Future Findings

And I was awake.

There was no ray of sunlight beaming down on me, no timer buzzing in my ear. I was just up. My mind wasn’t groggy, my limbs weren’t numb. I wasn’t even cold. I was just wet and wide awake. Water dribbled down my forehead, likely the melted ice that had encased me for hundreds of years. Many questions flashed through my head, and I barely had time to comprehend them all.

Where am I? How do I get out of here? What year is it?

First, I had to figure out how to get out of my coffin. It looked exactly how it had when I had first entered it. Of course, nobody had ever been here to disturb it-- other than me. I looked around, hoping to find a switch or lever. But there was nothing. I was entombed here, however, I could just barely make out dim figures in the darkness that resided outside of my window. I rapped on the glass, and called for someone to aid me.

“Hey! Someone let me out!” My voice was met with surprised murmurs and shuffling footsteps. After less than a minute, the coffin opened up.

“Hey there, stranger,” my savior said. She looked at me warmly, her smile reaching up and even beyond her hazel eyes. She extended a hand. I quickly took it as she yanked me up and out. I landed on my feet, but stumbled to the ground.

“Woah woah woah,” she said. “Take it easy, you’ve been asleep for quite a while. I imagine your muscles are pretty stiff and weak.”

“Yeah,” I uttered. I grabbed her extended hand and hefted myself up to my feet. She pulled her fingers back, and took a few steps away from me. She was giving me time to look around.

I turned to face my sleeping chamber, and was immediately astonished. Hundreds of other coffins sat to the left, right, and even under and above it. It took me a while to understand that each one hosted an individual that had also been put under cryogenic stasis. So many people were stuck here. Frozen. Suspended in time. I felt both a connection to these people as well as a distinct fear of them.

“Woah,” was all I could say. I took a testing step forward, and looked down at my feet. I was standing on a sort of metal bridge-- the same things that continued above and below me for quite a ways.

“Yeah, pretty amazing. Isn’t it?” the lady spoke up without hesitating. Then, I remembered my manners. I faced her.

“Thank you. For… er, letting me out.”

“It’s no problem, it’s what I’m here for,” she told me. She brought her hand up and slid the palm across her completely bald head, presumably wiping sweat away. She was dressed in a brown and gray jumpsuit-- which bore a striking resemblance to the sort of outfit that car mechanics wore. Yet it had some orange and white on it, giving the woman a sort of Star Wars X-Wing fighter vibe.

“You work here?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

“Yep, I do,” she responded.

“So, you get dumb questions a lot?” I brought my hands in front of my waist, wringing them together.

“No questions are dumb, except the ones that aren’t asked.”

“Well… okay. What year is it?” She smiled again, and brought her hand up. She put it on my shoulder and firmly squeezed it.

“It’s year 2308,” she said, saying each number as if it were separate. “and judging by the design of your pod, you’ve been asleep, what, 300 years? Maybe a little more?”

“Something like that,” I told her. I started walking, with the intention of finding the ground floor of this space and getting some fresh air.

“Front desk is that way,” she said, and pointed in the opposite direction I was heading in. I blushed, smiled, and headed the way she had shown me. I walked in a haze; down flights of stairs and dimly following the signs that directed towards my destination. Finally, it appeared that I had gotten to the lobby. Though I had no idea why there would need to be a lobby for a giant warehouse full of frozen people, I wasted no time in seeking out the main desk.

The room was spacious and bright; bearing high contrast between the dim and cyclopean feeling of the rest of the place. Chairs, all set into groups of three, sat at even intervals atop the open floor space. There wasn’t a single soul sitting in one of the plush, metal legged chairs. The chairs were white, and so was the floor. The walls seemed to be some sort of brown, yet the piercing lights over my head made them give off a sort of yellowing look.

There was one person in the room, aside from me of course. A man, with neat, short gray hair. He sat at the desk next to the door. The desk was large, made of oak and expertly crafted. Behind the desk, he appeared both impossibly small as well as overbearingly giant. He looked up from what appeared to be a computer, and smiled kindly at me.

“Help you?” he asked from across the empty room. He stood up from behind the desk, revealing his blue shirt and the heavy muscles that lay underneath it. A badge also stood out in front of his heart. Then it occured to me-- he was a security guard. But why was he facing inside, looking at all the things he was tasked to keep safe? If he was meant to keep people out, then why was he guarding everyone here from leaving?

He asked me a question, and I realized I better answer. “Yeah, um, I’d like to leave, I guess.”

The man chuckled, and moved out from behind his computer. It looked more like a black slice of paper standing on end, but it had a keyboard attached to it. He started briskly walking towards me, and I had to quell the urge to take a few steps back. He was a large man. Eventually, when he was close enough so I could see the pitch black swimming in a field of green that is his eye, he stretched out his hand. It took me only a moment to understand that he wanted to shake my hand.

I mirrored his movement and engaged in a polite if not slightly painful gesture of greeting.

