By this point in time, antiquated rituals of burial have been replaced with a technologically advanced storage system. Bodies of all kinds are preserved for later harvesting, to provide science and medicine ample resources. It’s “recycling” on an impressive (if not gruesome) scale. In her search for the truth, Nicole finds herself hacking into the Morgue’s databank. What she finds there will seal her fate.
| Intrigued and overwhelmed by the sight of it all, Nicole stepped back to behold the whole of this complex databank. She lifted her gaze to try and grasp some idea of its overarching purpose. These lists began to converge upon themselves in her expanding sight. They transformed into what appeared as solid vessels of raw data. These virtual data-pods hung like an organized mosaic in three-dimensional space. They outlined walls of a vast, square building of many chambers.
Nicole walked up and down the aisles of this imposing warehouse of information. Innumerable pods hung in almost honeycomb-like fashion from the virtual walls around her. She read names on the pods that she could see and peered into the collection of data housed within each one. At one point, she located a wall of master controls. Here, the local system monitored each pod’s metabolic depression circulator. When Nicole began to piece together what she saw, she paled. “I’m in the databank arena for the National Morgue.” The girl frowned with disgust and instantly prepared to flee this neuro-link arena. She knew she was only viewing the virtual representation of the real warehouse in Washington, D.C. But Nicole still shuddered. For every pod mimicked here on her visual, there did exist a real pod hanging on the vast Morgue walls, twelve-hundred miles away. Inside each pod, the bodies of the Nation’s dead were housed, kept in a balanced stasis of sorts. The National Morgue had long ago replaced antiquated ideas of burial — a wasteful use of land and other resources. It had become a technologically sophisticated storage facility. Here, a variety of tissue and organs remained preserved for countless uses and lay ready for harvesting at any later moment. Nicole wondered at the sight. |