‘If anybody asks they can have the rest.’ said Cameron pushing himself up from the table.
‘It's the protein.’ barked Higgins as Cameron was half way up.
‘Frog protein. How they get so much of it I'll never know but it seems to suppress hunger until your body adapts to it.’ Higgins slowly buttered his bum without looking up.
‘Kinase C. It keeps frogs from dying in the cold winters,’ Higgins said before taking a large bite out of the bun top.
‘I'm sorry man. I have no clue what you're talking about.’ Cameron said with a grin, waving the bun as if he were conducting a baked goods themed band.
‘Long term hibernation. That's how it's done.’ Higgins explained as if explaining some great magic trick.
‘Thanks, Paul Daniels. You have been watching too much Jurassic park?’ mocked Cameron.
‘What's Jurassic park?’ Higgins asked.
‘A movie. It's good. You'd like it I think.’ Cameron stood.
‘life finds away.’ Bishop quoted, this didn't help.
‘I think it was a book first.’ he looked around for his guitar. It wasn't in the corner like it was last time. This was a reminder of the age gap between the frozen and the fresh frozen. In one of the many ninety days turns, Higgins had missed a huge movie but seemingly know who a television magician was.
His head panned side to side, searching for the chestnut brown slab of varnished wood he'd hung his life on.
‘You lost something?’ Mikey asked eating his lunch, even he had to eat.
‘My guitar. Brown electric one.’ Cameron stated hoping Mikey would know where it was.
‘look around. You think we'll have any more guitars than yours. You're our first rock star. Shit tons of scientists and oil tycoons. You are the one and only.’ Mikey said grinning at his joke.
‘Chesney Hawks? Really?’ Cameron was appalled.
‘It'll be in your lock up.’ the doctor stood up, collecting his tray and cream plastic cup to place on the stack of others.
They headed from the common room into a long hallway, one way led to the vases the other led to the offices and rooms of the doctors and nurse Lucy.
‘Why do you guys only have one nurse?’ Cameron asked this was a question that had bounded around his head during his induction. By this point, he'd thought he'd have seen another. They passed doctor Graham's office.
‘we've had a history of conspiracy theory nuts in here. Club twenty-seven has a huge following man.’ Mikey turned left into a room with a wide-open door. One with real windows, not just strip lights.
‘the white lighter conspiracy?’ asked Mikey, as if Cameron could see the link.
‘your guitar will be in there.’ Mikey pointed to a grey locker.
‘it's not locked.’ stated Cameron although he meant it more as a question.
‘No need to, who's going to take your stuff? Everyone is asleep three hundred and sixty days a year. We had a few people get in here. You can't break in, don't worry, and the work here is scarce, but we've had people work here, with alternative motives.’ there were several pauses between each word. As if he was tiptoeing around a subject he didn't want to cover. Cameron did a face that said he wanted to know more.
‘A pregnant woman came by to get a cleaning job we had to turn her away because she had a history as a barmaid.’
Cameron's face turned a pale ghost white. She'd found him, found he wasn't dead, found he'd went underground in the least literal sense.
‘Are you sure it was her?’ Cameron asked gently let, he didn't want to show his alarm.
‘That's what we're hoping to clear up. Why I've brought you in here. In your file, it has no mention of the girl’s name.’ Mikey explained. He needn't ask really. He knew each of the cattle well enough that asking was just something he had to do, for the paperwork. Cameron wouldn't know though the girl's name. He was sure of that.
‘Liz. I think that's her name. It's not like I saw her birth certificate or anything.’ Cameron's ability with women had its drawback, but his fetishism for names never did.
‘Thank you. I'll add her name to the file.’ Mikey began to step out of the room.
‘Did she look.’ Cameron barked, Mikey swung around on his heels nearly tooling as he did so.
‘Did she look healthy?’ he asked having to know.
‘I'm sorry. I'm unable to disclose that information.’ Mikey said while nodding with vigour.
