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It was a quiet group who returned to the lab. They were always quiet following the Solar King’s inspections. Sylvester was conspicuous in his absence from their ranks. There was a new face in the group, the replacement for Sylvester.

“Necrologist Smythe Hark,” the new member of the team said, addressing everyone. “It is an honor to serve with you all in this grand endeavor.”

It was a standard greeting. Not everyone was so forthright, but most at least told you their name when they first arrived. They all knew the stakes they were working under. From the way Smythe spoke, Chester assumed he was a loyalist, believing wholeheartedly in the Solar King’s grandeur. That was good. It meant he would work hard and not ask any moralistic questions about the work they were doing.

“Welcome back everyone,” Chester spoke to keep any uncomfortable silence at bay. “We are focusing now on reducing the neural gel’s viscosity so it may be administered through the sample’s vascular system. A loss in the gel’s efficacy is unacceptable.”

Everyone nodded and moved quickly to their stations. Everyone except for Smythe. Being new to the team, he had yet to be assigned a specific position.

“Mister Hark,” Chester said, “you’ll be with me for the day, catching you up to speed.”

“Of course, sir,” Smythe grinned and hurried over to him.

“There’s no need to call me sir,” Chester told him. “Chester will do just fine.”

“A bit early for first names, isn’t it?” Smythe joked lightly and gave Chester a small tap with his elbow.

“First, last, Chester’s the only name I have.”

Smythe’s grin slipped a little but he recovered as his expression shifted into one of amusement.

“You are a humorous one, aren’t you,” he laughed.

“We have work to do,” Chester said, steering the conversation back on track.

His name was not important. Not here, anyway. Smythe wasn’t the first one to be caught by surprise with regards to Chester’s name. Even slaves had last names. The only ones who didn’t were those that had been stripped of any such connections. Usually it was a punishment for serious lawbreaking. Traitors, murderers, and their ilk were all expunged from their lineages to prevent any future generations from taking inspiration from such people.

“What’s your area of expertise, mister Hark?”

“Tissue preservation,” he replied.

“Excellent,” Chester said. “We’ve been having trouble keeping our samples organs from failing. Let’s see what you can do to improve their longevity.”

It took a few hours for everyone to get back into the rhythm of things following the Solar King’s visit but even the threat of death couldn’t keep down their excitement for the tasks at hand. It took a certain type of person to pursue necrology and to have, essentially, limitless funding and the most advanced technology readily available to them.

“Isn’t this exciting?” Smythe remarked as they worked.

Chester nodded.

“And I’m told his Golden Eminence inspects our work each week.”

Again, Chester nodded.

“I was thrilled when I learned I had been selected to join your team. I must say, the briefing on this project was astounding. I had no idea anyone was so close to accomplishing such things. To think, that in such a short time we may be able to fully reanimate anyone at will. And even more astounding, that any traces of sedition or even discontent will be fully expunged. We’ll be making truly perfect citizens. Why, I could see applying this to every newborn so they could grow up without ever experiencing even a hint of doubt in our glorious empire. It would certainly reduce the rebellions, I can tell you that.”

“Mister Hark,” Chester cut in, “we are all aware of these facts. We are all excited to be working here, but I would ask that you remain focused on the task at hand. Already your mouse is dead and its neural pathways collapsed. Organ failure is setting in. We may have a limitless supply of rodents, but not time. Please stop wasting both.”

Smythe looked down to the mouse he was supposed to be using while Chester ran him through the basics of where they were with the project.

“I am –

“No need to apologize,” Chester said as he placed another mouse down in front of Smythe. “Just get to work.”

No one was looking at them but Smythe still glanced around, embarrassed.

“Every second counts,” Chester said, tapping the dying mouse.

“It’s already dead?” Smythe asked as he set to work, preparing his tools.

“Yes, or it will be soon.”

“I see that.”

The mouse, which had initially been scurrying around inside the small, open topped box, was now lying motionless.

“Poison?” Smythe asked.

