Live to Rise

Project Lazarus Part 2

I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING EVERYTHING BELONGS TO DC AND KAI MACIEL THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR OF THIS BOOK
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Antarctica

November 17, 19:21

Batman stared at the white snow with a frown. Beside him, Superman had just finished using his X-Ray vision on the huge mountains of ice.

"Well?" the Dark Knight asked.

"There's nothing on the surface, but I found a huge building underground," Clark explained. "There should be about thirty sub-levels. I have no idea how they manage to build this, especially in secret."

"Money usually silences people. So does murder," Batman answered bitterly. "Is anyone inside?"

Superman shook his head. "No. Unless they're hidden in a lead bunker, I can't find any signs of life, just... bones."

Batman nodded. It meant there were dead bodies inside.

Clark had no trouble finding the entrance and opening the twisted, metal door. Their small team, consisting of Batman, Superman and the Flash, entered the desolate building in silence. Batman noticed the signs of a struggle and the charred remains of several humans.

"Whoever worked here was murdered and burned into a crisp to prevent recognition," the Dark Knight said, inspecting the human remains and searching for viable bones for DNA identification. "Whatever they were doing, someone didn't want the world to find out."

"They killed them once they were of no further use. How much you wanna bet these are the missing scientists?" Barry asked, staring sadly at the bodies.

"What were they working on that was so secretive? And how was Dr. Robb involved? You think he was the one behind this?" Superman asked.

Batman shook his head. "Robb didn't have the resources to build this. My guess is that he was either released or escaped his colleagues' fate."

The Flash checked the building, though with considerable difficulty due to its bad shape. They found thousands of bodies, destroyed labs and burnt documents. Through careful observation, Batman realized they had been conducting human experiments.

It is possible that Robb discovered the way to bring back the dead from this place, Bruce thought gloomily.

"Batman! Over Here!" Flash cried out, pointing towards another broken computer. "This one is in better shape than the others. Can you find something?"

Silently, the Dark Knight pulled a USB connector cable and used the holographic computer in his gloves. His lips twitched with a small grin when he realized that the contents on that computer were mostly intact, thus downloading them into his own. The security was really good, which took him almost two minutes to crack. Soon, Batman was searching through the files until he found something that made him frown.

"They called this Project Lazarus," he explained his teammates. "Apparently, they were using a new component to bring viable dead bodies back to life and reveal the secret of immortality to those who were deemed worthy."

Superman glared at this friend's computer. "Worthy? What does that mean? Who were they trying to bring back to life?"

"Warriors. From the list I found, they had a huge collection of dead soldiers, warriors and assassins. They have files on their 'Life Data' and 'Rebirth Data'. From what I see, the results were disappointing."

"What do you mean?" the Flash asked.

"Their objective was to use the formula they created, called the Lazarus Formula, to bring these people back to what they were in their prime. All they got were human vegetables, who were as useful as they were in death."