Cameron gave a little smile, Mikey left again and Cameron sucked at his tooth thinking about what he did or in this case, didn't say.
Cameron sorted through his locker. It was a painted grey block with breathing holes in it. Why it had holes for air Cameron didn’t really know. A spare outfit, his photo album. Things he didn't ask for, he was wearing this clothing set. There were many of times where Cameron didn't change for weeks during gigging. It reminded him of cartoons kind of. A natural uniform, all men had one, they referenced it, about Einstein all the time.
His sets of brown pants and white dress shirts, the ones he'd bought in bulk.
Cameron didn't buy his clothes in bulk, he just didn't wash them, sometimes he didn't even take them off until the cuffs went hard and the collar of his over shirts didn't stand up anymore.
He pulled his guitar from the holder which had been bolted to the side of the box. You could tell it wasn't meant to be there because the metal around it was worn and broken where the screws had been pushed into the soft, thin iron.
In the top compartment a small chip of plastic, which once was the corner of a credit card, lay Cameron felt around it until it stuck to his hand like cheap plastic tended to do.
A few chords were pulled from the steel strings, chords got lyrics and lyrics went on for three minutes and a fist full of seconds.
Before he'd knew it, the time had clicked by, and Cameron was collected to be put back in his vase and the guitar put back in his locker.
When Mikey was strapping him in the only thing Cameron could think of was the times he'd put his guitar in its case and sealed it away.
At the beginning, he'd used the cheap mesh bags you got free, after too many knocks and bangs he thought it best to purchase a hard case with a fine red lining, he guessed it was velvet but probably a cheap knock-off. Him being sealed in the vases was a little like that. Except the guitar case looked cushioned and gentle. The vase was medically designed which meant faux leather and shit sponge.
He was out again.
When he woke, this time for the ninth time Cameron bounced from the chamber met his friend Simon, played some music, Simion wasn’t a bad singer, just he ran low on creativity. Creativity is normally born of hardship, a need for something more, Simon never wanted for anything, he already had it.
All the scientists knew this, they all wanted something, none of them selfish either, not like Cameron, they wanted clean water, or to cure an ailment.
Cameron made music because he wanted lunch, and the guitar wasn’t a real transferable skill, not once you're known for killing your best friend, no college would want him as a down and out music teacher.
Which is what he’d already had chalked himself up to becoming when he retired. He’d already picked a school out and everything.
Now he was playing guitar whilst Higgins sang the elemental table over it. Cameron had given up on fighting the drugs and hadn’t really asked about his kid which would be turning one pretty soon, he knew that in the back of his head, a couple of scientists also knew and tried to help him by explaining the events which happened when you turn one, and the biological probability of his first few steps. Although that did was annoy him.
Then he was alone, all the others had left to sit around the impossibly large new TV, which showed a man in a tiny square hat throw his square head and body up and down while jumping on turtle’s heads, what the turtles had done nobody had taken the time to explain to Cameron.
‘Fresh frozen, you want to have a go?’ A white lab coat yelled, the voice could have b
elonged to Higgins but Cameron couldn’t tell.
He was terrible with voices, standing up he propped his guitar up against the chair he’d seen it on the first time he’d came into this room, as he turned a nurse who wasn’t Lucy ran in and ball boy’d it away.
Cameron rubbed at his eye, the little blocks stung the back of his eye and didn’t let him focus on the TV.
‘I’m just going to take a wander around the place.’ Which he did till the alarm to be sedated sounded off. he returned to the vase again, as the door closed something in Mikey’s eyes told him something was up, but he didn’t have the time to ask before the hydraulic noise whirled and he fell asleep.
A long three months, where the world was a frozen mess to Cameron, the thing about being put into a long forced sleep is all of it seems to feel incredibly long and incredibly short all at the same time. the world spins when you’re awake, and you don’t feel it, the world spins just as much when you sleep and you don’t feel it at all.
