Lazarus Rising

1.11 Riser Production

The tunnel opened up into a wide underground cavern so vast that the far walls were not visible, below, the floor fell away beneath them into a deep, grimy darkness. They stood on a narrow ledge looking over a what, at first, appeared to be a limitless space, full of floating white ghosts. The ragged white apparitions hung, arms outstretched, feet dangling, gently swaying like a field full of sleeping scarecrows on a winters night. The chains they were suspended upon rattled and clanked as they jolted the long lines of bodies ever forward in a grotesque imitation of a human abattoir. 

"This is cleansing and decontamination. We are three hundred meters beneath the surface, the temperature here is maintained at a constant minus five for reasons of preservation as you'll see in a moment." Charisa strode to the side of the platform and balanced herself precariously on the edge of the precipice, rocking on her toes as she spoke. "The newly dead are bought here by the collection crews, from all over New Europa. They are stripped, a first assessment is carried out, at which point approximately thirty percent are rejected and sent on to the incinerators. They are the ones that are deemed to be unsuitable for the process, the old, the young, the ones whose bodies are too disease raddled to make physically proficient Risers. Those that make the grade are attached to these hangers and the feeding tubes you see inserted into their necks. They supply chemicals and body preserving nutrients. Follow me and stay away from the edge." 

Cheyenne followed the Synthiod as she walked toward a halo of harsh violet light at the end of the platform. They stopped for a few moments, freezing fog swirling round their feet, as the swaying bodies slipped by them and vanished into the brilliantly lit archway. "The bodies are sterilised here under these lights then they are immersed in sterilising solutions in the tanks over there before being moved into the next processing area through this gateway." 

They passed below a low slung arch into a short downward sloping shaft. A series of incredibly bright flashes of light bounced up through the far opening, accompanied by a sound Cheyenne likened to the cracking of a giant whip.  

"Here, take these. Please keep them on until I tell you otherwise." Charisa passed her a pair of darkened glasses and turned and walked into the wall of pulsing light. Cheyenne slipped on the glasses and followed her. Instantly she felt the hair prickling up along her arms and head and the sting of the taste of metallic ozone on her tongue. They stood for a few seconds while she accustomed herself to the odd effect of the goggles. 

They were in a colossal, hemispherical room. At its centre hung two immense metal cages. Suspended by a tangle of wires dropping down from the ceiling it appeared they were in an oversized cocoon containing the husks of two giant dead spiders, rolled on their backs, their spindly legs thrust up in the air above them. She watched enthralled as huge swathes of lightening raced crackling and buzzing around the cages. Cutting like razors through the dimness of her eyepieces, fingers of light leapt from the shells and danced up the walls of the building in a fantastical display of colour and noise.  

In front of each of the shells hung a long line of bodies, pulled by the chains they were drawn into the cages to momentarily fuse with the lighting, their bodies jolting in a macabre death dance before being expelled into the gaping mouth of an exit portal at the far end of the room. 

"This is the Lazarus Re-animation Invexor." Charisa shouted over the pulsing sound of the electrical discharges. "Two machines, each creating one hundred Risers an hour. They enter the machines, their hearts are injected with a specialised energising solution and the machines kick them into life."  

"They are alive. Once they have gone through those cages?" Cheyenne shouted back, peering through the blackout glasses at the wreathes of electricity racing across the cages.