Project Ami (9 page)

A KB comes around the corner, apparently to investigate the noise of the window breaking. Ryan grabs a metal pipe out of a pile of debris just behind them and waits for the KB to come closer. He then jumps out in front of the KB, which then tries to shoot him, but Ryan pushes his gun to the side. The KB fires one shot into the floor next to Ryan, but Ryan bashes his head in with the pipe. He continues to hit the KB until he can no longer move. The head of the KB is completely crushed.

Ryan is out of breath and takes a moment to recover. He then tells Ami it’s safe and that she can come out. When Ami comes out, they can hear the KBs started to fire again inside the house; it’s an overwhelmingly loud sound.

Ryan and Ami run to the corner of the street, and Ryan peeks around it to see if there are any KBs looking for them. He sees around five or six, all lined up in front of the house, shooting at it. Their guns glow red from the heat of the bullets.

Ryan turns his head to Ami and says ‘Okay, screw the food. We need to get out of here. I think our best bet is to pick the alley next to the skyscraper. There seem to be no KBs there.’

Ryan grabs Ami’s hand and they run across the street toward the skyscraper.

Halfway down the street, two KBs that are shooting at the house notice Ami and Ryan escaping, and they start to shoot at them. Ryan and Ami quickly take cover behind a car. Ryan wants to grab his gun but notices it’s missing. Ami sees this, and quickly removes her backpack, takes out her gun and gives it to Ryan. The KBs start to come closer and are constantly shooting at the two of them. Ryan tries to shoot the KBs, but it is difficult because a shower of bullets scatters from all sides.

Ryan yells to Ami over the sound of the bullets hitting next to them. ‘They are getting too close! Our only chance is to make a sprint for the alley.’

Ryan waits for the KBs to reload; they are now standing only a few feet away from Ryan and Ami. But just in time, their guns need to reload. Ryan and Ami jump up and run towards the alley. As they run, Ryan manages to shoot one of the KBs, but by now more KBs have noticed them and they start to shoot.

The bullets fly around them, but Ryan and Ami are close to the alley. They run around the corner and there they are met by two KBs waiting for them.

‘Shit!’ screams Ryan, and he grabs Ami by her arm. They run back onto the street and hide behind one of the big concrete flowerpots positioned in front of the skyscraper. Ryan and Ami are being trapped in from all sides now, and they decide to make a run for the skyscraper entrance—it’s their only chance.

They run towards the doors, and Ryan shoots a few bullets into the glass so that it breaks. They jump through the glass and roll into the lobby. Ryan looks behind him; the KBs are getting closer.

‘There!’ he says, pointing at the stairway. ‘I saw a sign saying there is a parking lot in this building. Maybe we can cut through there!’

They run to the stairway door and Ryan kicks it open. They find themselves in a metal stairway that goes up and down. They run down, but after running down just one stair they are met with a metal door leading to the parking lot; it is locked up with a big chain.

Ryan looks at the lock and tries to shoot it, but with no luck; the lock is just too strong and Ryan knows it. ‘There’s no way we can get through this,’ he says.

Ryan and Ami run back upstairs and want to go back into the lobby, but the KBs are already inside the building. They see Ryan and Ami, and start to shoot.

They are pushed back into the stairway, and are faced with only one option: go up.

They run upstairs and can hear the KBs filtering into the stairway. After running up a few floors, they come across a dead soldier; he has been dead for a while and it’s not a pretty sight. Ryan sees an assault rifle lying next to him, and so he grabs it. The soldier also has a magazine in his front pocket, but it is covered with decomposed flesh. Ryan slowly picks out the magazine whilst holding back the urge to throw up. They then continue to run upstairs.

They have no time to think about what to do; right now, they have to find a way to get out of the building.

Most of the doors into the stairway are locked; it seems like a big part of the building went into lockdown a long time ago.

They arrive at the thirteenth floor, and there Ryan tries to push open the door. The door opens, and Ryan and Ami run inside. Ryan looks around and sees a cabinet standing close to the door. ‘Here, help me with this,’ he says to Ami. They push the cabinet against the door. They then start walking through the room to see if there is a way out.

