Project Ami by Emiel Sleegers Read Free Book Online Page B

sees two guards talking a few feet away on the corner of another hallway. Luckily, they are facing away, with their backs to Ryan.
    He sees an opportunity.
    He slowly crawls outside the room and, without making a sound, he approaches the guards. He takes a deep breath and then jumps up, running at the guards, and quickly stabs one in his back. The sound of a spine cracking echoes, with the guard almost instantly dying. Before the other guard can even consider what just happened, Ryan turns to him and slices his throat. The guard falls down, desperately gasping for air. It does not take long before everything falls quiet.
    Ryan has tears in his eyes, brought on by what he has just done. He is covered in blood, but he shakes off his emotions and looks around to see where he needs to go next. He sees that, on the walls, they have spray-painted arrows with text. He sees one arrow that points to the entrance and two other arrows detailing the office and laboratory, pointing right. Ryan decides to walk in the direction of the office and laboratory. He walks through the hall and around the corner, but there he sees the office arrow pointing right and the laboratory arrow pointing left.
    If they found out she’s an AI, I’m almost sure they’d have taken her to the laboratory, he thinks.
    He walks in the direction of the laboratory and stumbles across a white double-folding door. He slowly opens the door to find a more modern room; it looks a bit like a research lab, with almost everything white—the walls, the floor and the ceiling.
    Ryan hears voices in the distance, and slowly he crouches down as he walks towards them. He sees a lot of doors and a few large windows in the wall. It looks like the entire area is divided into small rooms. He looks through one of the windows and sees an operating table, which is covered in blood. There are a lot of surgical tools laying around.
    Ryan’s heart starts to knock faster, and soon he is beginning to feel scared. He quickly walks over to the second window, and there he sees Ami lay on a metal table, strapped down, her mouth been taped shut. Ryan’s heart skips a beat as he watches, tears springing to his eyes.
    There are two men in doctors’ uniforms in the room. It looks like they are preparing equipment and talking to one another about what to do with her. Ryan feels anger surge in him, and he takes out his gun. Quickly, he crawls underneath the window and walks around the corner into another hallway. There, he sees the door that leads into the room Ami is in.
    He stands next to the door, takes a few deep breaths, and kicks in the door.
    The doctors are startled and ask what he is doing there.
    With anger deep in his voice, Ryan shouts, ‘Back off! Stand against the wall!’
    The doctors slowly put their hands up and back away.
    Ryan runs over to Ami and, when he is about to unstrap her, he sees from the corner of his eye that one of the doctors has grabbed a gun that was hidden under one of the tables. Ryan quickly looks over and sees the doctor aiming at him. The doctor and Ryan shoot at one another at the same time. The doctor manages to shoot once before he is shot in the chest. Ryan is furious and looks at the other doctor.
    ‘Please don’t kill me!’ pleads the doctor, but Ryan won’t listen.
    He takes a few steps towards the doctor, aims, and shoots him in the head.
    He then returns to Ami and quickly unstraps her lose and takes the tape from her mouth.
    All is silent for a moment as they look into each other’s eyes. Ryan can see how terrified Ami is. He begins to feel a burning sensation in his shoulder, and, upon examination, realises he is bleeding. Apparently that doctor managed to shoot him in the shoulder but, thanks to the adrenalin, he had not felt it until now.
    ‘You alright?’ Ami asks in a soft voice.
    ‘Yes, I’m fine. I’m so glad you’re okay.’
    Ami gives Ryan a hug and says, ‘I’m so glad you came back for me. I was so scared.’
    Ryan gets