ORPHEUS - A.I.

Chapter Twenty Six: The Great Northern Resistance

Megan curled up in her bed and tried to sleep. The bed was cold and her blanket was full of holes- but this was a luxury compared to what the others had- some simply slept on the cold hard floor. Anthea wanted her to be as comfortable as possible- she knew that the sickness was fatal- she had seen it before. But Megan didn't wanted her sympathy or anyone else's for that matter- it's been weeks of drama and torment and she desperately wanted to get out of Purgatory. She didn't care about some disease she caught because out there in the real world there would be a cure for it. There was no hope for medical treatment in that god forsaken place and she definitely didn't wanted to try Old Nikolai's remedies- that soup tasted like dirt!

"What's with him anyways- nobody evee tells me about his real story...Where did he come from? Why is he here? Ugh! And that dog is as old as him...Wait what am I doing here?", Megan was talking to herself.

The sickness was really messing with her head. She checked her palms- her bandages were red - blood was seeping through them. She wanted to get up but she could hardly raise her head. Her whole body was numb. Slowly the pain started to spread throughout her entire body and her limbs started to shake. But all she could do was murmur- she couldn't even speak.

"Is this it? Am I dying?", she thought and completely blacked out.

Anthea rushed into her room and quickly raised her head up in her arms.

"Bring me the syrup...quick!" she ordered.

Cedric brought in the bowl of black syrup and Anthea poured in a spoonful of it into her mouth. Megan choked and coughed and she was able to move her hands again. Anthea fed her another spoonful and let her rest.

"That was a close one... she almost had an attack.", Cedric groaned.

Anthea drew a long breath and sat down on the chair. She didn't know how long she would be able to keep this up. A tiny beam of sun rays hit the bed and she looked towards the small air shaft - it was almost sunset and she only hoped that Hex and the others would return soon. She watched Megan sleeping calmly- the remedy was working for the moment but for how long?

Back at the jungle - Hex and three other hunters were almost at the cliff - looking for the strange woman that helped them earlier. She asked them to meet her at that place the day before, promising to show them the way out. She had mentioned earlier about some kind of simulation which really blew his mind. A simulation at this level would be ground breaking but that would also mean that there most definitely was a way out. It would further confirm Hex's previous theories and give them a ray of hope.

"Just... what was Alan thinking while building this place?", he thought.

He stopped and looked at the surroundings- there's a steep fall a metre ahead and gentle stream flowed below from east to west. On the other side of the cliff was a thick treeline. This was the same place that he crossed when he came through here with Chuck and his team. Something didn't quite felt right about it and Hex felt a little more on edge as he waited.

" Sun's about to go down...", reminded Robin as she walked up to him.

"Yeah..wonder where that woman is...", Hex replied and drew a long breath.

"Five minutes more and we're outta here...", said Robin looking at her watch.

"You know that thing is broken right...", replied Hex.

The rest of the guys looked at him - shocked- like he had said something forbidden.

"What?", Hex asked clueless that he had triggered something in Robin's head.

"No .. It's not! ", replied Robin frantically.

"Here we go again...", moaned one of the guys.

"I check it everyday...and ...and I repait it and clean it...and it's still ticking ...look ..look...", said Robin showing him her old wrist watch which has been clearly dead for a long time.

"Woah...ok ...ok...cool ... it's not broken... yeah ..calm down...", replied Hex.

Robin grunted and walked away.

Hex didn't know that Robin was a little... off. She was a pretty young girl and she looked smart. He would be later reminded by the others that the watch belonged to her father who lost his life fighting against the creatures- she couldn't cope with the mental trauma and had held on to the watch since then as a memento. Anytime someone says something about the watch being broken, she would be thrown into an emotional frenzy and rage - she was pretty violent too- once she knocked off Cedric's tooth when he mentioned that she should throw away the dead watch. She had a lotta violence and rage in her for a twenty year old college girl. Hex didn't know that before- now he knew!

"Pterodactyl!! Run...", someone shouted from behind.

Hex was startled as he saw a huge bird flying towards him from above. It looked something right out of a dinosaur movie. He quickly ran back towards the bushes and so did the others. The giant bird cawed and flew right over them and into the forests.

"What on earth was that?", asked Hex.

"Huge bird! Very dangerous... blind as a bat...", replied Robin.

"God! Just what else's lurking in here... Android monsters, huge wolves and now giant birds?", remarked Hex in utter frustration.

This was just a peep show of what was about to come and Hex felt in his heart that there's something more dark and violent awaiting for them in the shadows of the thick jungle.

Suddenly he heard something rustling in the bushes behind him. He turned around and saw a woman coming out of the woods with a giant handgun- her face was vieled by a black scarf and she looked strong. Hex immediately recognised her as the one who rescued them earlier from the wolves. He went ahead to greet her.