I had INTENDED to post this last night, but unfortunately a storm was going on and our power went out a couple of times, so I just gave up and went downstairs. (Thankfully, I had saved the story several times before the power cut out on me. X3) Oh, and also, this post marks the 69th page of my story.
Chapter Sixteen: ProjectHPK, Part III“Y’know… when I saw all these things flying at us from the sky… I was scared at first. Now that I can see what they are, though… I’m not really worried…”
“Don’t make them angry…”
“They won’t stop staring at us…”
Eight minature robots were standing in a circle around the trio, which meant that sixteen electronical eyes were focused on the clones, and it was slightly unnerving. Even if the tallest barely reached a foot in height…
Though the little machines had made quite an impressive landing, dust billowing about on impact and whatnot, they hadn’t moved since they had made it to the ground, almost as if they were waiting for something.
“Do you think we killed their mom…?” Saki whispered, earning a glare from Risako. The three of them jumped as the smallest of the robots stepped (or waddled, depending upon how you look at it) towards them, and craned her head upwards, looking at them with her colorless eyes. Aika was reminded of Eri for a moment, but she was pretty sure that the robot could probably see them very clearly.
The little thing opened it’s mouth, and a voice laced with static began to speak.
“Hello? Hello, can you hear me? …ah, I can’t see anything… Maimaibot, activate your holographic projectors, please.”
The robot obliged, and soon, two faint beams of light were streaming from her monochrome orbs, merging together in the air to form a life-sized image of the genius, much like the image of the scientist the clones had seen in the cave. It was somewhat hard to see the hologram, because the sun was still out, but if Aika squinted, she could make out the girl’s fuzzy shape.
“That’s better. Anyways, hello there. My name is Konno Asami… I’m terribly sorry that my robot decided to attack you, but it seems that she misinterpreted my instructions… I simply want to meet you, that’s all… but she tried to use force rather than asking nicely.”
Aika scowled. “Why do you want to meet
us? How do we know this isn’t some kind of trap?”
“…I suppose I should have expected that you would think that… The three of you DO look like you’ve had it rough lately… especially if you are what I think you are.”
“Which would be…?”
“You’re clones, are you not? It’s the only reasonable explanation I can come up with… And if that’s true, I think I know more about you than you may expect.”
“How’s that?”
“Because without me, the DNA that created you wouldn’t have still been around.”
Well, that got Aika to be quiet. Risako and Saki were wearing similar masks of disbelief on their faces, though the latter’s mouth wasn’t hanging open… It had to have been a trick… some sort of ploy to get them to drop their guard so Shizuka and his vampire-esque cronies could kill them.
…Didn’t it?
“There are more of us… more than just us three… If we come, the others come too.” Saki stated, finally breaking through the silence.
“More than… more than just three? H-how many of you are there?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Oh… so those footprints… You were the ones that killed the Stalker? Oh my… … …well, I think there should be enough room here for all of you, anyway… The little robots will lead the way if you decide that you want to come, so… please, at least consider it?”
And that was that. The transmission ended, and the Maimaibot returned to normal, waddling back to her place in the circle. Like a little penguin. A little CUTE penguin. But that wasn’t the point. The tiny robots had gone back to staring again, waiting in that creepy way they did, and while Saki seemed to be contemplating what she had done to the Maihabot, Risako turned to Aika.
“What should we do…?”
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It had only taken about half an hour for the HPK bots to lead the clones out of the forest and past the Steam District city, and they continued to make slow progress towards the mystery destination where the genius was waiting for them. They (mainly Maasa, since she was doing all the work) had to pause every so often along the way to let Maki rest, and to keep the weaker clones like Sayumi and Momoko (though the latter was trying much harder to keep up, and didn’t complain even once) from passing out due to the heat and all the walking.
To be honest, the sun was making the journey difficult for everyone (with the exception of Reina, who was actually thrilled about the hot weather and was walking with a bit of a skip in her step) as it was a little bit past noon, and the giant star was in a good position in the sky to fry everyone… or at least make their lives a little more miserable.
The robots kept ahead of the group, stopping briefly every few seconds to make sure the clones were still following before continuing a little bit farther on. They had left the beaten-up Maihabot in the city, stowing her metal body in the local dump. Aika had thought this peculiar, but when she asked about it, the robot known as Airibot informed her that it was okay.
She had said (with quite a condescending tone, actually) that they weren’t the same as humans and didn’t need to worry about bodies or anything trivial like that.
“All Konno-san has to do is reupload her programming into another spare shell and it’ll be like nothing happened… You ask such strange questions…”The other clones (namely Miki and Hitomi) had been skeptical about meeting the genius, but once they had come to the conclusion that they were running out of options for shelter, and that Maki was getting worse and needed medical attention soon, they reluctantly decided to follow along.
“How much longer until we get there?”
It was Sayumi who asked the question, of course, as she was starting to fall towards the back of the group again.
“It will take us approximately 30.6 minutes to reach our destination from this point.” One of the little robots replied, not even bothering to turn around to look at the clones. It sounded slightly annoyed…
“At least we aren’t walking through the forest any more…” Risa muttered, glad to be rid of the bugs and the irritating plant life.
“I’m not sure I like being out in the open like this, though…” Ai replied, cat-like eyes keeping a wary, close watch on their surroundings. They were out in a field now, the city, forest, and mountain range to their backs and another row of peaks and an even darker-looking jungle ahead.
Did we make the right choice… by coming this way? I feel as though I should have a bad feeling about this, but… for some reason I also feel like I’m going to meet up with some old friends…
Strange…
Topic: ::Voices of Angels:: [Chapter Twenty: The "Training" Room, Part II] (Read 42163 times)