2.47 A Real Life

        Braced for shock now, Neter dove deeper into the bowels of the Moha Lab in search of more understanding. Aside from the very live horrors of Lab 6, the Moha Lab was virtually lifeless. There were boxes and packing crates everywhere, as if the whole lab was moving. He wandered into a somewhat functional looking laboratory to examine the work stations; there were tablets laying about, specimen jars sitting on the tables as if lab technicians were still working… A work order from Gorias… He scanned the tablet for a clue but it was some modern sort of code... 

        A storage cabinet with doors ajar was packed with glass jars, many of them looked like preserved organs of some kind. He opened another storage cabinet, in this one there were stacks of colored folders filed in order. He pulled one of the blue folders out, it was full of hair samples. Curly locks, blonde locks, ebony locks... 

         He shook his head in wonder and slid the folder back and continued his search, there were cabinets and shelves every way he looked, there wasn't time to explore the entirety of this place. He turned to leave, but as he walked back toward the Hub he noticed another light on, this time coming from an office at the far end of the room...

         The office was a shambles, someone was packing up in a hurry. Bookcases were partially emptied, the room was scattered with half-filled boxes, some were stacked by the door, ready to go. Curious, he glanced at a shipping label on a box by the door.

         "Ebar…" Curiouser, he cut open the seal to look inside, releasing a ghastly odor. The box was full of smaller black boxes, neatly packaged and labeled as if ready to sell. He pulled one out to have a closer look. Inside the small box were half a dozen strange, organic looking dried nuggets of sorts… There had to be hundreds of them in the box, the stacked boxes were all labeled the same... They were all being shipped to Ebar... He studied the nugget in his hand... Were it not dried like this it would have had a rounder, pinecone shape... Fearing where his thoughts were headed, he held it to his nose...

         "UGH!" He dropped the box, scattering the nuggets across the floor. The things Zara had spoken of paled in comparison to the reality he was discovering upon closer inspection. The secrets of Atlan were rapidly proving to be much worse than he could ever have imagined! 

         Overwhelmed and exhausted, Neter had to sit down for a moment. He stared at the pile of boxes by the door, quantifying the volume, devastated by the elaborate packaging, the cruelty of the Atlan enterprises. This all just couldn't be true. He began ripping open the other boxes to prove himself wrong, but to his horror, the more boxes he ripped open, the more right he was proving to be. Box after box after box was filled with the same dried pineal glands, packaged for sale!

         ... Bell hurried up the Headquarters steps, through the lobby, down the hallway to the Moha Lab Reception. He strode through the waiting room, walking straight past Dr Seton’s holographic eyes, straight through the lab and down the stairs. The Lower Lab was quiet… He glanced down the hall, in the distance he could see a light still on in Doctor Seton's office.

         He hurried down the hall in search of the Doctor only to discover evidence of a break-in! The floor was strewn with red folders, tablets were scattered and broken, the file cabinet was wide open, the room had been completely ransacked!

         Blade drawn, Bell searched the lab for the intruder, and dashed out into the Hub, when all of a sudden he caught a glimpse of shocking blonde hair, darting across the wall by the TLS program!

         Sensing danger, Neter darted into the TLS reception just in time to duck behind a wall, when Bell lunged from behind, wrenching his arm backward, holding him firmly against the wall, blade raised to his throat.

         Feeling the blade pinch his neck, Neter couldn't compete. Bell bound his hands behind his back, dragged him out into the Hub and threw him onto the train. He then hopped into the front seat and drove the train out of the Hub, into a tunnel marked with a faded sign above it that read HELLIAS.

         They arrived at a massive cave opening deep inside the depths of Mount Ekar. Bell bound Neter to a post then stepped back and called out into the ominous darkness. Almost instantly, a herd of savage beasts came screeching and bounding from the cave, circling like rabid dogs.

         Terrified, Neter closed his eyes as the wild dogons stalked their prey, circling closer and closer, he could feel their warm moist breath, hear their low pitch growling and hissing as they drew near. He desperately tried to break free as they inched closer and closer, fangs barred, when suddenly, one of them leapt towards him....

         "AAA-A-AGH!" Zara bolted up from her sleep and the tower tablet crashed onto the stone floor giving her an extra shock. "Oh my god!" She gasped, panting, her entire body was drenched with sweat. She scanned the room trying to remember where she was once again as her consciousness shifted to reality... She was in the Crystal Temple… It was just a dream… A horrible nightmare... But it was so real. Relieved to realize that Neter perhaps wasn't tethered to some post in Hellias, she picked the tablet up off the floor, slowly calming from the rude awakening. Was he really okay?

         She picked up the tile, rubbed the dust off, checking for damage; all the facets were still intact. She thought about the god of Death as she polished the tile clean, the engraved flames now animated by the early morning light, reflecting off the crystal walls. How brave he was, investigating the cruel world she had fled... It seemed unreal now. Perhaps it wasn't real? Would he actually find anything out of the ordinary? 

        Then it dawned; perhaps everything she remembered to have happened, and all those things she had 'seen', had only been a really bad dream?

2.46 The Moha Lab

        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...