But he couldn’t refuse to go.
A-Ka entered the conference hall, which was packed with people. From all four sides came the roar of a crowd before the myriad of steel doors fell shut, trapping tens of thousands of people in this great room.
A strong light turned on, so bright that the humans couldn’t keep their eyes fully open. That burning white light shining out from the darkness struck fear into their hearts. Two robotic guards escorted a human to the center of the stage, and a clone appeared right afterward.
A-Ka froze. The person on that stage was wearing a sackcloth robe, and he stood there with his feet bare and his hands bound by a pair of magnetic handcuffs. It was none other than Heishi, whom he had rescued from the ocean just a few hours earlier!
“The police found him in front of the access stair that leads to the waste container,” the clone announced to the gathered people. “This human of unknown origin does not have a designation number, nor a section that he belongs to. He knows nothing. In the process of resisting arrest, he killed two enforcers. According to the first law of the Human Control Regulations, he should be put to death.”
A-Ka held his breath.
“But he told us that he came here with the goal of finding a human, and this human is among you right now,” the clone said, evenly and placidly. “If you are here, please step forward and explain the origins of this person.”
The crowd of people began to whisper, and A-Ka’s heart nearly leaped out of his throat. He could hardly think. Didn’t he tell Heishi not to follow him? What exactly was going on?
A robotic guard’s arm rotated around, revealing a magnetic slicer, which hovered near Heishi’s head.
Heishi lifted his eyes to watch the buzzing blue magnetic slicer in front of his face. The hexagonal high-voltage beams sizzled and popped. All that was needed was one wave of an arm, and Heishi’s head would be cut into six pieces.
“I’ll give all of you ten more seconds,” the clone said. “If the person he’s colluding with doesn’t step up, then this human will be disposed of, and we will begin to investigate the entire Ant Nest.”
“Warning. Commencing with disposal procedure in ten, nine, eight…”
Heishi ignored that robotic guard, turning his gaze instead to stare at the group of people below the stage. His expression was standoffish, but his eyes were searching. The crowd began to quietly gasp in shock. This innocent man on the stage clearly didn’t know that his headless corpse was about to fall to the ground.
“Six, five, four…”
“Wait.” A-Ka took a step forward. “It was…”
He didn’t even have a chance to lay claim to this stranger when Heishi whipped around. With one kick, he sent the guard flying before leaping toward A-Ka. The entirety of the hall exploded in chaos. A-Ka hadn’t yet recovered his wits before Heishi landed in front of him.
“…An unexpected incident,” A-Ka finished.
Streaks of light flew toward them, and A-Ka shouted, “Get down!”
A-Ka pushed Heishi toward the ground as the interior of the hall darkened. A moment later, Heishi righted himself and lifted A-Ka by his collar.
“Come with me,” Heishi said.
“We’ll die!” A-Ka protested. “Don’t attack them head-on!”
Two flying guards came at them from the left and the right, and Heishi turned again on the spot, executing a beautiful roundhouse kick. The flying guards were swept aside, smashing into the wall with booming explosions.
A-Ka was struck dumb. He had only seen this kind of skill once in his study materials. It was a kind of ancient martial art!
“H-Heishi!” A-Ka was just about to tell him to surrender when the doors to the right opened. Robotic guards swarmed in, but Heishi charged forward instead of backing up, rushing into the tunnel that the mechanical guards had come from.
The sirens wailed loudly, and A-Ka thought, It’s over, we’re done for. Everything had happened so fast that he hadn’t been able to react in time.
“What is this place?” Heishi asked.
A-Ka came to a quick decision. “Run toward the end of the tunnel!” Grabbing A-Ka, Heishi rushed where he was told, and A-Ka shouted again, “Turn left!”
The two of them turned at a breakneck speed, slamming into the person around the corner. By now, the entire Ant Nest had been alerted by the sirens that were blaring from the main hall, and all of the doors had been shut. A-Ka still held onto a thread of hope, however, that when they arrived at the living area, they could rush toward the garbage chute and escape that way. With how things had turned out, this was his only option.
When Heishi stopped in his tracks, A-Ka felt a tug of worry. At the end of the tunnel, in front of the sole exit to the Ant Nest from the garbage chute, there was a clone—and behind the clone, there were two Exterminators.
“D-don’t attack. I mean it. No matter what, you must not attack…”
The humanoid Exterminators were a type of android specially made to take down humans, and they had been outfitted with infrared tracking shotguns. If they pulled them out in the narrowness of this tunnel, Heishi and A-Ka’s corpses would be on the ground in seconds.
Heishi also instinctively sensed the danger, and he took a step back. But even more robotic guards had blocked the path behind them. Up front were the clone and the two Exterminators, and behind was a whole troop of robotic guards carrying magnetic handcuffs.
“Seems like you’ve caused quite a problem, brat.”
A-Ka couldn’t help taking a step back too as he recognized that the clone was the one who had demanded the navigation chip from him. Unfortunately, his back pressed up against the muzzle of a robotic guard’s gun.
“What exactly is going on?” another clone asked.
A-Ka immediately turned around and said, “Wait, it’s me! The person this stranger wants to find is me!”
Four robotic guards came over, pinning A-Ka between them, before putting magnetic handcuffs on him and locking a laser headgear around his neck. A-Ka used his gaze to signal to Heishi that he shouldn’t resist.
Heishi didn’t say a word.