But as they travelled through the outskirts of Artbridge, they noticed that there was not a single person in the area. Aside from the farm animals walking around so freely, there was no sight of any humans at all. Jin stopped for a while to take a look at the main dirt road which connects to all the side roads to spread around Artbridge. “This is odd…” Jin said as he squatted and analysed the dirt road even more closely from the side.
“Yinn, do you have any analytical tool in that Mechanoid head of yours?” Jin asked as he pondered on the dirt road.
“As analytical as I can be… I guess?” Yinn replied without realising that Jin was rude to ask such a question. But then again, since he is already an outsider who does not know the standard etiquette of this world, she keeps an eye close on his words and answers what Jin was thinking about.
“Then tell me what you think about this particular dirt road.” The commander could only hope that he had the System back at this juncture. Forget what he said that the System was pinning him down with responsibilities. It was a crazy reliable companion to have, answering all the queries he has in an instant.
“I get what you mean.” Yinn might not be a bot that focused on analysis but she does have enough processing power to deduce what Jin wanted to know. “Most of the road had been dominated by Mechanoid footsteps. I cannot find any remnants of differentiating footsteps.” Yinn subsequently explained that all the Mechanoids were of a few certain sizes especially when it comes to their shoe size. This was to confuse hunters attempting to track specific Mechanoids. This allowed the Mechanoids to blend easily with other unsuspecting Mechanoids. To a certain extent, for human crowds as well.
However, that gave a disadvantage to the Mechanoids as well as it had demonstrated in this situation. Yinn had identified them and gave a rough estimate of the number of Mechanoids that could be within this village based on the movement on the main dirt road. When Jin heard the number amounted to close to sixty to eighty Mechanoids, he felt like fainting.
“Does that estimation include the Mechanoids we had taken out previously?” Jin asked and Yinn shook her head.
“It might not be obvious but there were military truck tracks being overwritten by Mechanoid steps. What I gave you was just an optimistic estimate.” Yinn said and told them that they should start moving before they were in the radius of a nearby sensor.
But as Yinn was covering Diaz and Click’s back, she caught a glimpse of movement at the very far end of Artbridge and quickly hurried the two to move even though she knew that Diaz was carrying a heavy load of weapons.
“Grey Bear 01 to Grey Bear 02, movement at the end of the main dirt road, do you have eyes?” Yinn said through an encrypted channel, trying to keep the communications as short as possible so they would not be intercepted by the enemy.”
“Grey Bear 02 to Grey Bear 01. Unable to see. Over”
“Grey Bear 01, roger.” Yinn knew she did not see wrongly, and Tellie was not able to see the enemy units because the buildings might be blocking her vision. Thus, she informed Jinn before they moved to the next building for cover.
“Possible visual on enemies. Need confirmation but too risky.” Yinn said through the short range communications through the Tactical System.<.com>
“Move as per usual. I will provide distraction if necessary and intercept the enemies.” Jin nodded in acknowledgement and told them to continue moving so they could act on their roles.
But as the group were about to move to the next building, only metres away from the open garden where the artillery had been parked at. The team heard the zipping of a bullet and it ricocheted from Diaz’s metal weapon crate. It caught them by surprise momentarily until Jin shouted at them to move to the artillery as soon as possible.
At the same time, he used his Inverse Eyes to see the past trajectory of the bullet and his vision led him to find the shooter was hiding near the windmill.
“Enemy at 7 o’clock. Windmill!” Jin said through the encrypted channel, blasting the information to Tellie so she could verify the location of the shooter as well. “All Grey Bears continue your respective tasks! I will handle the shooter.”
“Roger that.” The Grey Bears reported as they continued to run to their tasks. Jin on the other hand drew out the sniper rifle that Yinn had looted and ran towards Windmill.
“What?” The shooter was surprised and elated simultaneously to see one of her targets moving closer to him. “Heh. A commander doing distraction tactics? That’s a first. But if you die. It’s all the more easier for us to eliminate your entire squad.”
But when the shooter attempted to aim at Jin, it somehow made her uncomfortable. “Why does it feel like he is looking at me so intently?” The shooter thought to herself but later logically assumed that it was impossible from this distance and subsequently decided to fire.
Jin already had his eyes on the possible few locations that the shooter could possibly be until he saw a slight glint of the rifle due to the rising rays of dawn. It allowed him to focus as the shooter took another shot at him. Obviously, that second round had alerted the rest of the rebels, but Jin did not care other than the opponent that he was staring at. With him instinctively moving away from the bullet, it made the shooter hesitant to fire another.
At that point, Jin was running with the sniper rifle in his hand and aiming at the shooter.
“Fuck!” the shooter shouted and decided to raise to the challenge. If her enemy wishes to shoot back, then bring it on!
“Bang!” Both rifles fired at the same time but it was pretty apparent who was the skilled shooter as Jin turned back and move towards his original objective.
