Project Ami (5 page)

They stand in the middle of the forest again; everyone takes a deep breath of fresh air.

‘One of the benefits of being on operations: we can enjoy some fresh air from time to time! Too bad we need to risk out lives for it,’ comments Brian.

They all start to walk behind Brian and through to a small rocky path.

‘Okay, guys. It’s just one mile to the village. Even though KBs normally do not come here, I want you to stay focused and keep your eyes open,’ commands Brian.

It is morning, and the sun shines low again. Most of the men wear sunglasses, but Ryan needs to shield his eyes with his hand so that he is able to see everything.

After walking for a while, they arrive at the village. They stop in front of the village and sit behind a big log. One of the guys grabs binoculars and checks if the coast is clear. ‘It looks like a ghost town,’ he muses.

‘Okay, keep your eyes open and your guns ready,’ says Brian.

They start to slowly walk towards the village. They walk past a few houses whilst sticking close to the walls.

‘Our best bet is the shopping centre not far from here. This village was overrun in the very beginning, so there are still a lot of supplies left.’

They arrive at a corner; everything looks clear. They run across the street and into one of the stores. They see that there is still quite a bit of food left—all the fresh food rotted long ago, but there are still enough cans of food to feed thirty people for a week.

‘Wow. Looks like we have a winner! I think we will have to do two runs to get everything,’ says Brian.

Everyone starts to put cans in their backpack. Whilst everyone is packing their bags, one of the guys says he can hear something. Everyone falls quiet, and again they listen. They hear what sounds like someone walking around at the front of the store.

Everyone drops down low, and one of the guys slowly goes to the window and looks outside. Ryan can see him looking round to see if there is anyone, but then, all of a sudden, the guy is shot through the head. Immediately, Brian calls out to take cover. Everything falls silent again for a few seconds, but then they hear the sound of guns warming up.

Everyone is familiar with the sound, and they grab their guns, ready to shoot.

There are three KBs, and they rush into the store and start shooting at every living thing they see. Within the first few seconds, two of the men have been shot and have fallen to the ground. Everyone starts to shoot at the KBs. Ryan shoots one of the KBs and it falls down. Brian and another guy take care of the other two KBs. Not long after all KBs are down, another two rush into the store. Brian yells out that everyone needs to go to the back, and so they quickly run through a back door and find themselves in the back yard of the store. They quickly run past the wall and knock over a fence. The KBs come running after them, and Ryan looks back and shoots at one.

‘Nice shot,’ says Brian as they run. They run through another backyard and find the entrance to another house.

Brian tells Ryan to get the door while he and another guy hold off the other KB. Ryan starts to kick against the door and after a few tries the door breaks open. Everyone runs inside the house and immediately run through the kitchen and into the living room. Ryan runs to the front door and kicks it down in one go. Everyone quickly runs into the street and starts to run back in the direction of the forest.

Two KBs are behind them so, as the men run, they keep shooting back at the KBs. Ryan manages to hit one, and it falls over, tripping the other KB as it does so. Paul has been shot in his arm and is unable to shoot, and so Ryan takes a quick few seconds to stop running, aims, and with a well-placed shot, he shoots down the last KB.

By now, they have reached the border of the forest, and quickly they jump over a fallen tree and hide behind its trunk to take a few deep breaths.

Paul looks over the tree to see if there are any more KBs coming behind them, but it looks like the coast is clear.

‘Nice shooting,’ Brian tells Ryan. ‘We’ve lost three good men out there,’ he says with a sad expression on his face. ‘We owe it to the families to recover the bodies when it’s safe to do so.’

Brian asks Paul how he is doing, and Paul replies, ‘Nothing that won’t heal.’

Brian asks Ryan and Paul if they at least got some supplies.

‘I’ve got about ten cans,’ says Ryan.

‘I got eight,’ says Paul.

‘Well at least that’s something. I think it’s best if we go back to the base,’ Brian suggests.

They slowly stand up and start to walk back to the tunnel entrance. It is a silent walk, with everyone quiet and thinking of the fallen men. The silence helps them all to accept and come to terms with what happened.

After walking for a while, they arrive at the tunnel entrance and lift up the metal frame. They step inside the tunnel and walk back to operations. They arrive back at the tables where they met, and lay down their gear. Brian walks over to Ryan and tells him he did a good job, especially considering it was the first time.

‘Thanks. I only wish we were able to save the other men,’ says Ryan.

