Tales of the Lazurai

IAT THE OPEN DOOR TO the empty concrete dome, inside the long chain link fence, you can see those sheets of paper tacked to a bulletin board, each page protected by plastic against the weather. You can read it from where you stand, if you focus your binoculars just right: They call me Death. But I gave you only love as my gift. Blame it all on the terrorists. Or the scientists. Or the government. Doesn't matter. I'm alive because I'm a freak. And I was made in the image of you. Some say it was after they found viruses were sentient. And passed that Sentient Life Act. But people say a lot of things. I can't die, you see. And so the government scientists gave me more life to give away in return. That life can cause death. But I'm not a terrorist, I was a victim of terrorism. I remember none of this, as I was just a babe laying in my bed in a maternity ward. A bomb went off nearby. Most everyone died in the hospital. It wasn't the explosion that mattered but what was in it. More than half of the babies in that room with me lived. And kept living. While all around us were getting sick and dying, we kept gurgling and smiling when anyone in their hazmat suits came around. We only wanted to be fed, and cradled, and listen to the funny voices and faces they made for us behind their plexiglas faceguards. The few babies released to their families resulted in most of their family getting sick and dying. Any remaining lost their minds. The babies were then recovered and returned by people in hazmat suits. So all of us who survived that day were taken in by the government, and research was begun to see how and why and what we had become. Finally, they found a common virus in us, they called Lazarus. It kept us alive, and killed most other humans around us, other than other babies. The youngest ones had the best chance of surviving any infection. When we became older, we were moved to a sealed dome where we could grow older. And be watched. Our ability to make people sick got worse after we became teenagers. No adult was with us very long. The Lazarus virus came out of our pores, and then made its way through any known fabric, plastic, or even metal. One day, they gassed us all. And a few hours later, we were still alive. Made our eyes tear up, but that was about it. A few days later, they tried other chemicals. And then different illnesses they had stored up. Even tried to burn us, blow us up. Didn't work. No one else knew about this. Because they were all told that we had died. And our dome cemented over. A Chernobyl solution. As you're reading my story today, you know that also failed. You see, we absorbed the chemicals and antivirals and diseases they released among us. And in our system, we were able to then release them back through our pores. In strange and different combinations. Without oxygen, our systems would change to live on other compounds. In a vacuum, our bodies would create air by digesting the materials we touched. And that is how we had food and fluids after we were put in the concrete. We lived several years that way. Until the day we ate our way through the concrete. And the fences, and learned to digest the metal slugs they shot us with. We got very good at healing ourselves. All they could do is retreat. And retreat, and keep away from us. Exactly what we didn't want. All we wanted was to be loved. All we had was each other. The other Lazurai. We went back to our concrete bunker. And made it into a home. We built in skylights, and found enough clear plastic to waterproof the holes. If we needed building materials, we just went out to find them. Someone finally got smart enough to leave a walkie-talkie with enough spare batteries so we could put our requests out. Then whatever we needed was delivered to a neutral zone, usually through remote-controlled trucks, that would self-unload their contents and drive away, blowing themselves up shortly after leaving their cargo. People didn't want us to get transportation. One of those supply runs brought us our Internet access, and we found more about the world. Eventually, one by one, we left. They couldn't stop us. We left in search of love. Understanding. Humanity. We each were walking Death. Mostly.