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Squinting against the glare of the sun they struggled to distinguish the Purifier Rig amongst the obscure green water mass. 

The shadow of the Rig was imposing in the least but it wasn't until the rower had steered the trainees an uncomfortable distance closer towards the structure, that they could truely make out it's complexity. 

Four poles. Large. Circular. Covered in moldy lake slime. Such were the supporting columns of the 3rd ranking Purifier platform.

There were many words to describe the Purifier Rig itself. Though few of them were truly accurate.

A more precise attempt might use the word "mistake," among other less utterable phrases.

If Van Gogh had tried to paint the structure, even he would have been unable to make it into a masterpiece.
The Purifier Rig was a failed piece of architecture before it's creation had even begun.

Tom fought the reflexive urge to cough as his body brushed against one of the cylindrical supports. He felt the mold and bacteria enter his mouth and seize onto his cells.

Whilst his lungs no longer worked, he still wanted to keep them in a decent condition. As a sort of consolation.

The trainees were almost under the station now and the rower had ceased his zombie like control of the oars. Which in turn meant that the small glass bottomed boat slowed to rest beneath the raised station platform.

A few of the trainees who still possessed contracting lungs released shaky breaths of air from their tensed bodies.

They had finally arrived after years of darkness. Not knowing. Not understanding why their doors had clicked open in the barely lit morning as figures left home. Not knowing why they were not permitted to leave the Lake District. Not knowing why they were taught about the wrath of mother nature and their requirement to appease her- a Goddess whose dynasty had supposedly become extinct.

*

Just as the Purifier trainees took in the monstrosity, a mechanical lift descended from above. One that bore resemblance to a window washer's platform.

It creaked and hung like an afterthought just a few centimeters above water level.

Not one of the Purifier trainees attempted to move at first. They were struck with fear. The fear of what unknown prospects lurked waiting in the late afternoon shadows of the Purifier Rig.

"Well get out then," ordered the rower sharply.

No movement.

One ballsy young woman tried to stand but the boat teetered from the uneven weight.

She went to sit back down again and was stopped by the rower.

He lifted up his head, his scars shifting as though threatening to open again, and knocked his oar against the lift. It was done in a way that readers from the past might imagine a rider whips his horse.

"I said get out," he spat impatiently. "The 'ole lot of ya."

This stirred them into movement and one by one they solemnly climbed into the scaffold like lift.

*

The contraption carried them upwards. As if possessed by a spirit the lift jolted and swayed.

Tom noticed a person beside him with their hands covering their eyes. It seemed that they too must have noticed that the gates of the lift were neither locked nor present.

All that was left to hint at a once gridded gate was a few protruding poles, which jutted out at a horizontal angle and could pierce your skin if you were unlucky enough.

Tom shifted slightly away from the edge. He didn't dare temp unluckiness to strike him once again.

As they rose higher gravity pulled down forcefully on the lift; thus causing it to release sporadic screeches and moans, as the metal structure was put under far more pressure than it should've been able to manage.

It's not too late to turn back is it? Tom thought, eyeing Kate in slight disdain. This was her fault.

He much preferred blaming Kate than his own reckless self from the past.

Whilst Kate stood beside Tom, he was not comforted by her presence but actually felt more on edge.

Kate had once held compassion but he wondered if this had simply been a childhood phase. A trait that was tried on but then thrown out like dirty laundry.

Then Tom thought of Flynn, so willing to work for the Government. One they had been so set against as children. But then, Flynn was always willing to sacrifice for his friends.

He pictured his father and even Jasmine, following the same steps he was tracing now. And how both of them must have suffered.

He wanted to find Jasmine.

He did.

But he couldn't quell his thoughts about jumping back into the boat and returning to the safetly sized ship. Especially when the Purifier platform highered into view.

The lift swung to a stop.

Not a chance of turning back now.

*

Kate imagined the door clicking open as she would be the first to step off the lift and onto the Purifier Rig- a minor ostentation to signify to onlookers her final arrival and the arrival of revenge. Though she wasn't so lucky.

The platform of the structure was devoid of people and it had an industrial air to it, like an abandoned grave or disused oil Rig.

However, Kate couldn't quite decide if the nonrenewable resource they had been taught about in class was in fact the water or the trainees themselves.

Ahead, an over-sized shipping container sat strongly in the middle of the platform like a corrugated boulder. Whilst the twelve of them stood like dominoes, shivering in the brisk solar wind.

If you filtered out the sound of angular lake waves swashing below, an intermittent humming could be heard as it permeated through the centered vessel.

Tom felt a nudge in his side.

"Come on," whispered Kate, the culprit, who gestured towards the container. "Let's check it out."

Tom shook his head. He wasn't going to step out of line again unless he had to.

Kate rolled her eyes and stepped towards the container without him. She walked carefully towards it, putting hands and ear against the corrugated walls.

Tom kept a reluctant eye on Kate's surroundings, in case someone tried to sneak up on them. Though people beside him began to murmur. They too disagreed with Kate's clear disregard of the rules.

Pressing her ear against the iron container, Kate listened to the humming as it transitioned into a thick glugging sound.

There was a pattern to it:

Click, spray, glug, click.

Click, spray, glug, click.

