Melting Supply and Baited Planning

It was hard to say what was more worrying: knowing that something was skulking around or nothing happening on the whole path to the isolated room. Even the overextended path of old-school copper wire was still fine.

Again, hard to know if it was something to worry about or to sigh in relief right now.

The metallic box was siphoning more energy than it had to due to its rushed making and, in a while, it was likely that the cable would melt, but it was working. The waste meant that the converter would likely melt soon though.

“We are back, Lily!” Amy shouted as she returned to the other members of the group, making the three women inside the room go to fighting stances. They soon came to their senses and took their hands off their, arguably useful, weapons as the sudden scare gave way to the pink girl and the lawyer.

“Don’t go sneaking up on us, Amy!” Lily was the first to speak while also taking her hand off the concealed weapon on her dress. “Don’t you know we could’ve messed something up if you go scaring us like this?”

The weird idol had many ways to avoid making noise or to hide, but she couldn’t see any of the absurdities she had on the lawyer’s kit. And still, he hadn’t made much of a noise ever since they started their way back in a way that a lawyer shouldn’t. She was even starting to think that he may have been sent to murder someone...

If it wasn’t for the fact that he didn’t matter much with the conditions of the deal made by the professor, she would even worry about him. Now though, he had wasted more of the idol’s processing power than she would like to give, and it was time to ignore the thin man for a while.

Recharging her batteries by playing around with Lily was more important right now. Maybe even fooling with the twins a little more while she was at it.

“But Mr. Lawyer was trying so hard to not make a noise that I had to, you know? He is very good at being stealthy from what I see, so it would be a waste not to use it…”

“You’re overexaggerating… I was just worried, or something…”

“I do not overexaggerate. My remarks are always on point, you know?”

“If what you say is ‘always on point’, then this world is much weirder than it seems to be.” Shiro added without losing focus on the papers she was organizing. They were almost done there with only a few last texts having to be scanned and translated.

“Don’t we have a theory that some super-soldier was writing reports about a war inside a freaking pressurized room? Are you sure the world isn’t actually that weird, Shiro?” Kuro added as she held her temples over what they read from the translated files. “Heck! From what I know, this wire Amy’s carrying around could very well be connected with a nuclear power plant, and it wouldn’t even be weird by now…”

“Oh, so you noticed?” Amy asked before giving her cable to the black-haired twin. “Then, if you will, could you attach this to the safe? We should have ten minutes before something melts, you know?”

“Say what?!”

“Oh, you managed to make the power plant work, Amy? Well done.”

“No, no, it was working all fine when I got there, you see?”

“Say what?!”

“It was working already…? That’s worrying.” Lily continued while also not addressing the confused woman that had to deal with the time bomb given to her. “Is it safe then? No weird radiation or something that could cause problems to our goals?”

“Nothing to worry about. I would even say that it gave us some very interesting bits to work with, you know? We even found a weird robot that tried to kill Mr. Lawyer.”

“Again... Say what?!”

“I’d love to not have to deal with something of the kind, by the way.” Benjamin also went over the one person that couldn’t wait for an explanation. “We brought the thing’s head just in case, but I’m sure it gave me a huge repair fee to deal with…”

“Not sure if it will be useful, but it would look very nice in a museum stand, you know? An ancient robot skull sounds like an interesting attraction! Even chat agrees with me.”

“That’s… Why?!”

“Are you sure about making these questions while holding this thing, Kuro?” The calmer twin asked with her eyes still focused on the documents. “I mean, didn’t she say it would melt soon or something?”

“Oh! Hey, shut this thing down!”

“Too late. Deal with it. I will be talking with my partner over there. Good luck.”

Amy then pulled Lily away from the other members of the group after machine-firing her lines without giving an opening to arguments. She had ways to deal with an emergency, so it wasn’t as if the danger was too big, but there was no fun in telling everyone that. Having a meeting with her duo was more important right now either way.

They could be attacked anytime now, so risking a little to distract the other while she and Lily got on par with each other was the first priority. Seeing how focused on their tasks the twins were and how tired the lawyer leaning on a corner of the room was, having a private conversation wouldn’t be a problem.

“I see you found something, right?” Lily asked right away with both her own camera and the feed to chat going off with her idol persona. “Was it whatever that was watching us before or did we have another problem running around?”

“My biggest problem was not knowing what those two were…”

“Amy…” The purple-clothed woman eyes down her shorter partner who then changed demeanors right away.

“I mean… I am unsure of what, but there is someone roaming around this place. I will send you the details, but that is not the most important right now…”

“That’s worrying, but alas… What is the big problem then?”

“Did those two…?”

“The REAL reason. Don’t go messing around now, okay?”

“But… Ok… That head in there, you see?” The pink girl quietly bobbed her head towards the robot head the lawyer set aside in a corner of the room. “It has a very decent tracker inside. One that I left running.”

“We’re keeping it low, so I’ll hear your reasoning before chopping your head then.”

