ORPHEUS - A.I.

Chapter Nineteen: The Black Tower

It was a vast field somewhere deep in the outlands. The sun was rising or setting, he couldn't make out. The grass on which he was lying was wet soaking his clothes. There were huge trees around him and he soon realised that he was in some kind of opening in the forest. He tried to recall how he ended up here but all he could remember was that he was in Orwell Corp with his team. Suddenly his phone began to vibrate in his pocket. He took it out while trying to stand up. No bars but there was a text -

"Orpheus activated. Proceed to the nearest location and await further instructions...", it read.

Hex knew he had seen this text somewhere. But where? And where are the rest of the guys? Why was he lying there in the middle of the forest? How did he get there? Tgere were too many questions and not a lot of answers. The only way was to explore the area and try to find out a way back to the Orwell offices.

He stood up and walked slowly , his head was still dizzy like a he had a bad hangover. His phone began to vibrate again- another text!

"Follow the directions indicated in the map- await further instructions."

"Who the hell is sending these weird texts?", he thought.

A map appeared on the screen as he clicked on the text. It showed a big arrow at the bottom and a blue line indicating the path he was supposed to take like a GPS navigation function. 1.6 kms north, it showed. Hex had no choice but to follow the directions and kept walking towards the intended destination. He tried to look for the time and date on his phone but weirdly enough he couldn't find it. His phone has been wiped clean. No contacts or previous texts, no apps to display the time and date, most of the apps were removed!

"I wonder where Megan and the others are...", he wondered as he kept walking north... ...

"Oy....my head ... argh", said Timothy waking up and wiping the drool from his face. He rubbed his eyes and looked around- he was on top of a mountain clifff - almost at the edge of it - a slight push and he would fall down from the cliff.

"Santa Maria!", he exclaimed quickly backing off from the edge.

"What? How did I get here? Andre? Where is Andre? ... ", he murmured looking around for his best pal. But Andre was nowhere to be seen, he saw a huge firest below him and the sun rising from beneath the mountains in the east.

"Where are the others? And why does my head hurt so much?", he thought trying to make sense of everything around him.

Just like Hex he too received the same text from the A.I. asking him to follow the directions on the map. Not knowing what to do next he simply followed the directions on the map and walked towards the unknown destination.

Andre on the other hand didn't receive any text asking him to follow any directions, but he woke up with his hands tied behind a tree and a drone with a camera sat on the ground in front of him. He was confused and tried to free himself but as soon as he did the drone fired a bullet near his feet. Andre was shocked, he understood that the drone was programmed to guard him and was instructed to shoot if it sensed any movement. Andre slowly sat down and looked at it from a distance, there was a small barell attached underneath it!

"This drone is programmed to kill?", he wondered.

He always had a bad feeling about that Devonshire guy and he wasn't interested in coming here in the first place. It was Tim's excitement that brought him here. Now he's stuck here with his life in the hands of a killer drone.

"God knows what's gonna happen next... am I supposed to remain like this forever?", he thought and prayed for someone to come and rescue him... ...

"This is gotta be a joke... it's gotta be..." thought Megan as she too kept following the map on her phone.

The tall grass and weeds made walking a difficult task. Every now and then she would step into a wet puddles of mud and the water would seep into her shoes. The more she followed the map, the deeper she went into the jungle. She remembered that this was the same text that she saw on the game that Tim and Andre designed - that survival game!

She kept wondering about the others , she thought about her aunt- she was supposed to go back today- or was it yesterday? Was she a part of a game? If so who's making them play this dirty game. Her memories slowly began to resurface - she began to remember about the party, the food, Devonshire's speech and finally Serena and the guards who injected them with something.

"The answers must lie at the end of this map...", she said to herself trying to be brave- but deep inside she knew she was scared...

"100 metres to go...", said Hex reading the map on the screen. From afar he could see a huge tree and the silhouette of a person sitting under it. His hopes began to rise and he hurried towards it. But soon he saw another familiar figure approaching from the east. It was almost a few hundred metres away but he could make out that it was a woman-

"Megan? Could it be her?", he thought as he struggled to walk through the tall grass in the swamp.

It was indeed Megan. Hex waved at her and she waved back. Both of them hurried towards the tree from different directions until they were a few metres apart.

"Oh ...god...Megan...its so good to see your face ...", Hex said gasping for breath.

Megan looked at him and said-

"Hex? You too? where are the others? We were supposed to go back home..."

The open grassland gave way to a patch of thick forest ahead. Hex looked at his phone- the GPS pointed straight - he had to cross the forest. He walked straight into the forest and what he saw made his jaw drop. There were huge trees all over the place and beneath them were broken pieces of drones, cars and even tanks and sattelites. All scattered around like a huge junkyard in the middle of nowhere.

