The white-haired girl handed Yoku and Adam some coffee. Hours had passed since, and the soldiers had returned to Stadth, knowing they could search no longer. They gave up—as Arial waved his goodbye.
We found ourselves in a large compartment room. "This is my designated rest spot," she said. The walls were covered with wooden panels, though the structure beneath was clearly concrete and steel. "Be sure to rest," she added, gesturing toward the fireplace at the center.
"Mya tried her best creating this place to make sure we are comfortable" the girl continued, fingers fidgeting against her lap, legs swinging back and forth. "She designated every possible room, in every lifetime, for every clone who took care of this facility. And this... I chose this one."
Yoku leapt onto the couch, bouncing as he grinned. It was as if he'd never known joy until this moment. "I'll never leave this place. This is even better than Rixton Island!"
She smiled silently, her expression soaking in the moment. Who knew how long she'd been alone—perhaps since she was a child, maintaining the facility with no one to talk to.
Adam's stomach growled—loudly. Embarrassed, he sighed. I'm hungry... that fight really did a great skele-ton to my bones, he thought to himself.
The room was pristine, maintained by robots. Not even a speck of dust or mossy scent lingered. Someone had worked hard to keep it spotless every single day.
"You must be hungry... Lor—I mean, Adam," the girl said with a slight stumble. She tiptoed away to search for food. Eventually, she returned with a bundle of items and set them on the table. "Here."
Yoku quickly drank the coffee and munched hungrily on a stack of breadsticks. Adam dipped his into the coffee, savoring the flavor while the white-haired girl quietly read a book.
Adam watched her for a moment. He still hadn't wrapped his head around her odd name. "Hey... what's your name again?"
She muttered, "Alright, I'll repeat it—but don't forget it this time. I know humans have... lesser cognitive attributes than I do, but I'm 0-04. It means I'm the fourth-generation human organism assigned to this facility."
Adam sighed. "No, I mean... change your name."
She fell silent for a moment, then grinned. "Hehe, how about Yuri?"
"Too short... and also, huh.. thats a coincidence"
the girl was confused...? "What?"
"Well... i have a friends that's name yuri"
"Yurri," she teased. Adam was, apparently, easy to tease.
"Oh come on... that's the same name."
"Alright then." With a snap of thought: "Yuruki. My name will be Yuruki. Is that better? Not 0-04?"
Adam tilted his head. What is she doing right now?
Yoku had stood up, looking at a deactivated lamp and a cabinet. "How did you create it?"
"It's basica—"
Before she could finish, Yoku started disassembling the lamp and rummaging through the cabinet, pulling out socks and strange artifacts. "Okay! And this is too comfy."
Yuruki's face turned red. Annoyed, she hurled breadsticks at him and began smacking him with a pole. "Hey! Do you have any manners?! Don't take—"
Yoku ignored her, still exploring the room like a game character raiding an NPC house. Their playful scuffle grew into a full-blown argument.
"STOP! Were you born humans raised without ethics?!" she shouted, chasing him.
Yuruki grabbed Adam's shirt, tugging at the sleeve. "Adam, make this monkey stop!!!"
A few hours later, we toured the facility. AM robots tended to every corner—small branches of operations, music rooms, resource production areas, food labs, expanding sectors, and even vast stores of preserved knowledge.
Yoku grabbed Adam's camera and began photographing everything: ornate blue crystals, glass-walled rooms, soft melodies playing in the distance, robots tending to crops, birds flying, animals roaming. Eventually, they found a small chamber dedicated to preserving plant life.
Adam's breath caught. Damn... thankfully the soldiers didn't find this. Otherwise, I'd have had to pay them buckets.
Days and months had passed in this apocalyptic world. At last, Adam saw something familiar—grass.
Yoku, silent, snapped one photo. He had never seen anything like it, having lived his whole life in the mega city—desolate and gray.
Yuruki sighed. "You can enter... but please, I beg you—take care of it."
Silence.
Adam replied, "Nah... it's better to leave it alone."
They walked through the facility on a transport platform—something like a moving rail. Adam watched the walls pass by.
"It's strange how geniuses are born into this world," Yuruki said. "I once believed evolution and adaptation were the foundations of life. But somehow, century after century, millennia even, there are humans who equal—or even surpass us—our creators."
She stared ahead with a blank expression.
Adam sighed. Did I change back then? "Hey, Yoku."
Yoku looked at him, puzzled.
"Have I changed?"
Yoku smirked. "You're still the same. The guy who's too greedy."
Oh...
-_- Yeah, I'm greedy... But why do I want to go to the top of the tower? What's calling me? Its as if im getting tugged by it He sighed. It feels like there's something up there. Even Yoku doesn't feel it... I guess I just want to.
Yuruki's eyes lit up. She tugged at Adam's hand. "C'mon! I have something to show you," she said, smiling.
She led them deeper into the facility, toward a hidden underground chamber.
Duck... she's not gonna kill us down here, right? Adam's face was sweating.
The clean, futuristic halls slowly gave way to worn machinery. The ground shimmered with glowing blue moss. Every step lit up the floor with a soft pulse of blue and gray.
They passed broken bookshelves and pods filled with glowing violet masses. Yuruki entered a fractured room, littered with broken cabinets and rusted equipment.
She sighed. "This place is truly falling apart. We can't extract any more resources, and we're running out of materials to replace the damage. This city... it's becoming empty."
Adam and Yoku stared as she picked up an orange glowing ball of sphere with handprints of yellow lines of code.
She handed it to Adam. "You want to explore the city, right? Kanazawa's work included railway access to the upper stratum. You can reach even the tower's peak."
Then she gave him a yellow glowing orb. Huff.."Just show this to an Autonomous Maintenance Robot. It'll guide you."
Yoku just stared at him, "Well your just saying this, so we can quickly off ourselves going to the last stratum ceiling quickly"
Yuruki smiled. "Well, it's not my fault if you end up dying on the way there…"
Adam raised an eyebrow. "If that happens, I guess we're all doomed too. But I'm hoping there's something out there before this city collapses and takes everyone with it."
She chuckled, a smirk playing on her lips. "And besides, heading straight to the center of the tower? It's like walking straight into an ant's nest. You'll get torn apart by the maladaptive battle bots inside."
With a teasing glint in her eyes, she handed the orb to Adam. "So, in a way, I'm helping you. I'm clearing out as many variables that could kill you as possible!"
They left the crumbling depths of the underground. The pavement above was cracked and broken, showing signs of slow, inevitable decay.