Project Ami by Emiel Sleegers Page B

end!’ He lifts Ami up and walks out of the door and into the stairway. Carefully, he walks down the stairs and arrives at the ground floor. He opens the door slightly and looks around him to see if there are any KBs close by.
    There is no one; it is almost as if time has stood still. There is no shooting and no loud sounds. The only thing he can hear is his own heart, knocking loudly against his ribcage.
    He walks out of the skyscraper and there, not far from the entrance, he sees the resistance boss lay on the ground in a big pool of blood. It is not a pretty sight. Ryan looks away and walks past him. He begins to run through the streets and alleys towards where he left the car. With tears in his eyes, and heavily out of breath, he arrives at the car and, to his relief, finds everything is still how he left it.
    He carefully places Ami into the back of the car and gets in the driver’s seat. He starts the car and begins to drive on the highway, away from the city. He drives as fast as he can until he arrives at the road he and Ami walked down when they were on their way to the city. He drives in the direction of the village and through the streets. He sees the streets scattered with bodies—both KBs and humans.
    It’s like there had been a war going on.
    Ryan keeps driving, but soon turns left onto another tarmac road. After driving for about an hour, he arrives at the forest border. He drives through the forest as long as he can until the car gets stuck in between the trees. He then gets out and lifts Ami out of the truck. He walk through the forest with Ami in his arms.
    Ami is beginning to feel heavy, but Ryan ignores the pain and keeps on going without taking a break.
    He arrives at a hillside and walks along it. Then he sees the door of the house. The place he first met her. He kicks open the door and runs through the living room and into the hallway. He starts to cry again, but he pulls himself together and runs into one of the rooms. He throws everything from one of the metal tables and carefully lays Ami onto its surface.
    ‘Okay, everything will be alright. I can do this,’ he says to himself.
    He looks at Ami and strokes her hair. He then runs into one of the other rooms where there are old prototypes that look like Ami. He grabs one of the bodies that looks most like Ami and lays it on the ground. He then feels her chest and tries to find a way to open it; apparently, the chest plate can be opened by pushing against it in an upwards motion.
    Ryan is now looking at the heart of the AI. He carefully unplugs the wires; there is some liquid leaking from the heart, but the wires themselves close automatically and the liquid stays inside of the body.
    Ryan quickly gets up and, with the heart in his hands, carefully walks over to the room where Ami is. He lays the heart he is holding in a square metal bin that is standing on one of the tables, and then focuses his attention on Ami.
    He carefully walks over to her and, with all the care in the world, takes off her dress. With his heart pounding in his chest, he opens Ami’s chest plate. The chest plate opens differently to the other AI, but Ryan can see that it is all the same basic concept. He very carefully unplugs Ami’s heart; he can see the bullet hole that went straight through her, and he feels a pang in his own chest.
    He lifts the heart from her chest and lays it onto the table next to him. He then walks over to the metal bin and removes the heart. He walks back to Ami and very carefully places the heart in her chest and connects all the wires. He watches as the liquid fills the heart.
    And then he waits.
    Thirty seconds pass but still nothing happens.
    Ryan leans over Ami and says to himself, ‘Please. Please don’t leave me.’
    He starts to cry again, and a large tear rolls off his cheek and falls down on to Ami’s heart, and suddenly a little shock of electricity sparks when it comes into contact with the heart.
    Ryan is still crying, but then he