"Xiao Ai, can you still get online?"
"It looks like I can Mama! But I'm getting hungry."
Aida pulled a charger from her backpack and plugged the laptop in. "Better?"
"Mm~ It's not as yummy, but Xiao Ai is a good girl and won't be picky." Xiao Ai nodded.
"Good girl. Get me a map of the city and draw a line from here to the airport. Try to route the path through as many tall buildings as you can."
"Okay~ give me one moment please."
Ace sat on the side, and a flash of surprise passed through his eyes and quickly disappeared.
"Done! Here Mama, you will need to pass by 10 big~ buildings and then it will be a 15 minute drive to get to the airport."
Patting the screen, she praised her daughter, "Great job! Now I need you to move into my watch."
"Muuu," Xiao Ai pouted, "I don't want to! It's tight and uncomfortable. It's not fun Mama"
[ :( ]
Gently comforting Xiao Ai, Aida explained, "Mama needs to do a lot of running but doesn't want Xiao Ai and Mama to separate so I am going to put you as close to me as possible. You don't want us to be separated forever, right?"
Xiao Ai went quiet for a while as Aida waited patiently, and eventually she gave a quiet "Okay." Aida sighed in relief and saw Xiao Ai had moved herself over to her watch. She had modified her watch in her spare time to have speakers so Xiao Ai could talk to her as well.
On the screen of her watch was a big white bun squished on the screen. Imagine squishing a white bun into a jar half its size, that is what Xiao Ai looked like right now.
"It's too tight here Mama~ Xiao Ai is a growing girl."
"Okay okay, it's just an emergency measure. I will try to move you out of there as soon as I can."
Next she turned to Ace with a gleam in her eye and asked, "Have you ever been tightrope walking?"
Turns out, Aida's plan was to tightrope walk to get between buildings. She foisted her servers onto her back and headed upstairs with Ace in tow.
The day was particularly breezy today, so as they got up there, Aida's long black hair fluttered with the wind. It was a beautiful sight, but Ace was in no condition to appreciate it. Rather, he trailed palely behind Aida.
In her eagerness to get to the airport and Ace's preoccupation with his fear of heights, they did not notice the person lying around the corner unconscious. Based on his flush expression, it's likely that he was infected and experiencing a fever so high that it knocked him out.
Ace was incredibly afraid of heights. Even sitting in airplanes was an extremely trying time for him, so the prospect of tightrope walking between buildings for the first time was an absolute nightmare for him.
Secretly laughing at Ace's plight, Aida started preparing for their "walk". Although she jokingly asked Ace if he'd ever tightrope walked, she had no real intention for an amateur to do this kind of high stakes tightrope walking. Instead, she was going to have something even more fun happen!
Finding multiple broomsticks from the janitor's closet, she checked the firmness and began tying them together from the rope she acquired in the lobby, attaching her bag of servers to one side of the pole.
Now for the tricky part. After ensuring that everything was secured properly, she took the hose that is used to clean the rooftop and tied it to the axe that she took from the lobby. "Step back Ace."
Ace, still caught up in his fear, didn't hear her at all. Rolling her eyes, she smacked his head and dragged him in the opposite direction of the unconscious person and missed seeing him yet again.
After ensuring Ace was far enough, she started swinging the axe tied to a hose around her head like a cowboy. Her intention was to loop the axe securely around the rail in the building 15 meters away.
After many revolutions, she finally built up enough momentum. Squaring her hips, she threw the axe towards the building. "..." It was short by 7 meters!!
Sighing in exasperation, she slowly pulled the axe back up to try again. After checking to make sure the axe to hose connection was secure, she once again started swinging the axe above her head. She was determined to get it this time. Narrowing her eyes, squaring her hips, she threw the axe.
This time... it didn't even make it off the building! It was embedded into the door that they walked in from.
"Hehe~ Mama has no talent for this at all~"
Blushing hard, Aida glared at Xiao Ai and responded, "I can do it."
"Mmhm~ Mama can do anything! Xiao Ai is cheering you on!" [^_^]
Unwilling to let her precious daughter be disappointed, she decisively switched to her nothingness state for the second time today. In that state, she indifferently looked at the rail, grabbed the hose and axe, and threw it over. The axe flew across the 15 meters with just enough strength to pass over the rail before wounding itself around the rail 5 more times. Perfect!!
Seeing that it was successful, Aida shifted back to her normal state and gave Xiao Ai a smug look.
"Ehhhh that's cheating Mama! You can use your hypersensory state!"
"Hehe there were no rules! Xiao Ai, you must learn this. In order to survive in this world, you must be ruthless and disregard useless rules. All you need is to maintain your own sense of morals and ethics." Aida patiently taught her.
She tied the other end of the hose to the railing on this building and tugged on it to make sure it was secure. Once done, she went and dragged Ace over, directing him on what to do.
"See this end of the broom? Hold onto it. You'll need to hold onto it closer to me to counterbalance the weight on the other side."
Ace, so fearful for his life yet unable to refuse anything Aida requested, complied and hugged the stick at the quarter way point.
On one end of the stick was Aida's servers and luggage, and on the other end was Ace. Looking satisfied with the product, Aida held the stick out and climbed onto the rail preparing the walk across.
"Whatever you do, don't look down. I don't want you to start moving around because you are squeamish and cause us to fall off from the 51st floor." warned Aida.
Ace cooperatively squeezed his eyes closed, hugging the stick for dear life. He looked like an animal tied to a stick that's being prepared to be roasted for dinner.
If only he had looked up now, he would have noticed an Enraged standing by the door. The unconscious person laying on the roof was an infected person who now reached the Enraged stage.