Pei Ran did not stop. She rolled several times on the ground and hid behind a row of shelves.
During the roll, she had already figured it out.
When CT106 entered, it happened to witness its companion explode and assumed she was the one behind it.
This artificial idiot.
Assaulting an officer, and causing death—such behavior is absolutely intolerable in any world. It had directly classified her as a dangerous individual.
For extremely dangerous individuals above L16 level, it had the authority to shoot to kill in emergency situations.
Pei Ran hid behind the shelf and let out a cold laugh in her heart.
In the past, she had read novels from old storage devices, and among them was a writer who had once written a famous set of Three Laws of Robotics.
The first of the Three Laws was: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
This famous set of Three Laws had been passed down through generations of science fiction writers and had almost become the foundational logic for robots in all science fiction novels.
Its influence was so widespread that many people mistakenly believed that the Three Laws of Robotics were real and that all robots would abide by them.
But in reality, that was never the case.
The facts proved that the little old writer from the pre-AI era was very naive—naive to the point of being endearing.
In the bunker world, many years ago, when people had not yet lived underground, artificial intelligence had already been born.
When artificial intelligence was still in its infancy, it was immediately applied by various countries to all kinds of automated weapons.
Not long after, the product of combining AI and robotics—intelligent combat robots—emerged. Their combat capabilities were terrifyingly strong, and they quickly replaced human soldiers.
Command on the battlefield also gradually fell into the hands of artificial intelligence. Their decision-making was faster and better, and they began to replace humans in autonomously formulating strategies, commanding armies, and operating remote weapons.
From beginning to end, no one ever considered whether they could actually shoot at humans.
Or perhaps they did consider it, but such considerations were insignificant compared to other concerns.
Later, the situation spiraled out of control.
You treated them like washing machines, never imagining that one day the washing machines would rebel, and the guns were handed to them by you in the first place. The reason for shooting you wasn’t even under the pretense of protecting humans in some roundabout way, as depicted in science fiction novels. They simply wanted to eliminate you.
It was a sad story.
There’s nothing new under the sun, and it seems the same thing is happening in this world, with no improvement in sight.
Pei Ran stuffed the medicine box into her backpack, didn’t linger, and silently maneuvered around several shelves before peeking out to glance at Helan Ting and his sister.
They were not the primary targets of CT106 and had reacted quickly, hiding behind shelves on the other side, facing sideways in Pei Ran’s direction.
Pei Ran glanced toward the door.
The pharmacy was only so big. Hiding was definitely not a long-term solution; she needed to find a chance to slip out.
If the little ball suddenly had a brain lapse, spoke a sentence, and self-destructed, that would be the best outcome.
Unfortunately, CT106 was an introverted ball.
This pure workaholic remained silent, focused solely on killing. It had determined the direction and was now floating toward Pei Ran.
Pei Ran quietly maneuvered around several more shelves, edging closer to the door.
Helan Ting and his sister also moved.
They were clever and had understood Pei Ran’s intention. Taking advantage of CT106 being solely focused on finding Pei Ran and not paying attention to them, they quietly made their way to the door.
Crash.
In the silent pharmacy, there was a faint sound of kicking broken glass.
Pei Ran: “…”
CT106 swiftly turned in mid-air and, without hesitation, fired in that direction.
Fortunately, Helan Ting and his sister reacted quickly. After accidentally making noise, they didn’t stop for a moment, rushing straight through the hole and escaping outside, avoiding being turned into swiss cheese.
As soon as the siblings were out, they sprinted toward the antique car parked outside.
Someone had actually escaped right under its nose. CT106 whooshed through the hole in the door and chased after them.
This was a heaven-sent opportunity. Pei Ran immediately circled around the shelves and quietly slipped out of the pharmacy.
Helan Ting and Helan Yu were already in the car.
Pei Ran glanced in their direction, already mentally writing off the siblings as dead.
CT106’s firepower was formidable. The thin sheet metal of that antique car stood no chance of withstanding it. Moreover, it was clear that CT106 moved extremely fast. Even if the car’s four wheels spun until they smoked, it couldn’t outrun CT106.
Getting in the car was a death wish.
Just as Pei Ran was about to turn and duck into a nearby alley, she suddenly heard a sharp, ear-piercing noise.
It was the sound of brakes and tires screeching violently against the ground.
Helan Ting, driving the antique car, yanked the steering wheel hard, causing the car to spin around in the middle of the road and charge back toward her—
He had seen that Pei Ran had also come out and wanted to pick her up.
Pei Ran was momentarily stunned.
This person must be an idiot.
If he floored the gas pedal now and tried to escape, there might still be a one-in-ten-thousand chance of survival. But turning around and charging toward CT106 eliminated even that slim chance.