‘Yes, they were good men. Tomorrow we’ll send out a scout to see if the coast is clear and, if so, we will go back and recover their bodies. It’s the least we can do.’

Ryan gives Brian a hand, and they start walking in the direction of where he left Ami. Soon enough, Ryan arrives at the kitchen, but he cannot see her. He asks one of the women if they have seen her, but they do not look at him and, with what almost sounds like a frightened voice, they say that she walked away about an hour ago and they have not seen her since.

Ryan is surprised and tries to think of a reason for why she would do that.

Maybe she went back to the tent,
he thinks. He starts to walk in the direction of the tent and, on his way, he asks a few people if they have seen a girl around 25 years old wearing a red dress. Some people say that they have not seen her, but most people ignore Ryan and just walk away. Ryan thinks everything is very strange, and he is starting to get worried. He arrives at the tent and looks inside, but she is not there. He takes his backpack and starts to walk around the surrounding area, but Ami is nowhere to be seen.

After walking around for well over an hour, Ryan decides to go to the boss’s office to ask if he knows where she is. He walks up to one of the guards at the corner of the street and asks him where he can find the office of the boss.

‘If you walk down this road and then turn left, you’ll see a concrete rooms imbedded into the tunnel. Just ask one of the guards there where the boss is,’ says the guard.

Ryan follows the guard’s instructions and arrives at the rooms. There he is met by two heavily armed guards standing in front of a door that leads into one of the rooms. He walks up to the guards and asks if he can speak to the boss. One guard steps forward and tells Ryan to wait where he is whilst the other guard knocks on the door and calls out, ‘There’s someone to see you, boss.’

A voice booms, ‘Let him in.’

The guards step aside and Ryan walks through the door. He finds a fairly large concrete room with a simple desk and a comfortable chair. He sees the boss sitting relaxed in his chair smoking a cigar. Ryan needs to crouch down because of the smoke hanging in the room; there is no ventilation whatsoever, but the boss seems to be fine with that.

Ryan walks in and asks him if he has seen Ami.

‘Who?’ he asks.

‘The girl I was with.’

The boss has a mean expression on his face and tells Ryan, ‘She must be walking around here somewhere.’ His tone drips with sarcasm. ‘If I see her, I will let you know.’

Ryan does not trust the boss one bit, and he walks out of the office feeling irritated. He heads back onto the street. He starts to walk around again in a final attempt to find Ami. As he is walking through a small alley that might only fit one person at a time through it, he walks by a tent and there he hears two men talking. He hears them saying something about a girl. Ryan stops walking and silently moves closer to the tent.

He hears one of the guys saying that the guards recently found a girl that turned out to be a KB.

‘They can make themselves look like humans. How can we ever be safe?’ asks the guy in the tent.

‘What happened to her?’ asks the other guy.

‘All I know is they took her to the bunker. They’ll probably inspect her better since this is the first time they’ve seen a KB dressed like a human.’

Ryan feels chills run over him. He is scared, and quickly runs through the alley and onto a bigger street. He looks around him and he can remember seeing a few signs this morning that gave directions to the bunker. He walks through the street and comes across the signs that point East, and detail:
In a case of emergency, follow these signs to the bunker.

Ryan runs through the street in the direction of the bunker. He keeps following the signs and, after a few minutes, arrives at a big metal door in one of the walls. The bunker.

The door must be two metres high, and Ryan sees a group of five guards standing around it. They all are wearing bulletproof vests and are equipped with machine guns.

Ryan plays it cool and, with a relaxed walk, approaches the bunker door. The guards see him coming and, when Ryan comes closer, they walk up to him and. with threatening voices, tell him the area is off-limits.

‘Okay, sorry. I was just looking around.’ Ryan says, and he slowly backs away.

Surrounding the bunker, there are a few concrete rooms that look almost like houses. Ryan walks up to one of the houses and leans against the wall. He looks at the bunker.
How the hell do I get in there?
he wonders. He looks around him to see if there are any other ways into the bunker, but the only place he can see is the heavily guarded metal door. Then he hears something coming from the house he is standing against. It sounds like metal objects falling to the ground.

He looks around him to see if anyone is watching him, and when the coast is clear, he slowly opens the door to the house. Ryan finds himself in a very small hallway. He takes only three steps and arrives at another door.

The sound gets louder, and Ryan gets ready to open the door. He is sick and tired of being careful, and so he grabs his gun. He slams open the door and ends up in a small kitchen. Right in front of him there is a man cooking dinner. He looks over and sees Ryan standing with his gun.