They walk all the way to the back of the room. The outer walls are made of glass, and you can look all over the city. It looks like there is no way out, and then they hear that the KBs are breaking through the door.

‘What do we do now?’ asks Ami, clearly terrified.

‘There is only one thing we can do. Fight,’ says Ryan. He pushes over a table to allow them to take cover behind it. ‘I need your help for this, Ami. Take cover and prepare to shoot whatever comes through that door.’

The tension is high, and even though Ami is really scared, she pulls herself together and they both aim their weapons at the door. They know they do not have a lot more bullets, and Ryan says to Ami with a soft voice, ‘Make every shot count.’

Not long after, the KBs push away the cabin behind the door and the door flies open.

Ami takes the first shot and shoots the first KB down with one well-placed fire. Then three more KBs come through the door, and Ryan and Ami both start to shoot. The KBs shoot back at Ryan, and he is forced to take cover. Ami sees this and quickly shoots the KB who aims at Ryan. The KB goes down in two shots; the other KBs focuses their attention on Ami, and Ami all too quickly gets shot in the arm. She takes cover behind the table, and Ryan screams out to ask if she is okay.

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she says.

Ryan gets angry and empties his magazine on the remaining two KBs. It does not take long for them to go down, and then all falls quiet. Ryan shuffles over to Ami and asks her if she is alright. He looks at her arm and sees that the wound is closing itself up. They both take a deep breath and spend a moment immersed in peace. Then Ryan says, ‘This is our change,’ and he stands up and reaches his hand out to Ami. He helps her up and they slowly, but with caution, walk to the door.

‘I’m out of ammo. How much do you have left?’ Ryan asks her.

Ami checks her gun and says, ‘I have three bullets left.’ She gives Ryan the gun because she thinks he has more use for it. They walk over to the door and when, they are about to walk outside, they hear a click.

Ryan feels a hot-and-cold sensation across his body, and then he hears someone say, ‘Drop your god damn weapon!’

Ryan knows the voice all too well by now, and he and Ami slowly turn around. He sees the resistance boos standing at the back of the room, his back to the big windows. There is a bright light shining through the windows, and Ryan cannot see everything clearly, but it appears that the boss has been shot. His arm seeps blood, and he is full of scratches and small wounds.

Ryan slowly throws his gun on the ground and, in an angry voice, asks, ‘What do you want now?’

The boss gives an evil smile and says, ‘Nothing.’ He then aims his gun and is about to shoot Ryan.

‘Look out!’ screams Ami, and she jumps in front of Ryan. The shot sounds, and Ami falls to the ground. She has been shot in her chest. Ryan rolls over and grabs the gun. He then shoots the boss in the chest. With tears in his eyes, he walks forward to the boss, who now is slowly collapsing, and shoots him once again in the chest. He keeps walking and then shoots the boss one final time in the head. The man falls backwards and through the window.

Ryan walks over to the window and looks down to take one last glimpse of the boss falling all the way down.

Then it strikes him what just happened. He turns around and sees Ami lay on the ground. She is not moving. With tears in his eyes, he runs over to her and rolls her over. Ami has been shot in her heart, and is slowly shutting down.

‘No, no, no, no! Please tell me you’re okay,’ says Ryan.

In Ami’s final moments, she lays her hand on Ryan’s cheek and, with a soft voice, says, ‘Thank you for protecting me.’

Ryan starts to cry and keep saying, ‘It can’t end like this!’ He cries and repeats the words over and over again.

Ami smiles as she looks into Ryan’s eyes, and then she closes her eyes and her hand falls down.

Ryan sits in the middle of the room with Ami in his arms and tears in his eyes. He cannot believe what just happened and he does not know what to do. He looks down at Ami and tells her he is sorry. He then gives her a soft kiss on the forehead and hugs her tightly.

Two Months Later

Ryan is sitting in front of a nice, quiet lake with a cabin behind him.

Everything is peaceful, the sun is hanging low, and the birds can be heard singing.

