by Linda Harley
The power station was at the center and the bottom of the cavern. Below the power station were 6 cylindrical shapes, only two of them were flashing half full in a bright red color.
“By my estimate, if we keep both reactor 1 and 6 up, they will both fail within 1 week. If we shut down reactor 1 and use all of its parts to get reactor 6 up to full capacity, we could last maybe 4 more weeks. But to do that we will temporarily be out of power in parts of the Cryoplex, and we will take some losses. But no matter how you slice it, we will all be dead in a month. That’s assuming your latest experiment fails.”
“It can’t fail. It’s our only hope,” Nick said staring attentively at the monitor, “but I won’t know for sure. It will take at least 1 week to see any results and know for sure. I need more time.”
“That’s all the time I can give you.”
Nick stared at the monitor a moment longer, then straightened and said, “Fine, shut down reactor 1. I’ll get James here to start the cleanup.”
Anna gathered up her courage and asked, “How many will die?”
Betty sneered at Anna, “Why do you care?”
“Just tell her,” Nick ordered.
Betty shot Nick a wicked look. “200 of the 230 remaining people will need to be disposed of.”
Anna gasped at the number, “Only 30 will remain?”
“So, you can do math,” Betty jeered.
“How will they die?” Anna asked.
“We will shut off all power to the pods. Without the power that sustains their lives, they will die peacefully in their sleep oblivious to what is going on,” Betty answered, exasperated.
“What? Why can’t you wake them up as you did me? We can’t just let them die.” Anna was breathing faster with every new revelation, not wanting to believe what was happening.
Betty sighed and rolled her eyes, turning slightly to address Anna. “Look, there isn’t enough energy. If we can get reactor 6 working at full capacity again, we could wake up 30 without blowing ourselves up. It takes a lot of power, even to open a single pod. The last time we tried to wake someone following safety protocols…” Betty pointed at Anna, “resulted in reactor 3 now being gone. Do you want to save 30 or 1 more person, because if we do what you’re suggesting there is only enough capacity to wake 1 more person? So, what will it be, 30 later or 1 now?”
“Betty, that’s enough,” Nick said.
Betty shrugged and turned back to her monitor, “She wanted to know.”
Anna struggled to breathe, gasping for air. “You mean…” Anna shook her head, trying to erase the last few minutes, her worst fears turning into hard reality. “They’re all gonna die because of me? This is for real? How? Why?”
Nick came over and placed his arm around Anna’s shoulders. “Breath, Anna. In through the nose, out through the mouth.” Nick instructed as her mom had always done whenever she would feel the weight of the world crunching down on her.
Anna closed her eyes and listened to Nick’s voice as he repeated the instructions a few more times. Her breathing eased, and she found she could focus again.
Nick squeezed her once more and let go. “I promise everything will be all right. You will be fine. This is not your fault, so don’t you dare start blaming yourself. Too much is riding on you not giving up on yourself. The system is old, and there is nothing we can do about it. We had to wake you to test the final experiment.”
Anna wondered at what Nick meant about too much riding on her, but she pushed the thought aside as another question blasted through her head. “But that doesn’t make it right. Why wake me and not someone else?”
“Because my studies showed that you stood the highest chance of surviving.”
Anna had almost forgotten about the fact that she was the experiment and could very well be dead within the week. But that didn’t matter, right now people were going to die, and she had to do something about it. But what, she wasn’t quite sure. “How are you going to decide who lives?”
“I’ll run a random generator to pick the 30 who will continue to have a chance at survival,” Betty said getting to work, as the list of 230 names appeared on the monitor.
Betty was about to hit the button that said randomization, when Anna shouted, “No!”
Betty swooped around in her chair to face Anna. “Excuse me?”
Anna crossed her arms and stuck her chin out in stubbornness. “I don’t think it’s fair that their fates are left up to some random event.”
Nick tilted his head to the side as he thought about it, then looked at Anna and asked, “What do you propose?”
“You can’t seriously be entertaining a deviation from protocol Nick,” Betty squawked. “We’ve been doing it this way for years, and no one has ever complained. The Cryoplex founders deemed this the fairest way to proceed with the culling and entrusted us with the execution of the protocol.”
“So what if I am questioning the protocol? There is no way the founders could have predicted the circumstances we would find ourselves in today. We must adapt, and I want to know what Anna has in mind.” Nick nodded at Anna, “Go on.”
“If your experiment works, then we’ll have 30 people who will need to be able to survive outside of the Cryoplex for one thing. We can’t just randomly pick people at this point; we have to pick people who will stand the greatest chance of surviving afterward. We may be the last people left on this planet, and we must do everything to ensure that we’re able to survive without the assistance of all this technology.”
“Who's going to pick them then?”
Anna bit her lower lip. “I will, but I will need your help.”
Nick stared at Anna, and he looked almost proud, but then his expression softened as he grew serious. “You know you don’t have to do this, right?”
Anna nodded. “I know, but it’s better than leaving it up to fate, especially if I’m going to have to survive with these people. I want the best of whoever is left, to make sure we live long enough to establish human life on this planet again.”
