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Chapter 6

"It's that bad?" Petra stares at me, and for the first time ever, fear breaks across her face.

I nod, making my headache worse. "Harper will be chipped any moment... if not already. If we don't act now... we've lost."

"But how?" Petra's fear warps into helpless anger. "I can't fight! You can barely stand! We have no plan and nothing that could help us! Unless Harper has another 'weapon' here."

I hold my head, trying to think past the pain. "Ugh... Ivor, did you find anything useful- helpful- in the chests?"

"Yes, I most certainly did!" Ivor starts emtpying his pockets. Four TNT, three buckets, a stack of redstone, two levers, some bread, a potion of leaping, a potion of swiftness, four smile blocks, a piece of green wool, and a map.

"Hey, what's this?" Petra snatches the map with her left hand, scanning it. Her eyes widen and she gasps. Before smacking Ivor on the head with it.

"Why didn't you say you found this earlier!? This is a map of Crown Mesa and, more importantly, the area around it."

She hands the map to me and I quickly look over it. I can see why it's so important. Harper has a marked route to get on the mountain where P.A.M.A. is built into. This must've been how she snuck into town earlier. And how we'll be getting into town too.

"Okay, okay, something to work with now."

There's nothing I'd rather do than lay in a bed and go to sleep, perhaps have some stew to help with my stomachache. But instead I furiously think how we can use use these things to defeat P.A.M.A., only to remember that P.A.M.A. will be too powerful if we wait any longer.

"Everyone grab a bucket and fill it, we've got to move quickly."

Petra and Ivor grab a bucket, and I take everything else. An inkling of an idea is coming to me, but right now we just have to get out and start heading towards Crown Mesa. I have no doubt in my mind that P.A.M.A. has already learned how to build an exit portal.

"So Lukie, do you have a plan?" I bend down and fill my bucket up before standing up to hopelessly grin at Ivor.

"Heck no, I just know if we wait to think of a plan, there isn't any plan that can save us."

I can hear sighs from both my friends, but I don't care. I'm assuming that we can get to Crown Mesa pretty quickly and I'm hoping it takes a long time to make a portal traveling to different worlds. We all run out of the lab, yet we have no idea what we're running into.

It's quite amazing what stress does to you. I threw up not five minutes ago and my head still kinda hurts, but everything else is just.... numb. Yet I can see my muscles violently trembling, never stopping for a moment. I feel my heart thump, but it's dull. Almost like a rock just pounding against my insides and not causing pain.

But even if I'm in shock, I might be chipped soon if we don't have a plan by the time we get there. Although first, we have to get out of this cave. The way we came is not an option, but Harper got down here somehow. It was at the first turn she was waiting for us.

"Do we, uh... have like a way to get out of here?" Petra's voice is strained, no doubt from her broken arm and that we have no idea what we're doing.

"Here." I turn into the outlet Harper was at, hoping I'm right. "Harper got down this way, that means we can get up."

My friends say nothing, but you could almost taste the fear. Petra can't even fight! Although none of us can even stand a chance against P.A.M.A. when it's controlling Jesse. Perhaps that's the first thing we need to figure out: how to stay alive when fighting a super computer.