Ito Ai: A New Dawn

Chapter 12: Machina

"Ai!" Seiji finally jumped in. Although what his daughter was saying was true, she could have at least said it in a nicer way.

"What? Did I say something wrong? Dad, beating around the bush will not change anything and I am sorry if I am being too blunt. But blunt is what I need to be. Do you know that I have seen people send little kids out that looked starved and when gullible people take these children in, they will never wake up the next day because that same kid they were trying to save stabbed them all while they were sleeping. Kindness and trust is not something you can have now." Ai coldly said.

Ai had been in the care of a nice old couple when she was fifteen for an entire month. But one day they brought home another young child of seven years of age. At this time food sources were becoming more and more scarce so seeing children left alone on the streets digging through trash cans was a normal sight. But people with bad intentions took some of these kids in and turned them into murders. They would not feed them for days and then send these starving kids out to find victims who would take them in and while they slept at night these kids would steal a knife from the kitchen and stab them in the throat while they were sleeping. If it was not for the fact that she was a light sleeper by that time, she would have been as dead as the old couple. Luckily she woke up when her door opened. She saw the little kid with a knife in their hand dripping with blood, she had no choice but to react quickly. The kid had charged at her in a crazed frenzy when he realized she was awake. She ended up using a heavy object to knock the kid out before gathering her things and whatever else was in the house that was useful before leaving.

She had felt bad for the old couple but she was not too attached to them either. She was basically just using them for a place to stay and free food. Her emotions had done a one eighty during her time on the streets. The innocent Ai disappeared her first week stuck on the streets trying to fend for herself.

"I understand that Ai but you could have said it more nicely. You know your mother. How else do you think you were able to stay home from school without issue?" Letting out a long sigh Seiji turned to look at Shizune who was pale in the face. It was very easy to tell she did not have the mentality to deal with these things at this time.

Ai also sighed as she looked at her mother. "Fine. Let's not talk about this for now. What I had to say so far has been said. But dad I will be counting on you to make sure mom does not do anything that will get her killed."

Seiji smiled and nodded his head. "Of course, I will keep the both of you alive."

"Does everyone else understand the rules up until now?" Ai asked before she moved on to something else.

"Loud and clear Ai. Do not worry us Nakanos will not bring harm to your family either." Yasuhide answered.

"Uncle, if I was worried about that I wouldn't have brought you down here. You and aunty are family to me. And Mai is my sister. I do not know what happened to you in my past life but in this life, I wanted to at least know that you are safe for now. In the future, if we get split up listen to Mai. She has undergone very harsh training. She is also a capable fighter. I trained her to the best of my abilities these past six months." Ai did her best to prepare Mai for every possible situation. The only thing she was not able to train her in was guns. Thinking of this Ai picked up one of the gun holsters with a gun in it and a few clips and passed them to Mai. "Take this just in case. Out of everyone here besides me, you will also be venturing out along with me to gain more experience. Uncle and dad will also be coming in an alternating rotation. We will set out tomorrow to try to gather more weapons and resources while we still can."

"Okay. But Ai, is the safety on, on this. I do not want it to accidentally go off." Mai took the pistol but was worried more about shooting herself than anything else.

"It is. Just be careful. Do not point it at yourself or anyone else you do not plan to actually shoot. I am hoping by the end of the month we will have a few more guns for protection." Ai explained.

"Ai, you keep saying by the end of the month. What is happening by the end of the month?" Seiji asked. He had picked up on this point since the beginning. Ai had kept mentioning the end of the month a lot as she spoke.