“Come, come. I’ll look your name up, assign you a home, and I’ll send you on your way.” Assign me a home? So I get a free house? The future sounded all good with me. I trailed behind him. He walked very stiffly, almost like a robot. I remember my uncle always walking that same way. He was in the military. A corporal. Or a sergeant.

When we arrived at his computer, he scooted around it and sat down while I awkwardly stood in front of him. There were no other seats at his desk. He didn’t seem to notice my unease. He began rapidly scrolling and typing; with an almost inhuman speed. I guess people just got better and better at things the more we develop as a society.

The screen lit up blue-- I could see the color reflect in his scruffy face and green eyes. He seemed to stop breathing for a second, out of surprise. But he quickly covered it up and quietly inhaled some air. He let out a low grunt. Whether it was a sign of displeasure, confusion, or apprehension, I couldn’t tell. I stood there for another minute or so while he frantically clicked away with his mouse. But that grunt that he’d emitted floated in the air between us. I knew that whatever had caused him to make the sound hadn’t disappeared. It was still there-- even if he covered it up with other tabs.

“Well, son,” he spoke after a very uncomfortable length of silence.

“Yes?” I asked quietly. He stopped using the computer and looked me in the eyes. Though his were the color and mildness of freshly cut grass, they were somehow piercing. I wondered if everyone in the army is taught how to give off that look. The one that can get anything they want out of anybody. My uncle used that look when Mom was reluctant to give him an extra slice of pie.

He breathed in deeply, and let it billow out though his puckered lips. “It looks like it’s not time for you yet.” What? I had no idea what that meant. Not my time? I woke up, didn’t I?

“What do you mean?” I asked in a voice that sounded foreign to me.

“Well, everybody has a set time for reawakening. And it seems like you aren’t scheduled to wake up for another hundred years, at the least.”

“So… what does that mean? I woke up for a reason, right?”

He raised one muscular hand and set it on his face, rubbing it so that it picked up all the sweat and sleepiness off of him. “Your pod (coffin) malfunctioned. Your oxygen input was failing, so it woke you up in the hopes of getting you out alive. Looks like it worked.” The man smiled, obviously trying to force me to feel gratitude for not being dead. “Now all we have to do is fix your pod, and set you back in it.” Back in it.

Hell no. I would not be going through that torture again, the waves of consciousness washing over me.

“Eh, I’d rather not.”

“Son, you don’t have a choice,” he told me.

“What do you mean? It’s my life! I didn’t sign anything, so you can’t put me back in there.”

The man looked at me with mild anger and annoyance. “When you agreed to be put in a stasis, you gave all the rights for your life away to the company that issues your pod. Says you even signed a contract. The computer says it was issued by…” he clicked away at the keyboard in front of him. “The Bakers. Of Baker Labs. Is that right?”

“Well, yes…” I trailed off, not able to find the words for what I was trying to say.

“Oh? So what’s the problem?” he asked, with a look that was impossible to read smothered on his face.

“I was the first person put under while I was alive, so I was frozen before they came up with that rule, so I should be able to leave.”

I bested him, I thought. And now I’ll be able to get out of here and see how much has changed! I felt my heart speed up with anticipation.

“A lot’s changed since you were frozen, son. You’ve got to be frozen again-- it’s just the rules. Nothin’ personal.”

“But that’s not fair!” I bellowed. “You can’t do that to me.”

“I don’t make the rules, kid. I’m just here to enforce ’em,” he responded.

The man stood up from his desk, obviously anticipating a struggle. The glass door that led to my freedom was behind him and to the right. Which meant I’d have to get past him to get out of here. Shit.

“Look. You need to calm down. Here’s what we’re gonna do:” he took a step towards me, with both hands raised as a sign of ‘I’m not gonna hurt you’. “I’ll escort you back to your pod, I’ll have the mechanics fix it up real quick, then you’ll go to sleep again. And you-”

“No!” I yelled. I felt the adrenaline coursing through my veins. Fight of flight. He kept inching his way closer to me, ready to nab me and force me back upstairs.

“And you’ll wake up in a hundred years or so just fine. And this will all just be a dream, if a somewhat unpleasant one. Yeah? Does that sound okay?” He spoke to me like I was a little kid. He was obviously trying to calm me down while he got closer to me.

At this point he was no more than a few yards away from me. I threw my weight forward and to his left, exaggerating it as much as I could. Then, I abruptly pulled my weight onto my back foot and pushed to the right. I was back in middle school-- faking someone out so I could break free and make a basket. I hadn’t excelled at that sport, but I wasn’t bad, either. Many nights had been spent out in the rain with Dad. He would make me run a certain drill over and over again until I couldn’t mess up. He was harsh, but he was fair.

The guard fell for it. He took my feint, and lunged to my left and toward me. But he was met with open air as I skirted around him. It took me a second to gain my balance. When I did, I sprinted for the door. I didn’t dare look back.

“Hey! Get back here!” the man screamed. But I wasn’t going back there. No way. I ran for what seemed like years. I ran until I couldn’t run any more.

When I stopped, I was in the middle of some kind of shopping district. People moved briskly all around me, heading to their respective stores and destinations. None of them seemed to even notice that I was there. I was finally free.