Nick considered her for a moment longer and then turned to Betty. “Well, you heard her. Let’s get to work.”
Betty mumbled something under her breath that Anna missed as she turned to the monitor. “What would you like to know?” Betty sighed, as images of the faces of the 230 people floated up onto the monitors before them.
Anna thought about how one would start by categorizing people. She started with the most obvious. “What is the age range?”
“The youngest is 1, and the oldest is 19 years old,” Betty said.
“Where are all the adults?” Anna asked perplexed, staring at the faces as they zipped across the monitors. One showed a baby boy with his thumb in his mouth, another showed a powerful young man, with a square jaw, smooth face and bushy brown hair hanging into his face. Anna wondered at the confidence that the boy exuded, but before she could ponder it more, the image was replaced by another, and then another. Anna decided to stop looking at the faces of the kids that were about to die and focused her attention instead on what Betty was saying.
“The youngest has the most resilience to resist the effect of the virus. Initially, we killed off all the older adults until we got to 19. And then we’ve been whittling it down by random assignments.”
Anna gave this new information some consideration. “There is no way that we’re going to be able to take care of infants, especially if the power goes out. We won’t be able to provide for them, feed them, clothe them, raise them, even if they come out of cryo. I am not ready to be a mom. What we need most are kids that would be able to fend and care for themselves if they needed. If we remove everyone under the age of 7, how many would be left?”
“There are 124 people under the age of 7, so 107 would be left that meet your criteria.”
“Out of that 107 are there any family relations, brothers, sisters, cousins?”
“There are 10 who fit that criterion.”
“Alright, set those aside as part of the 30.”
; “Why?” Nick asked, cocking his head to the side.
“It will be easier for people to accept their new lives if they have family around to support them and understand their losses.” Anna grew quiet wondering where Dave was, but pushed the lingering thought aside and focused on what to do next. “Nick, what is the world like outside of the Cryoplex?”
“We have not been outside for decades. The last time we ventured out there was nothing but forest, rivers, and mountains. Wild animals were everywhere. No humans were in sight. There was nothing there that was of any use to us, so we returned to the Cryoplex.”
“Are there any dangers I should be aware of?” Anna asked.
“The worst would be the wild animals, bears, wolves and such. The nearest settlement to us is a bot facility, but they wouldn’t bother anyone as they are programmed to only fulfill their daily protocols. But that is several days of travel away from us. As long as you stay in the vicinity of the mountain, you will be safe.”
Anna tried to think back to some of the reality television programs she had watched growing up. She had some idea of what she thought they would need to survive. Together with Betty she worked to put together a team that consisted of a few strong boys, a girl who was a master chef, some kids that were boy and girl scouts, a girl who was a registered lifeguard, and a boy who had graduated top of his class in almost every subject imaginable in high school.
Anna smiled when the same dashing boy from earlier popped up in the saved file. He had a kind smile about him, and Anna wondered if they would be friends.
“How many do we have now?” Anna asked.
“29.”
Anna thought about her final selection. She feared that she was about to be very selfish. If her parents had been in cryo, then they would have died a long time ago. But there was no sense on dwelling on what she could not control, but for their sakes, she had to know the truth about her brother. “Is there a Dave McKlendle in your list?”
Betty’s fingers danced, and a moment later, the image of Dave, her baby brother appeared on the monitor. Anna gasped. Dave was a few years older than when she had last seen him, but it was undeniably him.
Betty leaned back and reported, “He’s 6 and therefore, does not qualify for your criteria.”
Nick stared at the monitor with intense concentration “Is this your…”
“He’s my brother.”
Chapter 5
The sun shone lazily through the greenhouse tree canopy into the kitchen. Anna sat on a bench in the sun’s rays and soaked up the heat. At least Dave was still safe, but probably not for long. To have found him, but be at risk of losing him, and not being able to see him, was tough to handle. A cold shiver ran down her back as she recalled the culling.
No matter how hard she tried, the vicious images of the dead faces floated in front of her the moment she closed her eyes. She stood at the edge of the flight deck watching Robert and Nick throw dead bodies over the edge of the cliff. You could barely hear the bodies plummet to the ground far below. Anna cringed every time she heard the crunching sound of a body hitting the rocks.
Worst of all were the bodies of the babies. The innocent little ones looked as if they were only asleep and would wake up at any moment. But Anna knew the truth. She knew that they would never take another breath because of her, and the loss was too much, all because they had decided to let her live. When the gruesome task had been completed, Anna had fled the scene and found this spot in the sun. She had barely moved since then, except when nature called. That had been a few days ago. There was nothing else for her to do but wait for her own death.
She wondered what it felt like to be dead. What happened after one died? Did you disappear into thin air, or did your soul go somewhere? Anna liked to think that there was a heaven and that she would see her family there, but she had no proof that it even existed. She reckoned the only way to know for sure, was to die.
“Are you all right?” James asked, rolling over to her from the kitchen, carrying a pitcher of water and a glass.