“No,” Chester said. “Electromagnetic fields are dampened inside the box, shutting down the entire nervous system, autonomic or not. It allows us to minimize unnecessary tissue damage that poisons would leave behind. Even suffocation with inert gasses cause too much cell damage for our processes.”

“I see,” Smythe nodded as he extracted the mouses organs and began connecting them to life support systems. “And the brain must be fully removed and submerged in the neural gel?”

“Currently, yes,” Chester nodded. “We’re working on a vascular delivery method but currently the gel is too viscous.”

Smythe’s first attempt went about as well as Chester expected. The organs were in decent shape, as good as Chester could have managed, but the brain removal and subsequent re-connection was clumsy. Several nerve clusters were damaged and the mouse failed to revive in any meaningful way. Still, it was a good first attempt. Smythe was talented and Chester had high hopes for him on the team. Of course, that meant when next week came around, Chester would likely find himself having to name someone else on the team as the least productive member to be executed.

“Chester,” Smythe said while they were working on his third mouse, “how strong are these electromagnetic dampeners? I only just noticed my hand is feeling a bit numb.”

“You’re just grabbing the mouse too soon,” Chester told him. “The field barely extends beyond the box and shuts off the moment the mouse is dead. Just watch the monitors and the moment the brain goes flat, you’re good to go.”

“That’s a relief,” he laughed a little. “Wouldn’t want to have any accidents here, would you?”

Chester forced a smile and nodded.

“When you start working with the larger samples,” Chester warned, “you will need to be a bit more careful since their dampeners are much larger and could kill you if you got too close while they were in operation, though.”

“Goodness, has that happened here before?”

“No, because none of us here are idiots, besides, you’d feel it and probably have enough time to get back before it caused you any real harm.”

“Well that’s good to know.”

“Yes, well, you’ll have all evening to review our full safety guidelines. By tomorrow morning I will expect you to be capable of working independently. I also want you to review our current methods of organ preservation and begin improving upon them. By next week I expect perfection. No more organ losses.”

Smythe looked shocked by that but Chester held up his hand before he could protest.

“It’s the Solar King’s expectation that we will be finished with our work in that time. Anything less is failure and whoever I think is the least productive member of the team will be executed. It’s how his Golden Eminence has always maintained this lab and we have never met his expectations. That was why there was an opening in our lab today.”

That was the bit that no one was ever told. That little secret the Solar King left for Chester to explain.

Smythe paled as he looked around the lab. This time, everyone was looking at him. They all had the same look on their faces. Acceptance. Defeated acceptance. This was the work of a lifetime, but they were also trapped, going week to week, always wondering if it would be their last.

“Well,” Smythe gulped, “it’s a relief I’m rather brilliant, then, isn’t it.”

No one made any response to that beyond making a few unpleasant faces before they all returned to their work. Chester pointed to the rodent bins.

“I want you practicing on those for the rest of the day,” he said. “Tomorrow, you’ll be working on pigs. No organ failures. I expect perfection, especially from someone as brilliant as you.”

Smythe finally kept his mouth shut and Chester turned his attentions to the ape on the largest table in the room. It looked at him as he approached and felt the neural up-link activate. The ape’s mind was mostly blank. There were hints of thought; hunger, thirst, confusion, fear. Not enough of its mind, its soul as the ancients would say, had survived the process. He ran it through the basic motion tests but there really wasn’t much else that he could learn from it. The ape simply wasn’t up to the Solar King’s exacting requirements.

“Send this down to be incinerated,” Chester finally said to one of the assistants.

The table was cleared and he began reviewing his notes. Every once in a while he stole glances to each of the other necrologists. If they failed again, who would he have to name? Who was contributing the least? He wanted to name himself, if only to spare them, but he doubted the Solar King would accept that. They both knew who Chester would name each week. The Solar King knew what the reports said, what breakthroughs had been made. It was simply a matter of forcing Chester to be the one to say it. To name them.

A new ape was brought in to replace the old one. It was nearly as tall as Chester and it moved about in its cage nervously. It ad no way of knowing what was about to be done to it, but the sights and sounds and smells of this place clearly did not sit well with it.

For a moment, Chester felt very much the same.

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