44 City M

Returning back to reality, Aida's stomach growled. She could technically just gather energy from wall outlets but preferred eating food as the habit had developed over many years of eating 3 regular meals a day. Pouting, she reluctantly stuck a charger into the wall outlet and consumed some electricity.

Sitting at the dining table while spinning a bottle cap, she propped her chin up with her elbow as she watched the bottle cap fall over. She was bored out of her mind.

It was then that she remembered that unlike other apocalypses she read about, this apocalypse didn't kill the communications system. She could just go on the internet to kill time. If it were pre-apocalypse, she would have been perfectly content being a shut in and spending all her time watching anime, but things were different now. To be honest, she sorely wanted to go outside and fight the Enraged, but didn't want to risk Xiao Ai and the others getting hurt.

Resisting the urge, she took out her laptop and began surfing the web for news about the apocalypse. Unfortunately, the system in her head did not have the ability to connect to the internet as it was an on-prem server type and Xiao Ai had configured it to stay offline. It would have been so convenient for her to just search things in her head and visualize it instead of looking at a laptop screen. Aida made a mental note to ask Xiao Ai to rectify this when she woke up.

The news focused only on the virus and the chaos it'd created. There was a map of the country and images showing which parts of the country had been impacted by the virus. Only 45% of the country remained intact. All the states intact were further inland and had enough time to react and build up walls to block out all the potentially infected. The government infrastructure had not collapsed due to the strong support of the military.

Scanning the various articles, there were many conspiracy theorists who believed this was a plot to overthrow all the governments around the world. Others felt this was a process of natural selection due to overpopulation. Some others believed it was an act of God and that everyone should embrace the change. The various polarizing views were actively being debated on every news outlet. Aida continued to scroll through all the available articles, and suddenly stopped when she saw a familiar figure.

The news article was "CDC and WHO return with new hopes of curing the virus." It was a picture of Noah and the group of scientists climbing down a helicopter at City M, but that is not what caught her attention. There was a hidden figure at the very back who looked extremely familiar. She narrowed her eyes as she saw that man's shadow and killing intent began to rise around her, creating sparks of lightning.

She would never mistaken this man for anyone else. The man was from the organization that recruited her to be a killer. He was her master who taught her everything she knew about the art of killing. One thing led to another, and eventually their relationship broke down. Him and the organization ended up betraying her and were actively trying to kill her and Xiao Ai before the apocalypse occurred.

She hadn't seen him for a while, but he still looked the same. "Just you wait," she said with her trademark glint and made a promise to herself aloud, "Clean your neck because I'm coming for you soon."

Aida wasn't too sure what the relationship between Noah and her former master was, but she was sure to investigate. It did not go unnoticed to her that Randy and his men did not appear in the photo. Pondering a moment, she nodded to herself in confirmation. It seems Noah had a much more complicated background than she had anticipated. Her psychoanalysis of Noah's personality back in the airport was probably fairly accurate.

She made a mental note of the city that this man appeared in. She would be heading there soon.

Prior to the apocalypse, she had spent her time laying low and hiding from the organization. She did not fear their pursuit, but feared the potential repercussions of attracting the attention of the government. She and Xiao Ai were far too unique and the government would surely try to capture them for dissection. She did not yet have the power to overthrow governments.

However, now that the governments had their hands tied with this apocalypse, she was prepared to take down every person in the organization. She was planning to use the resurfacing of this man as a way to bring down the rest of the organization.

For the rest of the day, she spent her time staring at her laptop while running various image comparison algorithms through all the popular news outlets in an attempt to find more images of the man or other information about the organization. Much to her chagrin, she was only able to find a few other photos of the man all within City M, and no sight of any of the other members.

Understanding that she hit a dead end on this investigation, she decided to put it aside for now. Ultimately, her ability to program and hack was inferior to Xiao Ai. After Xiao Ai woke up, she could enlist Xiao Ai to help her keep tabs on the organization. The organization may like to operate in the dark, but Xiao Ai was the Princess of the Internet. Nothing could possibly hide from Xiao Ai. The only reason they had a shortage of information so far was because Aida had restricted Xiao Ai from tracking the organization too closely. She hadn't wanted to risk Xiao Ai just for revenge.

Tapping her chin thoughtfully, she shifted her focus to looking into Light's family while she had some free time. She understood all that Light had lived through, and felt that he deserved the opportunity for revenge.