Return (1)

Anna reappeared on the screen while Arnold was still adjusting to what was going on. It said in a womanly but slightly robotic voice, "If you have any questions. Please don't hesitate to contact me. The retrieval robot is in the process of getting clothes and the serum for you. An AI chip was already implanted into your brain while you were being repaired inside the lifepod. You can access it by directly thinking 'Turn On'. Also, we have synced your artificial right eye with the AI chip. You can now use your right eye as an interface."

The retrieval robot came back with a pair of clothes and a syringe filled with a disgusting mucous green liquid. Arnold wore his clothes. It was a simple white cotton T-shirt and a pair of black performance pants.

Arnold guestured for the robot to help him with the injection. He asked, "Are you going to inject it in my upper arm?"

The robot nodded. Arnold raised the sleeves of his left arm, allowing the robot to come near. The robot immediately penetrated Arnold's skin without any warning and injected the mucous liquid into him. Arnold did not even have time to react before the robot released the syringe and took it away. He took it and threw it in an incinerator trash can.

Suddenly, Arnold felt pain throughout his whole body. He groaned, unconsciously falling to the ground to endure the pain. Every cell in his body seemed to scream. He closed his eyes and bore through it, hoping the pain would end soon.

After 15 minutes, the pain finally stopped. Arnold stood up to find that he had no idea what his esper power was.

"Anna, is it possible for you to tell me what my powers are?" Arnold asked.

The supercomputer with an average female face displayed on the giant monitor shook her massive head, making the whole scene seemingly comical. "I'm afraid not, Arnold. With the technology inside this lab, we have no way of knowing what your powers are. You can only discover your powers the traditional way."

Arnold shook his head in disappointment. The traditional way of discovering a person's esper powers when their genes were activated was to face extreme danger. One the primordial insticts of a human being kicks in to protect him or herself, the esper ability would be automatically activated to repel the danger. However, such a method was, as prescribed, extremely dangerous and potentially fatal. Adrian could go back to base and enter the esper activation chamber, but he would not be able to explain how a fully grown teenager suddenly activated his genes.

Adrian wanted to stay and take a look around, but he needed to head back to base in order to take care of his family. Also, all of the zombie cores he obtained on the way here was lost since they were within the backpack that was still back in the cave. Most of his weapons were left there as well.

"Anna, I need to get some weapons, accessories such as a backpack and, if you have them, zombie cores as well. Do you have them?"

"Yes. I'll directly transfer the directions into your AI chip. Please have a look after you completed the activation of your AI chip."

Arnold almost forgot about the biochip inside his brain. He instantly thought, 'Turn on'.

Suddenly, his right eye was blurred and a message appeared, fading out his vision.

"Welcome." The AI said inside his mind. At the same time, the word 'Welcome' appeared in front of his right eye as well.?

"I am AI v.09.1294839. Thank you for choosing me as your product. Can I please have your name? This name is what I will call you in the future. If you refuse to enter a name, I'll simply call you Master."

Arnold thought 'refuse' in his mind.

"Hello, Master. If you would be so kind, please give me a name as well."

Arnold thought for a while. Since the voice of the AI was one of a small child, and the fact that it is a mechanical object, I will call it 'Andy' (shortened from Android).

"From now on, you will be called Andy." I thought.

The word 'Andy' appeared in his right eye.

"Thank you for giving me such a lovely name, Master. You can configurate me my thinking 'Settings'. Otherwise, I will operate in the default mode. Shall I give you an introductions of my functions?"

Arnold nodded. For the next hour, Andy gave Arnold a brief overview of all of the AI's functions, from zooming in and out through his right eye, to identifying almost all organisms, to calculations, etc. Afterwards, Arnold finally asked, "Anna have sent you a map of this place, can you please open it?"

"Yes, Master." Andy said.

A 3D map was generated right in front of Arnold's right eye. There was a bright red dot signalling his location. He was located 5 floors underground, and the places he needed to go were scattered all throughout the map with green dots.