The man reacts quickly and grabs his knife and comes running at Ryan with the intention of stabbing him. Without thinking, Ryan aims his gun and fires two shots. He watches as the man falls down right in front of him, and it takes Ryan a few seconds to realise what just happened. It shocks Ryan that he has just killed an innocent man who was just protecting his home. He runs to the man who is gasping for air. ‘I didn’t mean to shoot you… It was a reflex,’ Ryan tries to explain, his voice frightened.

In the last few seconds of the guy’s life, all he can do is give Ryan an angry look.

It does not take long for the man to and, a few seconds after getting shot, he dies in Ryan arms.

‘Shit, Shit, Shit!’ Ryan says aloud, blinking back tears of anger and frustration. ‘I fucking hate this world!’ He leaves the man on the floor and walks back to the door, and listens carefully to try to establish whether anyone has heard the shots. Luckily, after waiting for thirty seconds, no one comes.

Ryan quickly walks over to the guy and lifts up his upper body. He drags the body into a corner and leaves it there. He walks through the room and sees the knife the guy dropped. He picks it up and looks at it. It is a normal chef’s knife, but it has some blood splatters on it. He looks around the room and, to his surprise, sees what looks like a food elevator that can go down.

‘But the floor is concrete…’ Ryan muses to himself. ‘Where does that elevator lead to?’

Ryan decides that he needs to get out quickly, and so he walks over to the elevator and throws out some dishes that were standing in it. He climbs into the elevator; he barely fits so he has to leave his backpack in the house. He presses a green button that is outside the elevator, and slowly, the elevator begins to move down and everything gets dark.

Ryan arrives at the bottom of the elevator. He climbs out and finds himself in a small storage room. The walls are made from a rough grey concrete. Ryan looks around and sees a few metal storage shelves with food lined on them.

He wants to pick his backpack and stack it with food for later, but then he realises he had to leave it behind in the kitchen. ‘Shit,’ he murmurs to himself.

He walks to the door; it is a simple metal door. In that moment, as he goes to open the door, he hears some voices outside; it sounds like two men having a random conversation about gambling. Ryan listens closely and establishes that the men are just a few feet away from the door. He looks through the keyhole and sees one of them with his back to him. Ryan holds the knife ready to attack, and opens the door slightly. He sticks his head through and sees two guards talking a few feet away on the corner of another hallway. Luckily, they are facing away, with their backs to Ryan.

He sees an opportunity.

He slowly crawls outside the room and, without making a sound, he approaches the guards. He takes a deep breath and then jumps up, running at the guards, and quickly stabs one in his back. The sound of a spine cracking echoes, with the guard almost instantly dying. Before the other guard can even consider what just happened, Ryan turns to him and slices his throat. The guard falls down, desperately gasping for air. It does not take long before everything falls quiet.

Ryan has tears in his eyes, brought on by what he has just done. He is covered in blood, but he shakes off his emotions and looks around to see where he needs to go next. He sees that, on the walls, they have spray-painted arrows with text. He sees one arrow that points to the entrance and two other arrows detailing the office and laboratory, pointing right. Ryan decides to walk in the direction of the office and laboratory. He walks through the hall and around the corner, but there he sees the office arrow pointing right and the laboratory arrow pointing left.

If they found out she’s an AI, I’m almost sure they’d have taken her to the laboratory,
he thinks.

He walks in the direction of the laboratory and stumbles across a white double-folding door. He slowly opens the door to find a more modern room; it looks a bit like a research lab, with almost everything white—the walls, the floor and the ceiling.

Ryan hears voices in the distance, and slowly he crouches down as he walks towards them. He sees a lot of doors and a few large windows in the wall. It looks like the entire area is divided into small rooms. He looks through one of the windows and sees an operating table, which is covered in blood. There are a lot of surgical tools laying around.

Ryan’s heart starts to knock faster, and soon he is beginning to feel scared. He quickly walks over to the second window, and there he sees Ami lay on a metal table, strapped down, her mouth been taped shut. Ryan’s heart skips a beat as he watches, tears springing to his eyes.

There are two men in doctors’ uniforms in the room. It looks like they are preparing equipment and talking to one another about what to do with her. Ryan feels anger surge in him, and he takes out his gun. Quickly, he crawls underneath the window and walks around the corner into another hallway. There, he sees the door that leads into the room Ami is in.

He stands next to the door, takes a few deep breaths, and kicks in the door.

