As they were leaving the house, Evelyn still took the time to look at the crushed rooftop and the burning garden remembering the life she spent in this house with her family.
At its sight, the only reaction she made was a sigh. A sigh of sorrow.
"Are you fine Evelyn?" Hope asked worried.
"I think I am..."
Hope did not insist despite Evelyn's sad face. "So, where are we heading to?"
"There's a side trip I would like to take before arriving at Karkaly."
"A side trip?"
Evelyn pulled a map from her backpack. It displayed the whole continent as well as the main cities within it including New Kroy.
Evelyn pointed a large red dot on the map.
"We are here near the ocean and we have to go all the way up there," She showed Hope the route to Karkaly which was on the upper part of the large continent.
"And where do you want to make a change in the itinerary?"
"Is that she's insightful. I want to stop by here on the road," Evelyn pointed an area quite far on the left from the initial itinerary.
"But it will take much more time to reach Karkaly..."
"Indeed. However, it is essential to enter the bastion."
"What do you mean?"
"I'll explain it on the road tomorrow. Currently, we need to join my secret spot on the woods nearby before the sun set," Evelyn stared at the horizon seeing the sun almost down.
"Then let's not waste any time!" Hope smiled.
The teenage girl smiled a bit in return and put her map on her backpack as they were leaving the neighbourhood.
At the end of the patio, there was a gigantic forest covering a great majority of the landscape and it was mostly composed of oaks.
Night began to slowly creep in on the mainland as the duo was entering the forest.
"Where are we going like this in the dark?" Hope asked following Evelyn closely.
"To a hideout I made years ago. You'll see what I mean when we'll arrive."
As they were in the darkness of the night, Hope asked Amy for night vision which it gave her immediately.
When Evelyn stopped and started to search around by lighting a match, Hope could not understand why she stopped as there was nothing in the vicinity.
Hope patted her partner on the shoulder. "What are you searching? I think I can help a bit this time."
"A rope on the ground. And it's not that I don't want your help but how would you know where—"
"Found it!"
Evelyn could not believe it as she knew it was buried and hidden with dirt to prevent her hideout from being discovered by robots. "How..."
"Luck I guess," Hope chuckled.
"That's absurd."
Amy replied despite the fact that Evelyn could not hear it. 'Of course not. She has night vision.'
'But she doesn't know it yet...'
A smirk appeared on Amy's robotic face. 'Yet? Hhmmm.'
'It's not the moment Amy, we can talk later,' Hope strongly pulled the rope.
As a result, the dirt hiding the rope revealed a large trapdoor covered with a thick layer of soil.
"Wow! It really was underneath the ground."
Evelyn sighed. "What were you expecting exactly?"
Still a match in her hand, the teenage girl went down in the pit protected by the trapdoor. She lighted up well-used candles before giving a sign to Hope for her to go down as well.
Once the trapdoor sealed for the night, Hope and Evelyn began to set up their camp.
The pit was not that large as the tent was almost not fitting but there was still some space to get up and walk near the tent.
"I'm going to bed Hope, you should follow my routine if you wish to travel with me," Evelyn laid down in her sleeping bag closing her red eyes.
Hope smiled ear to ear. "I'm coming."
In her sleeping bag next to Evelyn, Hope could not get any sleep.
Her gaze in the void but still looking at her hand in the air, she thought about the recent events that happened this day.
'Tell me, Amy...'
'Yes Hope?'
'Do you think that I'm not human like Evelyn mentioned earlier? I mean, what I did was completely beyond human capacity and I'm only realising it now but I might not be human after all.'
'Do you truly wish to know the exact answer to that question Hope?'
Hope clenched her fist which she was looking at. 'Yes, I do!'
'Well, you are what many researches called a supra-AI.'
Hope took a deep breath and clenched her fist against her chest. 'So, I'm an AI in the end? But I drank water, it doesn't make sense. Am I right?'