He hears something and looks behind him. He watches as Ami walks to him with a glass of lemonade in her hands. She sits down next to him and hands him the glass. She then holds his arm and lays her head on his shoulder.

They both smile, and Ryan stares across the lake.

He remembers all too clearly what happened in the city…

Ryan is sitting on the ground with Ami’s lifeless body in his hands. He is crying. Then he says to himself, ‘No! This is not the end! I refuse to let this be the end!’ He lifts Ami up and walks out of the door and into the stairway. Carefully, he walks down the stairs and arrives at the ground floor. He opens the door slightly and looks around him to see if there are any KBs close by.

There is no one; it is almost as if time has stood still. There is no shooting and no loud sounds. The only thing he can hear is his own heart, knocking loudly against his ribcage.

He walks out of the skyscraper and there, not far from the entrance, he sees the resistance boss lay on the ground in a big pool of blood. It is not a pretty sight. Ryan looks away and walks past him. He begins to run through the streets and alleys towards where he left the car. With tears in his eyes, and heavily out of breath, he arrives at the car and, to his relief, finds everything is still how he left it.

He carefully places Ami into the back of the car and gets in the driver’s seat. He starts the car and begins to drive on the highway, away from the city. He drives as fast as he can until he arrives at the road he and Ami walked down when they were on their way to the city. He drives in the direction of the village and through the streets. He sees the streets scattered with bodies—both KBs and humans.

It’s like there had been a war going on.

Ryan keeps driving, but soon turns left onto another tarmac road. After driving for about an hour, he arrives at the forest border. He drives through the forest as long as he can until the car gets stuck in between the trees. He then gets out and lifts Ami out of the truck. He walk through the forest with Ami in his arms.

Ami is beginning to feel heavy, but Ryan ignores the pain and keeps on going without taking a break.

He arrives at a hillside and walks along it. Then he sees the door of the house. The place he first met her. He kicks open the door and runs through the living room and into the hallway. He starts to cry again, but he pulls himself together and runs into one of the rooms. He throws everything from one of the metal tables and carefully lays Ami onto its surface.

‘Okay, everything will be alright. I can do this,’ he says to himself.

He looks at Ami and strokes her hair. He then runs into one of the other rooms where there are old prototypes that look like Ami. He grabs one of the bodies that looks most like Ami and lays it on the ground. He then feels her chest and tries to find a way to open it; apparently, the chest plate can be opened by pushing against it in an upwards motion.

Ryan is now looking at the heart of the AI. He carefully unplugs the wires; there is some liquid leaking from the heart, but the wires themselves close automatically and the liquid stays inside of the body.

Ryan quickly gets up and, with the heart in his hands, carefully walks over to the room where Ami is. He lays the heart he is holding in a square metal bin that is standing on one of the tables, and then focuses his attention on Ami.

He carefully walks over to her and, with all the care in the world, takes off her dress. With his heart pounding in his chest, he opens Ami’s chest plate. The chest plate opens differently to the other AI, but Ryan can see that it is all the same basic concept. He very carefully unplugs Ami’s heart; he can see the bullet hole that went straight through her, and he feels a pang in his own chest.

He lifts the heart from her chest and lays it onto the table next to him. He then walks over to the metal bin and removes the heart. He walks back to Ami and very carefully places the heart in her chest and connects all the wires. He watches as the liquid fills the heart.

And then he waits.

Thirty seconds pass but still nothing happens.

Ryan leans over Ami and says to himself, ‘Please. Please don’t leave me.’

He starts to cry again, and a large tear rolls off his cheek and falls down on to Ami’s heart, and suddenly a little shock of electricity sparks when it comes into contact with the heart.

Ryan is still crying, but then he notices that the heart is starting to light up. He takes a step back and sees that the heart is slowly starting to knock again. It beats faster and faster, and slowly it starts to glow brighter.

And then Ami opens her eyes and looks at Ryan. Ryan is crying and laughing with joy.

Ami lays her hand against Ryan’s cheek and smiles up at him.

‘Welcome back,’ says Ryan.