Lilly got in the loader and started it up. It was nothing more than a truck with a bed and a claw crane attached to the back. The gravity thrusters underneath fired up, creating a cloud of dust as they came to life. After putting it to gear, she pushed the steering wheel forward, and the loader took off down the road.

She kept going until she reached the front gate of the city. The only place where true sunlight actually shined down. The humans of this era had to live underground, or else they faced destruction from the robots outside.

Just leaving the city was a huge risk, but Lilly has been doing this since she was fifteen. She had no other choice but to go out of the city since the junkyards always charged way more for parts than really needed. If she ventured outside the city, she would have a chance to get those same parts which would cost her hundreds of credits for free without having to pay a single credit.

As Lilly pulled up to the main gate, she stopped to have her vehicle inspected. It was normal to have a vehicle inspected upon exiting and entering the city. The guard at the gate wearing full body armor walked up to the loader. "Lilly, are you going out again? You know it's dangerous out there. You should just stay at home and get married."

"Todd, are you hitting on me again? I already told you I go days without showering and even piss my pants on a daily. Why do you keep hitting on me?" Lilly asked with a cheeky grin.

The other gate guards all burst out laughing, causing Todd to feel awkward. He had liked Lilly for many years, and when she finally reached of age, he asked her out only to have her reject him coldly in front of so many people while he knelt down with a bouquet of fake flowers in front of her. Her exact words were: "Sorry, but I piss myself on the daily and rarely take showers. You would be better off dating a pig."

While this was an obvious lie, Lilly did not care one bit because she would not allow herself to get caught up in a relationship with people who sought to destroy A.I. Many knew of her hobby of building robots, but this was a norm in society as long as they did not have actual intelligence. They could have set programming like doing certain tasks but nothing else and were not allowed to be connected to the new Cybernet.

Todd stood there staring at Lilly's pretty face feeling dejected. "Just go and come back. Be careful… And also, I do not give up easily!"

"Oh! You keep at it. I promise to always reject you!" Lilly said with a laugh as she drove away. Her laugh was enough to cause Todd to be mesmerized.

He did not snap out of it until one of the other guards came over and patted him on the shoulder. "Todd, you're turning twenty-five soon. You should give up already. If that girl was to get married, she would have done so five years ago when she came of age. While she is only twenty now, it doesn't seem like she ever plans to get married. So give up already."

"No! I will not give up! I will keep trying until she finally says yes. I mean, five years, at least ten times out of the year, each year when I see her, I confess to her. I have to weigh at least a little in her heart, right?" Todd asked. He was really trying to look at things optimistically.

"You want the honest truth?" The other guard asked. Under his mask, he was sighing at his friend's optimism.

Todd looked at the man and lowered his head. He really didn't want to hear it. He knew what he was going to say. There would be no way a girl would tell a guy that she pissed herself on a daily and was dirtier than a pig if she had some feelings towards them. But he did not want to give up so easily. Not when he had already been trying to gain her affection for over five years. "Let's get back to work…"

The other guard shrugged his shoulders and chuckled, knowing that his friend would never learn.

Lilly continued to drive down the dusty road kicking up dust in her wake. She pulled out a map and looked at it to see where she was going to go next. "Hmm… I have already searched all these areas, so my target this time is about three hours out... It's a bit risky, but it's where the old Delta City was. They used to have all kinds of robots wandering the streets there pre-war. Let's hope I do not run into any ADs(Assault Drones)."

Lilly reached in her jacket and pulled out a modified plasma pistol, and checked its power and regulators before placing it on her lap. She had only run into A.I. a few times on her excursions and was lucky to get away each time. She just hoped her luck would continue.

---

On the other side of things, Eve was walking down the road at a leisurely pace. "You should arrive at the city by tomorrow at your current speed, Eve," Aiu reported.

"Mmm… Sadly, I am still stuck on how to enter. Aiu, do you think if I acted like a damsel in distress that some strange man with a metal fetish would come and whisk me away and bring me into the city?" Eve asked jokingly.

Aiu really didn't understand the question but still answered: "I highly doubt that would happen since we have not seen a single human or A.I. for a few days now."

"Aiu! Aiu! You have no romance… Well not like I do either." Eve said as she kicked a rock that flew out like a rocket and smashed into an already half-collapsed building causing it to fully collapse. "Ahh… Yeah… Forgot… Let's pretend that didn't happen."