Click, spray, glug-

"Will someone just restrain her?" interrupted one trainee. "She's going to get us in trouble. And on our first day too!"

Tom identified them as the person who had covered their eyes on the lift before. They had grey hair which was suspended in waves slightly above their feline eyes.

Kate smirked to herself and ignored the irritated human, not even bothering to look at them.

Then she poked her head around the corner of the shipping container.

*

Two figures stood a meter or so in front of another container that looked similar to the other.

Finally, thought Kate. Some civilization on this wreck. 

But the longer she watched them moving, the more disturbed she became.

The people were bent over, struggling with two large pipes that they held together, precariously, using giant clamps.

After 10 seconds they'd bring apart the tubes and release an outburst of boiling steam from the pipes; the hot mist billowing around them like an expanding wound.

As the two battled to wind close the clicking clamps over the pipes again, what was presented to the Kate were not faces, but red canvases- ripped raw like bloodied steak. The only protection they had from the steam were the paper-thin government issue oxygen masks.

Tom muttered in horror from Kate's side, having decided he could keep a better eye on her from a close proximity. A few other Purifier's became curious too as they shuffled forwards.

Click, spray, glug, click

Click, spray, glug, click

Clunk.

Someone must've scuffed their foot against a rock.  For the metallic tumbling of stone against platform penetrated the air.

C-C-C-L-L-I-I-CK

One of the pipe people looked up just before they managed to secure the vice clamp over the two pipes again.

Kate didn't see what happened. 

She had hidden herself behind the container, not wanting to be seen. 

But she heard enough to conjure up an idea: a sizzling and a series of screams soaked with pain. Violence condensed to a cloud.

Kate stared at the trainees behind her accusingly. She cursed their incompetence whilst hiding her trembling hands behind her back.

The screaming ebbed and Kate noticed that the trainees who had gotten curious before as well as Tom now looked ghastly pale, they hadn't hidden in time. They must've seen what happened, Kate thought. 

Bracing herself, Kate risked another look.

Her view was barred. By a tall figure. She jumped back in fear- joining the rest of the retreating trainees.

"Ah. The next batch!" said the blocker happily, as though there hadn't just been a cacophony of screams moments before.

"Stand in line." He dropped his voice an octave lower. Waited for the trainees to re-position themselves.  "Welcome to the Purifier Rig," he said, not sounding welcoming at all. 

The tube of his oxygen tank wobbled as he spoke, matching the fricative movement of his eyes as he began to scrutinize each one of them. "I am the Purifier Colonel. This is the 3rd rank station. The lowest."

3rd rank. I'll show you whose 3rd ranking, thought Kate angrily.

"BUT," said the man as though he had held a stethoscope to her brain.

"With low expectations of you comes power. You are all valued members of the Purification cause."

Kate scoffed. Those pipe people didn't look like values of the cause.

Tom shifted away from Kate, not wanting to be associated with her.

The Colonel stopped in front of Kate, his black bug like eyes resting on her.

His cold metal gaze reminded Kate that the only thing stopping her from being discovered as a freak of nature was her hair, that just about covered the absence of the oxygen tank on her back.

The Colonel moved on, his eyes flitting towards Tom.

Then something warm, pointed at the base of a stomach.

Tom looked down.

The Colonel's hand was curved around a blade handle that extended into a metal length.

It felt electric, as if energy was passing through the weapon as the Colonel spoke. Though Tom heard only white noise. He was focused on the knife jabbing his skin, threatening to penetrate his stomache.

Though Kate heard every threatening word.

"You're not here to make friends," he said. "And if I see anyone interacting like you are I'll put a charged knife through each one of you. Then you can be ponsy friends when your burnt corpses are rotting in the fucking ground."

He took away the knife and carried on walking down the line. Spat on the floor, in front of the person who had complained about Kate's curiousness moments before.

The Colonel reminded Tom of a mantis from the encyclopedia of bugs. He hadn't liked the look of them in the book and he certainly didn't like the look of them now.

"Follow orders and you'll be rewarded." He continued to pace up and down the line of Purifier trainees.

"Remember, it is us humans who have destroyed the earth and killed mother nature. Your only hope of redemption is to give back what you have taken. Pain in exchange for pain. Sweat in exchange for sweat. Blood in exchange for blood. That is the only way she can be revived."

"Now, follow me."

He led the trainees into the nearest container and threw in a sack of meat filled cans. They tumbled across the ground in echoed sounds. 

"You'll sleep here tonight. It'll de-sensitise you to enclosed spaces."

He waited for everyone to enter the dark airless box.

He waved the twirled the electric switch blade between his fingers. Flipped it open and twisted the base. The knife crackled with electric blue light as a current ran through it.

"Tomorrow the Purification begins."

Then he shut the door, so that all the trainees could see was the skeleton of blue from his blade as a scar on the inky darkness.

Author's note- Hello! How're you guys? So I hope you enjoyed this chapter and discovering the outer layout of the Purifier Rig. There's more to come in the next chapter- it's called Down Below! Also are there any readers who've seen The Fifth Element? My friend Kit showed me this movie recently and I am slightly most definitely in love with it! Leeloo is so cute omg. Also Burce Willis has hair? Sci fi at it's finest hehe.

Also Gif creds to Kyle Smith (sixfootgiraffe.com) -hippywitch