Anna wiped at a tear with her sleeve and nodded. She did not want to die. She wanted to live but had long ago realized that fate was not something that she could control. But that didn’t change the fact that life still sucked.
“You know it’s not your fault, Anna. There was nothing that any of us could have done.”
“I know James. It’s just the bodies of all those babies being dumped down the side of the mountain will haunt me the rest of my life.” Anna sighed a quivering breath. “And all of those skeletons chased me in my dreams last night asking me why I allowed their precious children to die. I’ve not slept well since I woke from cryo. Guess I have a lot of living to make up for being in cryo so long, at least with the time that is left to me.”
James poured a glass of water and handed the chilled cup to Anna. “Here, drink this. It will make you feel alive. It is the best remedy that I know of for a broken heart.”
“Thanks.” Anna wrapped her hands around the cup and drank. “Why weren’t the bodies buried, James?”
“Initially the bodies were buried a few miles away from here. But when the uprising occurred, it was no longer safe for anyone to travel that far away. So, we sealed off the western entrance of the mountain and started dumping the bodies out what used to be the flight deck for mechbirds. We didn’t do it to the north and east because that’s where the greenhouse and freshwater spring is, and we could not pollute the only source of food and water. At that time, there were still a few people alive in the Cryoplex, and we had to take care of them.”
“Is that where this water comes from, the spring?” Anna held up her cup.
James nodded. “Yes, the water runs down from the snow-covered mountain tops, which is why it is so cold and pure.”
Anna took another sip and swished the water around in her mouth. The water was refreshing, but it did not chase all her concerns away. “Have you seen Nick today? He had said he wanted to run some tests on me, but I haven’t seen him all day.”
“Nick takes any loss of life personal, Anna. It’s hardest on him.”
“Why?”
“You should ask him that. It’s not my place to explain this to you.”
“Any idea where I can find him?”
“When he gets like this, there is one place he likes to go.”
“Where?”
“The crow’s nest.”
“What’s that?”
“The crow’s nest is a term used on ships for the highest lookout point. Since we’re isolated in this mountain, sort of like a ship at sea, we’ve taken to calling the observation deck the crow’s nest.”
“How do I get there?” Anna reckoned that she had sulked long enough. She needed some answers now and was finally ready to face them.
James led her to the elevator shaft in the core and cranked it open with the hand crank they had installed to the side of it. Inside and to the right was a ladder. “The crow’s nest is at the very top of this ladder.”
“Why can’t I just use the stairs?” Anna asked, pointing at the stairs right beside the elevator. They had used the stairs to carry the bodies from the sub-levels to the top flight deck. Well, Robert and Nick had done that; Anna had stood by aimlessly observing the ritual.
“The stairwell collapsed above the flight deck, and the only other crank to open the elevators is at the power station level. This is the only remaining access point for the crow’s nest.”
“Why did the stairwell collapse?”
“Between here and the flight deck there are 20 levels of living quarters for humans, 20 levels of charging stations for bots, some mechanical floors, and then you get to the flight deck, then nothing until you reach the crow’s nest. During the uprising, resources dwindled, and electricity became a commodity. Robots were shut down en masse, in favor of saving human lives. A bunch of bots decided to barricade themselves in the observation deck, and blew up the stairways, knowing that the humans would have a hard time climbing up
the single ladder, and could easily be destroyed one by one as they reached the top. What they had neglected to account for, was that the power to the crow’s nest could be turned off from the control station. They eventually surrendered. Deemed as hostile and undesirable, the rebellious bots were terminated by the humans.” Jame’s voice was sad, and Anna could swear he was almost sorry for the loss of these bots. She could not understand it; after all, they were not alive. But she supposed bots could have feelings too.
Anna stared at the ladder and wondered if she had enough strength for this climb. She had only woken up a few days ago, and yet she felt like she had never felt better her entire life. Physically she felt perfect, but emotionally, she felt like a wet, limp rag. There was only one way to know if she could reach the top, and that was to try. Putting a lid on her fear, Anna reached out with one hand and grabbed the ladder. Then she swung herself onto it, stepping lightly on the rungs. She looked up and stared into the darkness.
“Here you go,” James leaned in and placed a strap around her head that contained a headlamp to light the way. “Don’t look down,” James said, rolling back and away from the opening. “I’ll keep the elevator door open in case you change your mind.”
Anna started to climb. At first, her movements were meticulous. Find a perch on the ladder, then reach out with one hand to the next rung, and pull herself up, while her legs below searched for the next rung. The ladder had not been designed for a kid, and it took her a while to find a comfortable rhythm. Her movements became fluid, as she no longer had to focus all her attention on looking down to find the next rung with her foot.
About an hour later, with sweat drenched clothes sticking to her skin, Anna reached the end. She knocked on the closed elevator doors. Nothing happened, and Anna scanned the area with her light to see if she was missing something. A white round button was against the wall where the ladder ended. She pushed it, and a melody sounded from the room beyond. A doorbell? How quaint yet utterly ridiculous it was to find a doorbell here.
A creak sounded as the elevator doors eeked open.
