The high-efficiency solar-powered street lamps light the roads as if it was still morning. In the brightness, Tann uncomfortably glanced at Rosy who was ahead, “When is she gonna leave me alone?”

The two left the gate of the main campus and headed towards the shopping district where the light intensity was about ten times than those of street lamps. From afar, the shopping district seemed to be a drip of juice from the core of the sun.

“That is the Qchong Centre,” Rosy pointed at a building that was hardly visible by the blinding spotlights.

Tann tried to look at it but she turned away by the sharp light, “Ouch! It is so damn bright.”

“I know,” said Rosy, “that is because that the power source of the shopping district is from a separate power plant.”

“Why a separate one?” Tann adjusted her brightness intake constant secretly by pressing on the keyboard in her bag, “I thought all of the Qchong city uses the North Köloñ’s hydroelectric plant?”

Rosy shook her head, “That’s true for most parts of the city, but for some unknown reason, when the shopping district was built, Eshort Marksman decided to build the world’s first nuclear fusion plant there.”

“Who is Eshort Marksman?” Tann asked.

Rosy stopped and stared at Tann, “I thought you live in the city, how can you not heard of him, he is the CEO of North Köloñ! He built half the city as well as our university.”

“Well,” Tann looked away from Rosy, “I suppose…I am just interested in other things.”

Out of Tann’s expectations, Rosy grabbed Tann around the neck and allowing the distance between their heads to be at a minimum. Tann instantly reached for her auto pistol, but her arm hit Rosy’s breast, “OUCH! No need to punch me there you perv!”

“You are the first to grab me!” Tann cried back.

“I’m just being friendly,” claimed Rosy, at this point, both girls were blushing, “I just wanna know more about you since you are new to the city.”

Tann hit her forehead, “You are just so annoying. Why do you want to know where I came from, where I live, where I learnt how to code…Don’t tell me you want to hit on me, don’t you already have Loci?”

“Loci?” Rosy blushed even more, but this time due to anger, “I am more like that guy’s mother!! Besides, I am not even interested in guys!”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Same…”

“HANG ON?!” Rosy cried in joy.

“What a pain,” Tann drunk a whole can of Red Bull in one take, “that girl…” Then, she checked if the roll of polarising filters was still tied onto to her back, “Good, I’ll have to finish off that thing first.”

Tann took out her city map and searched for her current location, “I am now at…Section D…no…Section F, yea, besides the station ‘Prince David’.” She looked up to confirm that the huge subway logo ‘Prince David’ was still in front of her, “Where should I go tho? I don’t even know how that Hetzer can track me…So I am probably safer at places with fewer bots since any of them might turn…but actually…”

Tann looked around the bots/people working around her, minding their businesses, “Maybe…that means the Hetzers don’t want to be discovered by other bots too…No this is too much of a risk, I must hurry.”

Staring down at her compass, Tann sneaked across the buildings, not necessarily sneak since every spot in the main city area was light by high power lights. Finally, she reached the edge of the city, which was marked by a metal net, where the other side was eternal darkness.

“Still needs a lot of work CREATORS,” Tann muttered to herself, “if I get out one day, I’ll tell Cine to lower the light intensity, gosh, my eyes are taking damage.”

All damages recovered.

Tann adjusted her visibility, allowing her to see in the dark (by changing the colour scheme of her field of vision to green), “This is a pretty good spot.”. She discovered large tunnel (basically an abandoned water pipe) with a diameter of about two regular adults, “but I can’t run anywhere if the plan doesn’t work.” However, after another 20 minutes of searching, she gave up and went into the tunnel.

“Let’s get to work.”

She took out her keyboard and expanded a polarising filter. Then she used several bits of filters to completely seal off the entrance of the tunnel as well as the other end. She sat down beside the filter and typed onto her keyboard:

System:Check__Polarising_Filters_spacing_:_2_nm_//

“Ummm,” Tann calculated, “that’s not enough damage.”

System: F(spacing)_1_mm

As a result of the change, the filter turned extremely dark, literally no light could pass through.

“Damn it,” Tann cried, “why can’t you just work.”

Syetem:F(transparency)_100%_01_//

The filters became even more transparent than before. Tann said pleasingly, “Now that’s better. Just need to wait for that bastard to show up…”. The timing was just right, the needle on the compass started to go crazy again. Tann grabbed her pistol despite knowing that it has little use, a wore a pair of steel chainmail gloves that she bought recently, “Come on! You have all the advantages here!”

The vibration of the needle remained constant but nothing special could be seen outside the tunnel.

Bzzzzzzzzzz

“What is this noise?” Tann searched for the source of the ear-piercing sawing sound, “Oh no!”. She looked up, yes, something was above her, and it wanted to get inside.

“Does it know already?!” Tann cried and started to walk away from the source of the sound, “what should I do!?”

CLINK!

A large piece of flat mirror shot down from the sawed through the tunnel ceiling, like last time, it stuck into the ground below. However, Tann jumped towards like a tiger and ripped it out off floor with all her strength and pointed the mirror at an angle towards the opening made by the Hetzer.

Slowly, something started to appear outside the tunnel but at the same time, items started to appear from the inside of the tunnel, right beside the former polarizing filter.

Clank! Clank! Clank!

Oddly shaped metal discs formed out of nowhere and dropped to the floor, a few electric sparks were generated around them, but soon, they became motionless.

“Is that all of you?” Tann threw the mirror to the round and pointed her pistol at the pile of metal plates.

BAM!BAM!BAM!

The uncontrolled burst of bullets sprayed everywhere. Despite Tann’s poor accuracy, 2 out of 12 bullets still found their targets and went straight threw the plates, scattering them into smaller pieces.

“Phewww,” Tann wiped the sweat from her face and approached the remains of the Hetzer, “never expect you to come from above but at least you still end up going through the filter. I know you somehow have wave-like behaviour so normal firearms and powers can’t do you any harm but you are probably the most vulnerable when you are transporting in your waveform, which, I am pretty sure you are in unpolarized form. So, the good news is, a polarizing filter is just like a cheese shredder for you.”

Tann removed the filters and packed them back into a roll, “anyway, thanks for coming so early, now I can get a good night of sleep, finally.”