Confronting Wills

"If a bio-machine were cut they would bleed and touched there would be warmth. However, all aspects of the body's attributes are significantly increased due to the engineering and alterations made. While a bio-machine is certainly stronger than a normal human, they are weaker than their older machine counterparts. This is due to the fact that the bio-machines do not contain the mechanical parts that the standard machines do.

"The bio-machines may be weaker than their brethren, but weakness is not always a negative quality…"

Herbert Stein, Machine Historian -

"Asami…" Satoru was wandering the halls with the hours closing down till he had to make a decision. Today was the day; he would get a call eventually letting him know that everything was finished. After everything that he had seen and heard he started getting a clearer picture of what was really happening. 'I used to see things so clearly. I knew where I stood firmly without backing down. Now it's no longer an academic debate of ideologies and philosophies. It all affects and means something to each person. I can't stand on the sidelines any longer thinking I can survive being neutral. I'm already involved…'

There was a vibration at the side of his leg. It was the signal that he had been waiting for. They were ready for him. Satoru rushed down the hall with thoughts of Asami running through his mind. He tried to fight it and keep his focus, but they were too strong, breaking his concentration. When he arrived at the room Natsuko was already in the room waiting next to Yuu.

"Well the work is finished," Yuu said, stating the obvious. He looked narrowly at Satoru wanting an answer before proceeding any further. Yuu turned away from the console, completely crossing his arms. "Have you made a decision?"

"I know that machines are something more. I've always believed that, though recently I guess I was too afraid to admit that anymore knowing that with everything happening in the city and world that I was alone. Being alone scared me, but I know now that even if I am going to be alone I know this is the right path." He knew that he didn’t like where the world was going. The light needed to be shown to them again and he would stand with the few people willing that were trying to hold together everything before all was lost. He didn’t know what he could do to change people's minds, but he would try.

"Very well. We don't have much time then." Yuu returned to the console activating the panel. Satoru could see in the distance of the other room that it was the wake up command. Asami would be awake again.

Satoru could sense the urgency in Yuu's voice that there was something going on. He was rushing to get through all of the commands as though his life depended on it. "Why is that? What's going on?"

Yuu pulled up a news feed on a smaller monitor showing current break news. Satoru could not believe what was happening. "The summit with the machines was agreed upon." In the matter of a week the governments of the world have made the decision to hear out the machine's request for talks. There were severe tensions though as the bombings seemed to be increasing in activity leading up to the summit. Many wanted to back out of the talks, but Japan seemed to be holding everyone together to push them forward. "They will be meeting today. All of the machines and leaders of the world will be there."

"What's that got to do with me?" Satoru tried to figure out why a summit would have any meaning to him. It was an important step for the world if they could actually come to a peace arrangement.

Natsuko jumped up interrupting their conversation when the security feed popped up on one of the monitors. "Sir! There is a security breach!" There were soldiers storming the building again, but this time they seemed to be headed towards the underground facility.

"What? Damn, Kiyoshi is more resourceful and determined than I imagined." Yuu could see that their position had been compromised. They were going to be forced into a final confrontation with Kiyoshi and the military. He began racing over the panel with his fingers trying to get as much information about the strike force.

"What's going on?" Satoru had thought that this was an unknown facility. He didn’t know about it and he doubted that very many people did. Yet that didn’t change the fact that they were coming now.

"Kiyoshi has found this location and he's brought the real military with him this time."

Satoru was a little confused by what he meant by saying real military. The last time that he had seen them a week ago they looked like the military then. If they weren’t the actual military he feared what it was going to be like this time around. "Then what did he have last time?"

"That was the self defense force," Yuu said as he relayed orders out to those that were in the facility. Some of them were escaping, but most were staying to fight it out. This was going to be different from last time. The self defense force was differently trained and equipped. It was all that Kiyoshi had managed to gather on short notice with the city in chaos. "This is the primary military. He means to take the two of you at all costs."

"Kiyoshi…" Satoru said as he saw Kiyoshi appear on the security monitor before it was shot out. He was coming and they would have to face each other again.