Ito Ai: A New Dawn

The next day Ai got herself ready to go out and clean up the base and planned to try to get rid of any machina that might still be around. Mai was still banned from doing anything but read since Ai did not want her injury to open back up. "Mai I will set up a few traps along the inner hallway here, do not roam about." 

"I won't. I plan to read these medical books and try to learn what I can. But without anything to practice on, I will not be able to actually perform any operation." Mai frowned. She was responsible for what had happened to Ai's eye but yet she still could not do anything to help fix it.

"I will see what I can find. I do not like harming animals but if we must I will try to hunt one down so you can see if it is similar." Ai felt that animals were much better than humans and did not wish to use them for experiments. They were innocent in their actions. Animals do the things they do in order to survive while humans, albeit not all, but a good majority of them will do things out of their own personal desires. Ai and Mai were no different in this aspect. Since they would be using others whether animal or human to practice their skills.

"Ai, just forget it, we will look for a human who has done something bad. I do not want to harm an innocent creature." Mai seemed to have the same mindset as Ai. 

Ai smiled as she said: "I will go and set up traps. I will be back in a few hours. If I do not return. Stay here as long as you can and kill anyone who comes. If you must… Stick the barrel of the gun into your mouth and aim it slightly upwards before pulling the trigger. This will ensure that you feel nothing."

Mai looked stunned at Ai for a moment before realizing why she said this. Only then did she smile and nod her head. "Ai, if it came down to it, trust me when I say, I would rather die than let such a thing happen. But I am sure you will come back safe and sound."

"Then I am off." Ai waved and exited the room, while Mai went back to reading. 

Ai laid out a few traps along the hall to either stop any intruders or at least warn Mai if a machina or someone she did not know was coming. After which, she went to the far side of the underground area and set up some more traps. Only after she was sure she covered all points of entry did she head back up the stairs they had originally come down. Undoing the trap she had placed on the door, she slowly slid it open and looked down the hallway. 

"Looks like the coast is clear." Ai, let out a sigh of relief. She did not want to be suddenly attacked right after opening the door. 

Ai crept into the hallway and made her way to the end before looking both ways and continuing on. She saw that much of the hallway had been destroyed by her traps when the machina had chased after her and Mai. Luckily it was still passable. Ai, slowly made her way towards the exit never letting her guard down. If there were type one machinas that had yet to be fully destroyed, their last stand program could activate at any time if she was not careful. Being caught off guard would mean either a serious injury or worse case scenario, death.

Fortunately for Ai, she was able to make it to the entrance without any issues. She looked around and saw nothing but broken machina scattered about. "We really did make a mess out here. Let's see here..." Ai began rummaging through the broken machina parts taking out the gun barrels from the destroyed type twos. "If I use these and this along with the powerpack, I might be able to make an automated turret. But I would need to set up a switch so it would shut off when either Mai or myself were in range… I wonder if I can dive into the programming and make it so it would not shoot us… Now that I think about it. I never actually tried to hack into the programming of one of these before." 

Ai formed a smile on her face. With the number of parts here she could easily rig up an automated turret but she would need to get into the programming of a machina first. She had learned some programming skills in her past life but she was not sure if it would be good enough to deal with the code written by the A.I. who created these things. "Now that I think about it, the programming for these machina should be rather simple. It is like the beginner stage of coding."

As Ai continued to gather materials she heard a yell come from outside of the base. "Hey, you girl!"

Ai looked up to see a group of men and two girls walking up to the base. She squinted her right eye to see the girls had their heads lowered and their wrists were tied together. Frowning Ai muttered to herself. "Fucking slave traffickers. Seems Mai will get some training in earlier than she thought." 

"Hey girl!" The man in front was well built with a bald head. Even though he looked intimidating the smile on his face that he used to try to seem friendly, showed many signs of suspension. 

Ai cocked her head to the side and licked her lips as she carefully scanned the group of men. "Five in total, each with either a pistol or rifle. Should be quick and clean. The girls look to be around ten to fifteen years of age. Bruises on the arms and legs, seems they were beaten. Good! These sick bastards that will make for great test subjects." 

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