Neter struggled to understand that which he had just witnessed in Fina. As he trudged back along the rail line, stumbling still in shock, the unanswerable questions were accumulating like lead weights. The gates had likely been closed to protect
the citizens of Atlan from whatever it was that had possessed the citizens of
Fina. Did this not mean they knew ahead of time? Had they gated the island off in time? Would it spread through the other
tunnel networks? Was that why things
were being moved in boxes and why the Underworld was so quiet? Was this the so-called Mental Illness Orius spoke of?
The
long walk back to the Hub gave Neter much time to consider all that he knew from past experiences in Atlan. As he
arrived at the crossroads, he stopped to scan the premises again from safe cover, it
was still quiet, only the hum of machinery pierced the silence. He was about to
head up the stairwell, but on his way, caught a glimpse of what looked like
Moha Lab signage...
Vida had spoken of the Moha Lab, Zara had spoken of it and he
himself had vague recollections of such an infamous lab. The temptation was too great,
this was why he was here. With
renewed motivation, he turned and headed towards the sign.
Like
the rest of the Underworld, the Moha Lab was seemingly vacant, dimly lit and strangely
silent, it looked like there were renovations taking place, the stench of
rotting flesh was thick here, too. He couldn't see any corpses stacked all over
the place, but there were plenty of signs to suggest the processing nightmare
Zara had spoken of could have been real.
The
sign overhead read Lab 6. Bracing himself for anything now, he opened the door
to the lab of which Zara had spoken. The Moha Lab was a very interesting
establishment, familiar in a strange way. Bizarre and very technical looking
equipment was scattered amidst ancient machinery and Solarian relics. Technology
and organization had come a long way since his Atlan days, but there was
nothing obvious to suggest anything nefarious was going on.
A
dim light flickered from a doorway at the far end of the lab. Quietly he crept
towards the open door. Inside the room was a row of beds, it looked like goddesses were strapped to the beds, they had to be unconscious... He scanned the
apparatus beside the beds, each goddess was rigged to the same devices; a large
glass cylinder that seemed to be plumbed into them through a machine, tubes and
wires. Was it keeping them alive?
Devastated
by this unbelievable reality, he cast all emotion aside so as to study the
scene objectively. What were they doing? Clear glass cylinders beside them were filled with a cloudy
chartreuse liquid, there appeared to be a fetus suspended in the liquid…
Then it dawned. This was
the Breeding Program… This was what
Zara had described... He
scanned the room again, there had to be at least twelve of them!
He
checked again for staff, then moved closer to one of the subjects on the bed
to check her pulse; she was still alive. He tried to wake her, he shook her
shoulder but the goddess remained unconscious. He tried telepathy, he tried to
wake her Spirit up, but again, he was completely unable to reach her.
The
truth hurt really bad, suddenly he felt light-headed. This was what had become of the lost children they had
left behind. Why hadn't he investigated sooner? Why had he not listened to his
gut? Why did Orius lie and tell him the experimental breeding had stopped when
obviously, it had been going on like never before? This place was an absolute
nightmare. It offered some explanations, too. This was how there were no
families. This was why the refugees that surfaced in Kergal were so terribly
unconscious. They were born
unconscious.
He
glanced at the cylinder full of chartreuse liquid, what was it? The fetus was obviously struggling, it didn't stand a
chance of fighting off an Archon coming into the world like that.
The
fetus opened his eyes as if sensing his presence. He stretched out his little
limbs and scrunched his face, reaching out with clenched fists as if crying for
help...
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