"What's this place?", he thought.

He kept walking through the forest. It was dense and sunlight could barely penetrate through the trees. The ground was moist and various types of wild plants and flowers grew in a thick vegetation. As he kept walking he saw wild bugs and centipedes crawling over his shoes - he shook them off in utter disgust. After a while he came across an opening in the forest with little vegetation around it. He looked closely and saw the ground was dry and dusty unlike the other parts of the forest. It looked liked an impact crater or a blast site. Something must have exploded there that killed all plant life in it.

Nevertheless he crossed the strange patch of land and moved ahead. He looked over his head- no drones! Perhaps they got lost in the forest- good for him- he kept thinking.

After a while he couldn't walk anymore and sat down on the ground- his legs won't move anymore. He might have crossed a couple of kilometres he thought but when he looked at his phone - it showed that he had only crossed 3 kms - in two hours. Tired and frustrated he thought of resting for a few minutes. He began to think of what Orpheus had told about his past life earlier.

"What does that piece of software know...how hard I had to struggle in life...we all make mistakes... but that doesn't mean we are inherently bad people...", he kept thinking.

"I should have never agreed to come to work here... I always felt something fishy about that Devonshire...now he dares to use our own tech against us?".

"Grandma... ah! I should have visited you... but I promised you before my uncle that I will return the day I had enough money to cure you...maybe I am egoistic...", Hex closed his eyes and let his thoughts wonder.

Suddenly he heard a howling sound in the distance. He opened his eyes and looked around. He knew it was the sound of a wolf. He had to keep moving forward - it wasn't safe there. With great difficulty he stood up and began to walk. His feet began to hurt- but he didn't want to be snack for some wild animal.

Five minutes later, he heard the howl again, this time closer. Hex put his phone in his pocket and began to sprint. He heard a growl again and another howl. The wolf was definitely following his scent. He could see an opening ahead - maybe the forest ended here - he ran faster hoping to reach the edge of the forest as fast as possible. But as he was about to reach the end - he felt a sharp pain in his right leg- something had scratched his leg. He looked at it and saw that his jeans was torn right underneath his right knee and blood was beginning to flow. But he didn't stop until he reached the open grassland ahead.

As soon as he was out he saw a huge mountain in the distance- maybe a few kilometres ahead. He stopped and looked at his leg- it wasn't a deep cut but the pain and burning sensation wasn't like anything else he had experienced before. He grabbed his leg and sat down in great pain. He took out his handkerchief from his pocket and tied it around the wound.

His throat was parched, there was no sign of water anywhere. He stretched out his leg and wondered if he's ever going to make it to the mountain in this state. He looked around for any wild animal but there were none- maybe it lost his scent. Suddenly he began to feel dizzy - his leg was getting cold and his eyes were getting heavy. He saw the drones in the distance but his vision started to blur, he couldn't focus on his thoughts anymore - he saw rainbows and stars in front of his eyes- it seemed like he was getting high as hell. A few seconds later he couldn't move his body anymore - he saw a blanket of darkness fall before his eyes... he thought he was going to die.

Arielle went back to her monitoring but suddenly the feed went black. She panicked and called Rico for help who said that there must be some kind of magnetic interference underneath the waters thats stopping the feed. Arielle didn't care about this techno mumbo- jumbo and asked Rico to fix it while she walked up and down the aiske with her hands on her hips. She looked towards the sky- the sun was shining brightly and the sparkling waters below reflected the sun rays like tiny diamonds. The ocean stretched from one corner to another like a blue capet of water and it made her feel like she was lost in an endless loop of ocean. Suddenly Rico called her - the feed was working again.

She ran and grabbed the iPad and saw this bizzare sight that seemed like it was from a fantasy movie.

There was this shipwreck- old and ancient- only a part of it withstood the pressure of the ocean the other parts lay there scattered on the sea floor. She saw on the feeds of the three divers that almost a half of a huge ship- probably the front half lay almost untouched through time. It seemed as though there was still a cabin inside. She marvelled at the decorated exterior of the wreckage- it was probably painted white with intricate carvings, like a royal ship or most probably a burial ship- like in many ancient cultures where people send off their deceased into the ocean on decorated ships and set them ablaze.

Megan waited for the most important part now- the big reveal - is there anything inside the wreckage? The feed went black again as the divers went to take a look inside.

"Ugh! ", Megan cried out in frustration.

Half an hour passed and one of the divers came out onto the surface.

"There's a bloody coffin inside... no gold...no treasure!", he said.

Megan's eyes lit up with excitement as she heard the news.