CRYPT 12

C 1 2 | E P I S O D E 0 7

A few floors below, Jonathan hurried briskly into the open room. Asides the 8 feet vertical Internal System Analyzer (IS Analyzer) which had a body laying inside it, there were a handful of people present in the room. The green figures spinning in semicircles at opposite directions on the display screen of the analyzer caught Jonathan's attention, making him squint in disbelief.

"Why do we have those figures?" Jonathan walked up behind Lucien who had all his attention focused on interpreting the backflow of instructions behind sent by the machine.

"We can't tell for sure. His body systems show basal activities but his brain's response is spiking up and it's just so hard keeping him alive."

"Any luck accessing his Matrix?"

"No." Lucien's eyes reflected the uncertainty Jonathan felt. "It's either he's a humanoid or he's all wrecked up and won't make it out alive."

"We'll just have to keep him breathing until we're certain for sure," Jonathan said, glancing over at the bare-chested body in the machine.

"Hopefully he doesn't destroy the Analyzer," Lucien replied, signaling to the other two persons to carry on from where he stopped. "He's been rebouncing cryptic instructions to the machine."

"That's impossible."

"We got ourselves a rare one here."

They stepped out of the room into the hallway. Their body had gotten used to the freezing cols temperature always present in the hallways with solid ice creeping about the black metal walls like spider webs. Instead of using the stairs, they two men took the elevator which drifted upwards rather too slowly before finally coming to a halt. They pushed the door which had jammed halfway through sliding open and entered a large, brightly illuminated open space with three columns of metal cages all of which were filled with battered gadgets and spare parts of various machines. There was a heap at the feet of one of the cages, looking like a dystopian wasteland of mechanical parts.

"The door's still messed up," a lady seated at the work bench called out to them. She rose from where she sat and packed here auburn hair into a bun. The wrinkles on her face told of her advancement in age despite how energetic she carried her self. "Your guests come around yet?"

"Long story," Lucien scoffed, beating Jonathan to it. "Only one's back to life. The others are pretty torn up but should be fine in a couple of hours-hopefully." He picked up one of the gadgets on her work bench.

"I assume Zee and his team's back," Jonathan said more as a question than an affirmation.

"Uh-Hun," the lady replied, throwing her arms into her side pocket. "Came in an hour-ish ago. Still trynna match stuff up and see wha's useful. Think he still got a few more hikes though."

"Hmm," Jonathan muttered to himself while his eyes scanned both the work space and the slush pile she still had to go through. "How soon?"

"Dunnuh, the boy looked outta breath and I bet he prolly chilling up at service station."

"G'job Rogue," Lucien said to her in an attempt to imitate her style of talk.

"'Ready told ya boy, giving me complements won't win my heart." She downed the content of the can she'd had on the table. Jonathan chuckled at Rogue's usual assumption that Lucien had a thing for her-which could been true.

"I might hike out with Zee tomorrow, just to see things for myself," he said, turning towards the exit.

"Hopefully, you don't experience the same thing I did last time I was out there," Lucien called out behind his friend as he stepped out of the room.