Clank, clank, clank. Not the soft hissing of the hydraulics setting themselves back into place, a huge grin and crack, as the door clicked slightly open, the same way it always did. This time a ceiling worth of shrapnel fell between the crack which had been created. It stuck to Cameron's eyebrows and clung to his beard, which tickled his chest.
He coughed, although just like the first time nothing came out. Patients, that's what Cameron needed, he held his breath waiting for Mikey to release the catch...
Crawling thick smoke made of frost bloomed across the floor like a thousand white and blue roses freezing insects as it went. Obviously, sci-fi tropes still applied and the last into one of the tubes was the first out, the door of his cell had clicked open but something still held it locked. The little square which was Cameron just considered a window flickered white then blue, then white again,
‘Hello there. I am Doctor Franklin Dean. You probably already know that. I was most likely the man who froze you.’ he’d seen this all before. And still Franklin Dean didn’t look anything like the man who put him into the chamber, he was white and old and Mikey, well he wasn’t either of those things.
‘Well, Cameron, it’s Mikey, there have been some issues with the company, I’ve set your release a little later than planned if I get the chance to get back here I’ll. hey, wait you can’t take that, it's important for chambers one to eleven.’ The tape went on a little longer Cameron pulled at his right wrist, the binding had been cut, cut through the small gap between the cracks. Now with his hand free Cameron ripped at the other strap, pulling it free was easy as the frost had eaten its way through the mesh, slipping his very thin fingers through the gap which had been made, as the door releases had popped the door open, in the background the video still played.
‘We have provided some viewing tapes to be shown during your free time, a sum up of the time you have spent in our care.’ Cameron vomited, a clear stream of ooze poured sourly from his mouth. It drained away after the dust had pulled most of the water from the mess of liquid.
Cameron would have fallen to his face if it wasn’t for a wheeled tray which propped him up, he pushed himself up and away from the stand.
The small black circles on the next vase were still and silent, through the little window what once was human, Cameron glanced into the small square, he’d have vomited if he hadn’t done so already. The dried raisin of a human, blue and dusty, lay in the state of forever asleep.
The next few were the same, after the first three vases the people inside them softened in Cameron’s eyes and instead reminded him of Indiana Jones, that didn’t make it better but it stopped his stomach from doing backflips into his rib cage. A vase that seemed familiar stood out to Cameron, he hobbled over to it, leg muscles fighting each movement.
It was Higgins, or at least was, his face looked like leather stretched over a skull, the only reason Cameron knew it was Higgins was his perfectly parted hair which now had grown to a black matted mane, the pigments had broken up in the locks had turned parts grey. A small dot of green stood out in his hair, then vanished and repeated, the green wasn't in his hair but more a reflection on the glass of the case. With enough force to give himself whiplash Cameron turned to find the source of the green blip.
A small computer terminal, the one Mikey sat next to but never used, still ran, blinking its small light.
‘Bingo.’ Cameron had never said bingo before. He pulled the chair, doing so broke up a lot of spider’s webs and a wheel from the chair, it would have spun away if it wasn't for Cameron’s weakness and an imbalance on the chairs behalf. Cameron had been a rather rich rock star.
He owned a computer like this one, well not similar being this one ran a facility which froze rich people, but it looked like the same operating system, a rather expensive one, the best type of operating system, the expensive ones were always the easiest.
Cameron blew dust loose from the keyboard and whipped enough of the screen that the haze was taken away. The green dot became a line where you could type a command.
“time” Cameron typed. The computer thought.
“7:22”
‘That's not what I meant. How long have I been in there.’ He asked the tall lower block of plastic?
“Day” he typed again.
“Thursday” the computer replied.
‘For fuck's sake.’
“Year”
“Unrecognized”
“Date”
“22.10.2016” Cameron blocked the line of numbers. Falling back into the chair another wheel fell off.
The computer typed another line.
“Unlock sequence in suspension. Press any key to continue.’ Cameron leaned over, the chair leaned with him. He reread the line and pressed enter. Pages of numbers and sharp brackets passed the screen in green, blue and white.