The doctors are startled and ask what he is doing there.

With anger deep in his voice, Ryan shouts, ‘Back off! Stand against the wall!’

The doctors slowly put their hands up and back away.

Ryan runs over to Ami and, when he is about to unstrap her, he sees from the corner of his eye that one of the doctors has grabbed a gun that was hidden under one of the tables. Ryan quickly looks over and sees the doctor aiming at him. The doctor and Ryan shoot at one another at the same time. The doctor manages to shoot once before he is shot in the chest. Ryan is furious and looks at the other doctor.

‘Please don’t kill me!’ pleads the doctor, but Ryan won’t listen.

He takes a few steps towards the doctor, aims, and shoots him in the head.

He then returns to Ami and quickly unstraps her lose and takes the tape from her mouth.

All is silent for a moment as they look into each other’s eyes. Ryan can see how terrified Ami is. He begins to feel a burning sensation in his shoulder, and, upon examination, realises he is bleeding. Apparently that doctor managed to shoot him in the shoulder but, thanks to the adrenalin, he had not felt it until now.

‘You alright?’ Ami asks in a soft voice.

‘Yes, I’m fine. I’m so glad you’re okay.’

Ami gives Ryan a hug and says, ‘I’m so glad you came back for me. I was so scared.’

Ryan gets tears in his eyes again. He wipes them away and pulls himself together. He tells Ami that they need to get out of here fast. ‘It won’t be long before they come to look at what is happening. This place is not safe anymore.’

He helps Ami off the table, takes out a Mag from his pocket, and reloads his gun. Together, they then walk outside the room and into the hallway. They walk back in the direction of the food elevator. They pass through the hallway and around the corner to where Ryan killed the two guards. There they see three guards standing over the dead bodies, attempting to figure out what happened.

Ryan makes one step too many and the guards hear it. They look over their shoulder and see Ryan and Ami. They grab their guns and immediately start to shoot.

Ryan quickly shoots back and hits one of the guards. He then pulls Ami around the corner and quickly they run into one of the operation rooms. Not long after, they hear a loud alarm sounding.

Ryan sets Ami down and tells her she needs to stay low.

‘What are we going to do?’ she asks.

‘To be honest, I don’t know. I think the only way to get through this is by shooting our way out.’ He checks his pistol and sees that he has only nine bullets left. He breaks a window in the door and prepares for the guards to come around the corner at any second. To his luck, the guards did not know that he was in the room, and instead they run around the corner without caution.

Ryan starts to shoot at both of the guards. He manages to kill both of them with just one bullet each. He looks up and, to his surprise, sees there are no more guards coming. ‘Okay. Now or never,’ he says to Ami. He takes Ami’s arm and they get up and quickly walk, but with caution, through the hall. They walk around the corner, and Ryan sees the door he came through that leads to the food elevator. They quickly run to the door and arrive in the room.

Ryan tells Ami to get in the food elevator. ‘I will be right behind you,’ he says.

Ami climbs in the food elevator and Ryan presses the button for it to go up.

Right at the moment the elevator goes up, Ryan sees two more guards who come running around the corner. He walks to the door and shoots one of them. The guard falls over, and the other guard quickly jumps back behind the corner. He starts to shoot at Ryan from behind the corner, and Ryan is forced to take cover behind the wall. He desperately looks to see if the elevator is already back, and hears that it is coming down. He waits for the elevator to come down, and then he shoots his last few rounds in the direction of the guard and quickly climbs in. He presses the button and the elevator slowly goes up. He sees the guard coming out of cover and the guard shoots a few rounds at Ryan. Luckily, they all miss, and Ryan goes up with the elevator.

At the top, Ryan is back in the kitchen. He climbs out and quickly walks to the counter, where he picks up a wooden cutting board and blocks the elevator with it. He looks at Ami and sees that she is holding his backpack. Ryan grabs the backpack and tells Ami they need to find some clothes for her so that she can blend into the masses. He quickly runs into the living room in the hope of finding some clothes there. Ami follows him but becomes distracted by the cook dead in the corner.

She asks Ryan, ‘What happened?’

‘He attacked me when I came in,’ Ryan responds. ‘I had no choice.’ Ryan continues to look around, but he cannot find anything they can wear. He then sees a door opening into a smaller room. He walks into the room, which appears to be a laundry room. He looks into the machines, and there he finds everything he needs in one go. He picks out a simple red dress for Ami and gives it to her. He also finds a jacket with a hoodie, which he puts on himself. They run to the entrance where Ryan first came in.