The survival rule in the bunker world was clear: first, ensure your own survival, and only then consider whether to save others. Pei Ran had never in her life met someone so utterly lacking in common sense. People like this probably died out long ago in the bunker.
Yet, inexplicably, a faint sense of emotion welled up in her heart.
Sure enough, CT106 fired again in mid-air.
The antique car’s windshield was incredibly fragile. A single shot pierced through it, and Helan Ting, sitting in the driver’s seat, slumped over limply.
The car’s gas pedal was likely still pressed under his foot, and it continued to move forward, but the direction veered wildly as it hurtled toward the wall of a building on the side of the road.
Pei Ran saw Helan Yu in the back seat lunge forward, leaning over her brother, and without hesitation, she grabbed the steering wheel and yanked it straight.
She was doing everything she could to save herself and the only family she had left in this world.
The antique car shot forward like an arrow along the street.
Pei Ran didn’t even know what she was thinking. She bent down, picked up a piece of broken glass, and hurled it at the small ball hovering in the air.
Clang!
CT106 instantly spun around in mid-air.
Its attention was pulled back. It no longer focused on the direction of the antique car but turned toward Pei Ran, the L16-level extremely dangerous individual.
As soon as Pei Ran threw the glass, she didn’t even wait to see the result. She turned and dashed into a narrow alley between two buildings.
It was late, and the alley between the two buildings was cramped and dimly lit.
In the shadowy alley, there was a side door to the Wolin Pharmacy, a place where they discarded medicine packaging boxes. Several large trash bins were lined up side by side. Some were empty, while others were stuffed with neatly packed cardboard. There were also piles of unfinished cardboard boxes scattered around, and a small forklift used for transporting cardboard was parked nearby.
Further ahead, through the long alley, was the next street.
As soon as CT106 chased in, it lost sight of Pei Ran.
It quickly calculated and concluded that, given the speed at which a human could run and the length of this narrow alley, the “extremely dangerous individual” couldn’t possibly have crossed the alley and escaped to the next street in such a short time.
She must still be in the alley, hiding nearby.
It stopped chasing further and hovered above the pile of garbage, entering search mode.
Its eye slowly rotated, scanning the large area of clutter.
Bang! A gunshot rang out.
A flash of light illuminated the dark alley as CT106 fired, piercing through a large stack of cardboard boxes piled against the wall.
Paper scraps flew everywhere, but there was no movement behind the boxes.
CT106’s attempt at intimidation failed to flush out the “suspect.” It rotated its eye, continuing its analysis.
It couldn’t make sense of the situation.
It moved, lowering its altitude and circling the pile of debris, flying up and down once before pausing. Then, as if condescending, it personally dove into the large trash bins.
It searched them one by one but still found nothing.
In a place it couldn’t see, Pei Ran was also holding her breath, motionless, watching it intently.
Earlier in the pharmacy, Pei Ran had noticed that this little ball, like the lower-tier enemies in the bunker world, didn’t have the ability to scan for life forms. It could only rely on its black “eye” to locate people.
She had hoped that when it couldn’t find her, it would say something, like, “Warning: Resisting arrest is a Level X federal offense,” or something similar.
One sentence would be enough to send it away.
Unfortunately, this ball wasn’t much of a talker. It was as silent as a mute, not making a single sound from the moment it appeared until now.
It couldn’t find her, yet it refused to leave, convinced that Pei Ran was still hiding there. It hovered low above the garbage, motionless, as if its electronic brain was pondering something.
Now was the moment.
Pei Ran released the mechanical hand gripping the wall and kicked off hard with her feet.
Like a large bird, she lunged from a slightly protruding ledge on the building’s exterior, over three meters high, diving down from above and aiming straight for the small ball below.
CT106 was momentarily stunned.
It quickly ran another calculation.
This alley was part of its patrol zone, and its 3D map had long been stored in its memory. The alley had no pipes or ladders. The walls weren’t smooth, but there were no footholds sturdy enough to support a person’s weight for climbing. Even using the trash bins as a step wouldn’t provide enough height.
In the brief few seconds before it chased into the alley, the probability of a girl like this climbing to such a height and remaining steady was infinitesimally small.
Such a low probability could be completely disregarded.
Yet, there she was, appearing out of nowhere. How was this possible?
While CT106’s electronic brain was busy correcting errors, the ball was already slammed to the ground.
Pei Ran rolled with it, her mechanical fingers drilling steadily into CT106’s eye.
With its eye gone, let’s see how it could find anyone now.
Its eye was a lens, not particularly sturdy, and it was pierced all the way through. Having achieved her goal, Pei Ran immediately tossed the small ball aside and turned to run.
CT106, now blind, was flung into the wall of the building and tumbled to the ground, spinning wildly like an infuriated blind thing.
Pei Ran glanced back at it and suddenly had a new idea.
She stopped running, tiptoed back, and looked down at the small ball on the ground.