai was willing to give them. If she did not need them to do testing on she would not waste her time with them. 

The base did have a much more advanced security system now. After Ai looked at the code for the A.I. she had found quite a bit of information on how the machina were programmed. The machina used radio waves to connect to each other but that was only the communication system between units. It also had a well programmed biosensor that would only detect a human's biosignature. Combined with IR sensors it made for a very bad situation for humans. This helped Ai understand the weird behavior of the machina stabbing corpses as well. But because it used a biosignature it allowed Ai to make automated turrets using its code. She only needed to code in a check that would not activate on certain biosignatures. With this coded in, Ai, Mai, Kuri, and Ayase could move around the base freely. Of course, she also had shut off switches made just in case of any malfunctions or if they had to add a new person to the code. Unfortunately, these turrets only worked on humans so traps still had to be set outside for any machina that might wander in.

It was on this day that Ai and Mai were out in the base having a mock battle with Kuri and Ayase that things would become more lively than ever before. Up on a hill to the northwest, three people laid on the ground with binoculars out, looking out over the base. "See I told you she was still alive and it seems she took in two more." 

"How the hell did she pull it off! That base was filled with machina!" Shogo was amazed seeing the base completely cleared out with only signs of a battler left behind. The whole base seemed to have been cleaned up and was now made into a training center.

"It's a good thing we did not run down there, it seems these girls are a lot smarter than we thought." Yoshi suddenly said as he pointed at a certain spot. "Between traps and those mounted turrets, we would have either been blown to bits or riddled with bullets. That entire base is now a fortress." 

"Then how are we going to talk to them?"Shogo suddenly felt a little nervous. If Eiji did not figure out how to talk to the girl with one eye and convince them to take us in, then the three of them would be left without anywhere to go. 

"I have an idea, let me see your compass." Eiji reached out to Yoshi who handed over his compass. It case was made of metal and was very reflective. Eiji stood up and angled it just right allowing the light to reflect off towards the base.

Ai who was in the middle of instructing Kuri and Ayase on guerrilla warfare suddenly stopped speaking and her eyes became serious. "Girls go inside now. Mai, get your weapon ready we got visitors." 

Kuri and Ayase did not even stop to ask what was going on. Ai's words were law, she said to go inside, they went inside. Mai swung her Howa around and turned its safety off before asking. "How do you know we got visitors?"

"Someone is using the reflection of the sun to get our attention. See there." Ai pointed at the ground where a bright small circle in the shadow was moving around. She then turned to the northwest and got her Howa ready as well. "Let's go see what they want. If they have ill intentions we can just take them in as test subjects." 

"Sounds good to me. One of them went blind this morning. I was gonna ask you what to do with him after we trained the girls." Mai said, her original care for humanity was now completely gone. Anyone but the people close to her were considered test subjects now.

"When we deal with this, just kill him and dump him outside the walls for the beast to eat." Ai replied nonchalantly as they made their way to the other side of the base. 

Eiji watched the two girls walking towards them and felt a bit surprised. "You would think they would be walking carefully with all the traps lying around but each step they take is smooth and natural. If we were normal people and tried to walk through their mind field we would have been blown up on the first step." After saying this, Eiji took a glance at Shogo and smirked.

"Hey! Are you saying I would have died if I walked through there!?" Shogo felt a little offended at this moment but his mood did not get any better when he heard Yoshi say: "It is exactly what he was saying."

"You! Fuck you both!" Shogo yelled out in anger. Causing the other two to laugh.

But their good time ended quickly when a bang was heard and the spot on the ground right in front of Shogo's face had a small explosion of dust and dirt where the bullet landed. "Holy shit, I almost died! She's crazy!"

All three looked down at the two girls to see Ai standing there with her weapon near her good eye and her barrel trained right on them. "State your names and business. Otherwise, I do not mind killing you three and leaving your bodies to be eaten by beasts."

***

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