"That was the second topic I wanted to talk about. Dad, I did not die in an accident nor was I murdered by humans. The reason why shit has happened so far is due to a lab in Tokyo that created a very advanced A.I.. This A.I. is the cause of everything and by the end of the month, those that are alive now unless they are lucky will die. The people of Japan will try to rebuild after everything that has happened. This peace will only last one month. When that month is up, a mass of first type machina will emerge and begin a slaughter of all humankind. Billions of the first type machina will be released all over the world. These things, although they can be killed with blunt weapons and firearms, are nothing but killing machines. From there the machina keep getting scarier and scarier. I was killed by what we call a new type machina, code name for any of the newest versions oh Machina that got created. This machina was so strong that modern weapons could do nothing to them. And it's ray attack can destroy a wide range in an instant. I died to its ray attack while investigating the factory they were being built in just north of Tokyo." Ai shivered just thinking about how everything they threw at the new type machina was useless.

"So these machines or machina as you called them will come out of nowhere and begin slaughtering humans?" Seiji was finding this a bit much to believe but he decided he would believe it for now since this was not going to happen for a while yet.

"Yes, in a month's time the first type machina were the most abundant and the ones you will run into the most. But two years from now there will be a shredder type machina. This machine resembles some heavy equipment all mashed together. Its main purpose is to roam around destroying anything it touches. Although it will destroy anything it will hunt down humans first if any are picked up on its sensors. A year after that a weapon type machina will appear. These machina's have various weapons on them and will shoot to kill.

"Flying type machina will also appear and as time goes on these machina will become more and more advanced. At some point, five years from now a human rebel army will form that will attack a small section of Tokyo and reclaim it before setting up a base there. I joined this group and fought many battles against the machina. All the way until the day I died." Ai hated talking about this stuff. All it did was bring back the images of people dying left and right in front of her. The people she used as shields and the looks of disbelief on their faces as they looked at her wanting to know why.

"That does sound pretty horrifying. Like right out of a sci-fi movie. Wait, this seems more like that Barnold guy and the movies he became famous for. What was his catchphrase? Something like 'They will be back' or something like that. " Kazumi finally spoke up after a long bout of silence. She had yet to give her opinion about anything until now.

"Sadly yes, but unfortunately this is no Hollywood movie. Where if you die in the movie you will still get to go home after filming is done. These things are real, they are quick, and they are deadly." Ai was a little happy that Mai and her parents were taking everything in stride. Even her father was taking everything in. Whether they truly believed her or not, well, that day will come when they finally see what is in store. Her only problem was her mother who seemed to be in utter denial of the things to come. She did not expect everyone to take her words as truth.

"Now that I have explained everything let's get things in order here. We will only have electricity for a few more days. Then we will need to live without power from then on out. Radio singles will last a week. After that, even those will be gone. The A.I. will be in control of all communications systems by that time. Only short wave radios will work in that time as long as a machina above the first type is not around." After saying this Ai turned to Yashuide and asked: "Uncle have you ever used a pistol before?"

"Yes, I have, back when I was in the army for three years." This was something that Ai knew but had slipped her mind.

"That's right too. Then I will leave the other pistol with you tomorrow. If anyone comes that is not either Mai, my father, or myself, then shoot them on the spot. But I do not think you will have too much of an issue. Because when we leave tomorrow we will be doing so in a sneaky fashion." Ai wanted to make sure that at least one gun out of the two was in the bunker at all times to protect her mother and Mai's mother.

"You can count on me. I will make sure nothing happens to this place." Yasuhide had already understood where Ai was going when she asked him if he knew how to use a gun. He was very grateful towards Ai for not only preparing this bunker for them all to be safe and live in peace so they can survive the start of the apocalypse and also because she had taught his daughter many things in order to make sure she could survive in this new way of life.

"Dad tomorrow we will be going out to search for more weapons. If we have to we will corner a police officer if we can find one that is alone. I will have you play the role of an injured person. Mai, you will protect my father from a hiding spot and I will attract the cop to follow me into an alleyway. If we can get by with just knocking him out that would be for the best. Our target will be three guns or more. Before the end of the month, we need a minimum number of guns for everyone here and as much ammo as we can possibly get." Ai explained her plan to everyone. She had used this plan many times to get food and other necessities from whichever idiot that followed her. "Any questions?"