OGENUS EARTH 🌎 🌊 {Dystopian Sci-Fi Adventure}

Virtual Insanity

Meg was rushed to the medical center for cleanup with the promise that Laura and Ben would get to say a proper goodbye after she was ready to go. A strange calm had settled over her while she followed the Seafarers out through a back door to avoid the angry crowds outside.

Citizens were pooling into the sidewalks, clambering for answers. As the panic surged, the bodies around Meg slowed, reacting to something she could not hear. Even the Seafarers faltered, pausing to listen to Persephone address Arc City One via hollo-cast.

Meg turned to see the Quorum's leader plastered on the Harmony building, her towering hologram addressing the streets below. From the crowd's varying degrees of horror and confusion, she could tell that the news of the city's evacuation was being delivered.

The Seafarers pushed her along. As they struggled through the semi-frozen bodies, another figure could be seen navigating the throng.

Harrison was running at full speed, dodging people as best he could to get through. He nearly crashed into a rounded woman staring dumbly up at the sky when he caught a glimpse of Meg's hair. Harrison shoved the woman out of his way, ignoring her yelp, so much for his plan of beating the rats off the ship.

"Meg!" He shouted fruitlessly over his mother's speech. Several people turned to shush him. "Meg!"

All at once, the streets were bedlam. People were screaming questions, pulling at their hair and running in circles trying to figure out what to do. Legionnaires flooded the walkways to shepherd people towards the escape pods in the Harmony Building.

Finally, he managed to catch the corner one of the Seafarers uniforms to tug.

"Stop!" Harrison panted hurriedly. "I need to talk to Meg."

"Didn't you leave?" A seafarer, known as Justin by his friends, asked point-blank. He halted the group with a wave of his hand.

"I was leaving," Harrison insisted. "Where are you taking her?"

Meg peeked around the torsos guarding her to find Harrison's wide brown eyes pleading with the group. The second he found Meg's somber expression, Harrison balked.

"Seems this girl's got a lot more balls than you." The sea monkey laughed, yanking his sleeve away from Harrison. "And-"

"I'm going with them." Meg interrupted, winding around the frozen bodies.

Her words were lost in the shouting, but Harrison's face fell all the same.

"You're going with them where?!" He shouted reaching for her tiny arm.

"You don't need to know where." Justin broke in, pushing himself between Harrison and Meg.

Swiftly, the sea monkeys closed ranks, boxing Harrison out and leaving him stupefied on the sidewalk.

Meg's fingers still tingled from their brief contact, but she knew they were prolonging the inevitable. Now was the time to face the consequences of their decisions, ready or not.

Harrison melted into the chaos converging on the Harmony building.

**

The medical wing where Meg was being treated was surprisingly empty.

She had been stripped down and scrubbed in a tiny room filled with tiles to let the bloodstained water wash into the floor. Meg wondered who else's DNA was being flushed from her body, and felt a pang of guilt for Midge.

Midge had given her life for this, and that selfless act bolstered Meg's confidence enough to mentally prepare for what was to come.

With her wounds cleaned, Meg was placed in a glass tube to graft the worst of her damaged skin and fit a colloquial implant. Tiny metallic digits, much like the spider bot's arms that had attacked her on Arc City Two, were poking and prodding her.