OGENUS EARTH 🌎 🌊 {Dystopian Sci-Fi Adventure}

Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)

"I'm not leaving my ship!" Harrison burst out, his body stiffened at the thought.

Harrison's eyes swept angrily over the remainder of his crew. Why didn't they understand, a captain never abandoned ship?

"We're leaving MAX?" Big Joe lamented.

"Harrison's right," Arturo announced. "We cannot leave the ship."

"Thank you." Harrison agreed before doing a double-take. "Wait, I'm right?"

"There isn't time to explain right now," Arturo assured him, turning to face Meg. "We have to lower the seismic cannons or any ship leaving this city will be torn to shreds."

Meg knew Arturo was right, but the Black Marlin was on the other side of the building, and soon Gayle and her fanatics would be hunting these hallways.

"How the hell do we even get over there?" Big Joe blustered. "We're trapped!"

"We have to climb," Meg told him as she took Harrison's plasma gun.

She maneuvered the thing to rest on her petite shoulder and pointed it towards the faint outline of a door in the paneled wall.

"Wait! Don't-" Harrison tried to warn her that the noise would draw the Sirens in, but Meg used her pointer finger to pull the trigger.

Her body rocketed backward with the force of the shot, landing her square on her butt. The plastic paneling ripped open with furious intensity, blasting it away to let the chilled air spill out into hall like smoke. Meg felt a strong hand clamp down on the soft flesh of her arm and cried out in pain.

Harrison pulled Meg to her feet and grabbed the plasma gun in one motion. Big Joe studied Meg's handy work.

"Holy-" Big Joe's curse word was drowned out by the sounds of shouting.

"Run!" Harrison shouted to the group, yanking Meg alongside him to jump into the server bay.

They streaked into the fog pouring out of the gaping hole, plunging themselves into darkness. Meg folded her body past Harrison in the narrow machine-lined walkway to lead the charge.

"There they are!" Gayle screamed into the void. "Get them!"

As Meg's eyes adjusted to the dim light, she could see the piercing appendages of spider bots crawling into view. As tall as Meg and ten times as limber, the spider bots scuttled inside Coeuss' interworking to keep everything running efficiently or eradicate any potential threats, like them.

Up ahead, the awesome sight of the central processing shaft was a sliver of hope growing larger with each desperate stride. Blood spiked with adrenaline pounded in Meg's head as she reached the gangplank sticking its grated tongue exactly two feet over the cavernous pit. There wasn't time to explain and they had to get to the other side.

Desperate footfalls clanked on the metal walkways as the others scrambled to join Meg on the ledge, giving the bots an easier target. At least the Architects couldn't fire in here, which gave Meg an idea.

Frantically she waved at Harrison to get his attention. "Shoot!" Meg forced as much air out of her lungs as she could, hoping to be heard over the coming mayhem.

"What?" He called, trying to understand while sussing out just what the hell they were supposed to do now.

"Shoot!" She screamed again. "Fire your gun into the servers!"

"That's going to blow shit up!" He shouted back.

Meg couldn't do two jobs at once. Once again, she snatched his gun and planted her feet to twist her torso around Harrison.

"Start climbing!" She yelled.

Big Joe hefted Arturo onto his shoulders like a human backpack and sucked in his gut to fit himself around the tiny woman holding a gun about her own size.

Meg watched Harrison, making sure he'd cleared the platform before firing into the black. This time she was prepared and she leaned her entire body into the weight of the power. She couldn't hear the raucous eruptions, but she could see the flashes of electricity and the plumes of angry smoke spewing into the server bays.