“Content suspended 3. Content released 1. Waking and releasing content 3...” the dots slowly appeared one at a time then vanished and begun again.
A click released a door to the left of Cameron, his ear pricked up waiting for full release.
‘Oh, puss sacks.’ an incredibly British man screeched.
Chapter 4
“22.10.2016” Cameron sat there, now two other men stood behind him, Simon pulled at his moustache, Allen Shields sweated next to him. Sat on a wooden bench to the left of the desk sat a woman, she’d already changed into a large pair of black trousers that were too tight around the calves and a white blouse, over all of that was a lab coat, she was a crumpled mess on the wooden throne. The lads stared at the small green dot which blinked on and off.
‘It looks like a date.’ Allen breathed deeply into Bishops ear.
‘It can’t be a date.’ Simon tried to correct, partly he knew it was a date but simply didn’t want to acknowledge it.
‘I’m just saying how it looks.’ Shield sounded like a nervous wreck, more so than normal.
‘Mary?’ Allen asked she ignored him.
‘Mary?’ asked Simon, this time, she looked up, Simon had always been nice to her.
‘How can I help.’ this was a statement more than a question which was more striking because her British accent out Briticised Simons, something infinitely more regal rang through in her voice. Her eyes were glazed over and she had entered a state of minor shock.
‘You don’t have to; we just want your thoughts. What's happened here?’ Simon added. She didn’t reply for a second or two, but this felt like a million years for the others.
‘Based on the disarray of the building and the time between us being frosted and thored I’d say financial troubles.’ she doubled blinked again and put her head down. The three men turned back to the computer.
‘What the fuck was that about?’ Cameron asked,
‘She does that sometimes, it’s like she turns off her emotions to think logically, gives the hebbies to me.’ Allen replied through his nose, as this was his only option his voice had.
‘She’s the lady who created all this, she's a genius. Even
if she's prone to fits of hysteria.’ Added Simon, in a way only people from the nineteen twenties could fill with sexism and well meaning.
‘Ah,’ rumbled Cameron.
‘You alright love?’ Bishop yelled backwards still staring at the eight digits on the monitor.
‘Can we ask her more questions or will she be like a zalton machine and not answer again for a bit?’ whispered Cameron.
‘I’d say we leave Ms. Robinson to have a few minutes to herself.’ Allen replied placing his hand on Cameron's shoulder. As Cameron rose to leave the room Allen had to drop his hand back to his side due to the height difference.
With silent tiptoes, all three boys began to leave the room, Mary looked up with her giant, wet eyes, the pupil filled them whole, she followed Simon as he tried to make exit with the others.
‘Perhaps I should stay?’ he asked the other two, which was really meant to be addressed to Mary.
He stayed as the other two left and went down the spiralling staircase, Simon sat next to Mary as she wept. She blamed herself for the deaths of all those in the now damaged and dust filled vases.
Simon brushed his moustache down, pulled the little white skirt of his gown down over his knee and nodded when he had to, in a way it was her fault, she invented these machines, but there was something that made it somebodies issue, he just wasn’t sure who to blame.
Downstairs, after quickly changing into their dust covered clothing, a jumper of Allen’s had been a meal for some moths, Allen and Cameron had uncovered a few files and letters that set the facts straight, Mary was completely right. Final notices in large red font had been pushed through every gap of the door, some of them recently posted. Least the two knew the world still ticked over, people still demanded money and the postal service still stood.
Cameron grabbed a handful of notices and thumbed through them, throwing back to the ground where he’d found them. The dust spat up into his face. Allen searched through the draws of a desk, it was the desk of a man Allen knew suffered from a condition he had.
A small plastic tube bent at a right angle was pulled from the draw, it was blue with a small grey cap, from the other side, stuck out a small metal thinner tube, Allen gripped the grey plastic cap with his teeth, pulled it loose from its clips and spat it out.
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