Ryan opens the door just slightly and looks outside. He hears the alarm still sounding, and lots of people are running around. It is complete chaos.

‘Okay, keep your head down and follow me,’ he tells Ami. ‘If anything happens, then hide, understand?’

Ami agrees and Ryan throws open the door.

They quickly run through the masses in the direction of the tunnel Ryan came through when he came back from the supply run. They walk through the streets, and Ryan sees a guard standing on the corner with his machine gun. The guard look around, most likely to find Ryan and Ami. Ryan quickly drags Ami onto a side path, and they run along it. They head up into another street where their tent used to be. They run through the street and in the direction of the kitchen. As they run past the kitchen, Ryan can see a few women who recognise them, and they start to scream. Ryan and Ami quickly run until they get to Operations.

Of course, there are many guards in operation, and so Ryan and Ami walk into a side street again and walk around the guards and into the tunnel. They try to act normal, but of course Ryan and Ami are both terrified that someone will stop them. They find themselves at the entrance of the tunnel.

Beyond this point, there are no people walking, and so Ryan pulls out his gun and tells Ami they need to sprint to the side tunnel that leads outside. They start to run, but when they are almost at the side tunnel, Ryan sees two guards. ‘Shit,’ he says, but there is no time to look for another way out. ‘Stay low,’ says Ryan, and they start to run at the guards.

Whilst running, Ryan shoots his entire clip before they even see anyone coming. Ryan and Ami step over the bodies and crouch into the side tunnel. They quickly run through the tunnel, staying low, and eventually reach the metal frame. Ryan lifts the frame and tells Ami to hold it when she is outside.

Ami climbs through and holds the frame from the outside; she has trouble holding it because it is a very heavy metal frame.

Ryan quickly jumps outside the tunnel and, not even half a second later, Ami can no longer hold the frame and it slams shut with a loud noise. ‘Oof that was close! Are you okay?’ Ryan asks.

‘Yes I’m fine. How is your shoulder?’

‘It’s okay, but we’ve got to keep moving. It’s not safe here anymore.’

‘I’m so glad you came back for me,’ says Ami.

Ryan smiles and says, ‘We are a team. We stick together.’

‘What do we do now?’

‘There’s a town not far from here. I went there this morning. We were overrun by a few KBs, but I think right now it’s safer to go there than stay here. Maybe we can find some food and spend the night there, then tomorrow we will make a plan as to what we’ll do next.’

Ryan and Ami start to jog in the direction of the village.

After journeying for a while, they arrive at the village border. They hide behind a fallen tree, and Ryan looks around to see if there are any KBs around, or even anyone from the resistance. Everything appears to be clear. It is late in the evening, and already it is getting dark; the birds can be heard singing in the trees.

Ryan and Ami take a moment of peace whilst they sit against the tree, enjoying the birdsong. But soon, Ryan stands up and tells Ami they should go in case anyone from the resistance comes looking for them. They slowly walk to one of the buildings on the border of where the village starts. They walk next to the building, sticking close to the walls, but after passing two buildings, Ryan hears something.

He tells Ami to stop moving, and silently he walks to the corner. He peeks around the corner, and there he sees a few KBs walking around. He quickly walks back to Ami and tells her that they need to find a different way. He looks around and there, across the street, he sees a passage leading to the backyards of houses. They quickly run across the street and into the passage, where they find a wooden fence to a backyard behind it.

Ryan looks around to see if there are any KBs. He then kicks the fence a few times, and two planks of wood fall loose. He crawls through and checks that everything is clear. He then signs to Ami to come through. They walk across the back yard and break down another fence to the second house; Ryan sees that the backdoor of the house is open.

‘Maybe we will even find some food or water in the house,’ says Ryan.

They walk to the house, and Ryan pulls out his gun. He slowly and silently enters the building, and checks every corner to make sure there is nobody in the house. He first walks into the kitchen to check for supplies, but everything is empty. ‘Damn,’ he mutters, and then walks into the living room. Ryan looks around the room; you can see there has not been anyone in this house for a very long time. All the furniture is very dusty, and there is a smell of neglect and emptiness.

Ryan walks over to the front door to look through the window to see if there is anyone on the street. He is about to look through the window when the door is kicked open from the outside, which hits Ryan against his head. He falls down; it takes him a few seconds to recover from the blow. He looks up, and there he sees a KB standing right in front of him.