“I love how clear-minded you are, Lily.” A beaming smile hit on the more cynical idol with the non-answer of her partner, but it only took a strong stare for a proper answer to come. “I am unsure of how they do it, but I seem to have no way to detect whatever was watching us, you see? Being snuck by is a pain, so we can somehow predict their arrival like this. More so, there is a chance I will be able to detect the receiver from the tracker, you know?”

“I see… That’s actually a good idea, although only if we can reliably deal with whatever comes from this. Are you sure we can deal with it?”

“It may be a little of a gamble, but I feel there will be only old military robots to beat up. At least, if they are all like the one I saw before, there will not be any problem dealing with them. We may end up against a lot of them though…”

“Where’s the news in that? Every time we go around, I either don’t have to do much or we end up against an army of random security robots, right?" Lily noted by hinting at how, even if she wasn't doing it on purpose, Amy would always end up fighting robots when they went on some assignment that had them. Lily was even starting to think that her quirky partner had something against AI. "Either way, we should wonder from which side these are since they look like military…”

“Side? What do you mean?”

“The papers we got here talk about it, or at least hint at something like it. Some war or battle was happening in this city before it went down, so these old robots should be part of one of the armies.” Lily explained that based on the papers she spent the last hour or two trying her best to somehow read. “Considering where we are and how the documents say that the enemy was coming from the other side of the city, I say they were likely from the defensive army. And if my guess is right, then we may have to deal with many more than a few...”

“Oho, that looks fair indeed. I also felt that this side of the city seemed to be the farthest from the battlefield due to the weird huge nuclear reactor standing still... I mean, it is likely one of the two power supplies this city has, right?”

“Leaving a strategic target like this would be dumb… If it wasn’t a nuclear one. Who the hells would bomb a nuclear reactor?! You would lose the damn city like this!”

The slight shout drew the attention of the other three people in the room, but Lily waved them a ‘don’t worry’ almost right away. The twins were more focused on their tasks either way, so it didn’t do much for them. Only Benjamin was still paying some attention to the two idols, but he was still a little too tired of the situation to be bothered by it.

He also was very focused on writing his report about the interesting and weird things he saw during the expedition. Something that Amy would need to take a look at later just in case.

“Fair enough. Still, I am sure whatever attacked this city came from the other side. Even in ruins, it would not be hard to notice signs of battle from where we came if a war happened here.”

“I’ll talk with the girls and the professor about this later, but now we have other things to worry about…”

“Yes, I need to know if those two tried anything funny with you, right? It would make swaying Richard even harder if there was too much flirting with strangers circling on the net, you know? I can even…”

“Why are you so focused on this now? Being meddlesome is pretty much what you do, but there’s a time for it… And it’s not like if you didn’t know how bad things are already.”

Even if she tried very hard, anything that happened in low-security areas of the city was inside Amy’s awareness. Even without her trying to look around, and even if Lily didn’t know how it worked, the pink girl would still end up knowing it all. Especially if it was something she was interested in, just like the things related to the years of love-hunt her duo was stuck into.

Her biggest problem was the fact that this duo of hers was very against any kind of matchmaking or direct support.

“I… I would not call it bad, you know? Only some work and talking would…”

“Talking won’t bring the tailor-made nice guy that a certain bastard used to try and woo me come back, will it? And again, that’s for later. Work comes first, after that, you can pay attention to someone else’s love life…”

“I would if you let me… Be known that I can hunt whoever you wish to meet.”

“Shut up for now, okay? I don’t wanna get pissed with you right now. And we have to worry about those damn robots coming, don’t we?”

“Fine… I called the professor already, so it is only a matter of hoping he will arrive before we are attacked.” Amy gave up, although very unwillingly to do so, and then continued. “I say you keep on doing what you were doing, just pay attention to those two there trying anything, and I keep watch outside. There must not be way too many, and we are in a very closed area.”

“It’s close and they liked saw you breaking one of the robots already…”

“They saw Mr. Lawyer breaking it, you know? I was working in the reactor.”

“Really? Unexpected… Anyway, one of the robots broke without causing any damage, so, unless whatever controlling them is quite dumb, I don’t think they’ll attack where numbers won’t help. Chances are, they don’t even have that many androids either way…”

“Fair enough. Should we warn everyone just in case?”

“Probably. I think it’ll be some trouble, but it should be better than having them walk around with no idea of the possible danger.”

“Okay. Make it theatric though. It should garner a good amount of buzz if we do it right and not worry our clients too much.”

“Sounds good to me. Good luck out there, Amy.”

“I need no luck! Just pay attention to those…”

“Shut up and go! And stop worrying about the twins for no reason.”

“Fine… I will be back in a while everyone!” Amy shouted as she left the corner where she and Lily were talking, heading to the exit while giving some last warnings. “We shall try out the metal box when I am back.”

Then, at the same time as her partner started to explain the situation to the twins and the lawyer, Amy went on skipping her way toward the entrance to the ruins. She was leaving most of the drones back this time as a way to keep watch on the group being left behind.

She was hoping they wouldn’t be needed and she wouldn’t need to rush back though…