Arnold minimized the map to the bottom right corner of his right eye, allowing him to see what was in front of him and be able to navigate at the same time. First, he headed to the clothing room, which was on B1 floor, close to the exit.

He walked through a corridor and took a few turns before arriving in front of an elevator. He took the elevator up four floors. Then, he walked through another few corridors before arriving at the clothing room.

The clothing room was rather large and was filled with many different clothes. Most of them were lab coats. However, there were some casual clothes located at the corner of the room. Above the hangers were many different bags. Arnold took a rather large backpack that reached from his waist to the top of his head. The backpack was colored in camouflage, with army green being the main color along with sections of brown and grey.

Arnold then took a few sets of clothes for his whole family. He took 6 sets of t-shirts and pants, which was enough for him and his brother, and he took a few dresses for his mother. Arnold simply stuffed them in his backpack before leaving.

Arnold then headed to a storage room on a research floor where most of the zombie cores were located. He took the elevator down 8 floors and entered the storage room after walking for awhile. Inside the storage room, there were many glowing spheres -- they were the zombie cores. Each sphere had a slightly different color, with the colors being brighter the farther above they were located on the shelves. The brighter colors represented a higher quality core.

Arnold took a whole bunch of the lowest quality cores -- level 5 cores -- and only a few level 4 cores. If he returned to the base with high quality cores, he would not be able to explain how a talentless, esper-less teenage like himself found so many of the high quality cores.

Later, he went to the medical bay. He wanted to find medicine for his mother and spare medicine for himself. He also needed an emergency medical kit. "Andy, I need to find some Class 5 gene medicine and a range of Class 1-5 stem cell medicine. Where do I find them?"

"Please head to row AA-34 for Class 5 gene medicine, all stem cell medicines are located in row BB-1."

"Thank you."

I went to the designated rows and retrieved several boxes of medicine. I placed them inside the backpack gently to prevent the syringes from breaking.

Finally, he headed to the weapons room. There were weapons rooms located in every floor. However, the largest weapons room was located in B1, next to the clothing room. It seemed that the designers of this place expected people to return from the outside with weapons in their hands, so they placed the two rooms next to each other for convenience sake.

The weapons room was massive. It was much larger than the clothing room for sure. Arnold found a section for explosive, a section for sub-machine guns, a section for pistols, a section for cold weapons, etc. Arnold headed towards the explosives section first. He took two grenades and placed them in the two outer pockets of the backpack. The pockets were originally used to hold water bottles, but Arnold had to improvise.

Then, he went to the cold weapons section. He took a few swiss army knives and threw it into his backpack. Then, he took two fighting knives that were strapped in a holster and hung it on the belt loops on both sides of his hips. Finally, he went to the pistol section and threw a standard pistol into his backpack. He took another pistol and a few magazine filled with cartridges and placed it in a holster. Then, he removed his t-shirt and strapped on the holster around his shoulders.

After clothing himself, he headed to the canteen to get 10 bottles of water and several packs of nutrition bars and nutrition tablets. He threw them in the backpack. He was finally ready to leave the laboratory.

There were multiple exits from the laboratory, all of them snaking underground towards different directions. Arnold asked Andy which exit to take.

"Where are you planning to go, Master?" Andy asked.

"I'm heading back to base." Arnold replied.

"Calculating. The fastest way to get back to the base would be through exit 5. After exiting, it would take around 3 days to arrive at the base." Andy showed a 2D map of the area in his right eye. There was a red line heading forwards to the abyss. Arnold zoomed out. He kept on zooming until he found the base on the opposite end of the map from his current location. Then, he tried to remember the way he came here. Then, he took a look at the map again.

"No, this route is suboptimal." Arnold said. He used his mind to highlight areas that were too dangerous for him and told Andy, "we cannot enter any of these areas. The previous route you calculated passed through too many of these. Please find another route back to base."

"Acknowledge. Recalculating... Please head out in exit 11. It would take approximately 5 days to return to base."

Arnold took a look at the map and nodded. He headed out, leaving the laboratory behind.