'You're not exactly an AI Hope. It is complicated to explain but I'll try to make it sound easy to understand. You are a kind of genetically modified organism except that many parts of your body are made out of metals including some muscles. Hence your inhuman strength and other intrinsic function like the night vision.'
'So, what does that makes me? An AI? A human?'
'You're made out of flesh and metals so I would say that it is kind of both at the same time.'
Hope leaned towards her new friend glaring at her peaceful face while she slept. 'You don't answer my question Amy...'
'I think that I might not be able to satisfy your curiosity this time Hope. I'm sincerely sorry for the trouble caused by my fault.'
The robotic bunny appeared again smiling to the blonde woman.
'However, you should smile. This is the only thing that could maintain you happy at any moment. Don't forget it Hope.'
Hope sighed. 'How do you want me to smile right now... I just cannot. Not after what I've heard. You said that I was a kind of genetically modified organism huh? So, are all my memories false?'
The robotic bunny did not answered Hope and stayed silent for a moment.
'Amy?'
'There is nothing about your memory being faked in my database and being a supra-AI gives you the advantage to doubt it at least. Mine was programmed so I am not well-placed to answer that question...'
'Sorry Amy... I didn't know about that. But if I understood it right, there might be a chance that my memory wasn't invented from scratch, right?'
'That is true Hope. Maybe that your current memory of past events was not affected by your origin.' Amy folded its fluffy ears on its face.
Hope then thought of her memories with her family on the secluded island in the middle of nowhere.
The long one-floored house she used to live in had nice yellow walls and was near a cliff where you can hear the waves crashing against the sharpen rocks.
It was a bright afternoon and the wind blew a little in the fields of flowers at the edge of the house.
Hope was sitting on the fine grass near the colourful flowers and some drying laundry, looking at the horizon with a black-haired girl next to her.
"So, Hope, do you have an idea of you want to do once you'll be a grown-up?" The girl asked.
"Yes! I wish to travel around the world and meet many different people!"
"That's it? I have to admit that I'm a bit disappointed about your dream Hope."
Hope grumbled. "What about yours that's so fantastic D-mon?"
The girl who was looking at the horizon with Hope suddenly turned her head towards her, fixing Hope's azure eyes with her golden ones.
"Other people are boring. I much prefer to be around my relatives like mother."
"But that isn't a dream, it's just your opinion..." Hope turned to face D-mon, her legs completely laid on the ground.
"My dream then, huh? I want to assist father in his work. He's always tired this time and I love when we spend time together..." D-mon looked at the horizon once again.
"I totally get it sis! I'll help you achieve your dream. After all, I too wish to spend more time with our family."
D-mon let a small smile appeared on her face. "Thanks Hope."
However, the blonde woman was brought back to reality by her partner Evelyn as she felt her body being shook ever so sigtly.
"Hope, Hope get up!" Evelyn murmured.
Hope rapidly opened her blue eyes. "I fell asleep?!"
"Sshh, I think I heard noises coming from above."
Hope spread her eyes wide and prepared to react to any possibility while Evelyn already got her revolver charged in one hand, a candle in the other one.
"Pack everything, we need to be gone this morning."
"Okay! Is it a robot?"
"Not sure, but it was pretty silent. It could be a runner," Evelyn gritted her teeth.
Hope grabbed the grey crowbar from Evelyn's garage. "Do you have a plan?"
"There nothing much we can do except going out of this hideout," Evelyn started to climb the ladder carved in the dry dirt.
"You're going first? It's too dangerous out there, let me go first Evelyn," Hope murmured.
"I'm taking responsibilities for both of us as you joined my group and I'm the leader, remember?"
Hope, finally prepared, nodded as Evelyn was pushing the trapdoor to open it a bit. As she did so, she scanned the vicinity of the hideout.
Out there was a man equipped with a shotgun pointing at Evelyn's face.
None of them moved and they were staring at each other with so much determination in their eyes that they probably could fight to death.
"Evelyn? What did you saw?"
But the teenage girl was not focused on Hope but on the man with a baseball cap on his head slowly progressing towards the hideout, his shotgun firmly held by his big hands.