Her empty hands twitched uncontrollably.
An alarm sounded. “Medical emergency, please respond.”
“Time?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
L lifted her hand, feebly waving in the direction of the port, but the pain was too much. She coughed, spraying more blood into the air.
Squinting, she stared at the glass vial hanging slightly over the edge of the port. She’d felt it between her twitching fingers but hadn’t been able to grab on to it.
She took deep breaths. Each one hurt, but less than the one before as her body shut down. She’d tried, refusing to spend eternity in stasis on a dead world. She’d tried.
She’d failed.
“Time?”
“Eighteen minutes.”
Coughed, spat out more blood.
“Close the drawer and open it.”
“Please repeat your request.”
“The drawer,” L said, staring at the vial on the lip of the port. “Close it, then open it.”
The silent hydraulics shifted, the drawer moving in and out.
“Again.” L pushed herself up far enough to see, the muscles in her neck straining against the seizures.
The drawer moved.
The vial moved.
The drawer moved again.
The vial tilted before falling onto her stomach.
“Access secure databases.”
A small panel next to the door opened.
“DNA authorization required.”
“I know.”
L pushed against the wall, moved half a foot. Kept pushing, sliding in her own blood, seizures ripping through her. Vicious knives spiked into her brain like lightning. Red foam coughed with every breath. She slipped, pushed again, slipped again.
Pushed and pulled and rolled until she ran out of strength to push or pull or roll any more. She collapsed in the middle of the room, the vial clutched in her fist.
The small panel, so far away. So close. Waiting for her.
“Time?”
“Twenty minutes.”
She coughed. Then, she threw the vial.
It hit the wall and shattered, sending blood and shards of glass everywhere.
“Access secure databases.”
“DNA authorization required.”
L collapsed, shivered and coughed until it hurt too much to cough. Coughed some more.
On the wall, thin rivers of blood dripped from where the vial had broken.
“Access secure databases.”
“DNA authorization required.”
She closed her eyes, fighting for breath.
The computer chimed.
“Access denied.”
The computer chimed.
“Access denied.”
L coughed hard enough to break a rib.
An alarm sounded. “Medical emergency, please respond.”
Blood trailed down the wall like tears.
“Access secure databases.”
“DNA authorization required.”
L closed her eyes.
The computer chimed.
“Access denied.”
The computer chimed.
“Access granted.”
She opened her eyes, staring at nothing. “Shut it off.”
“Please repeat your request.”
L hit her twitching hand against her skull. “Turn it off.”
“Initiating memory block shutdown.”
And everything went dark.
An alarm sounded. “Medical emergency, please respond.”
The voice repeated, drowned beneath the pounding in her head, the spikes of heat slicing through her, cascading through her nervous system.
“Medical emergency, please respond.”
Amy blinked.
“Medical emergency, please respond.”
White, everything was white and out of focus, blurry and distant.
“Medical emergency, please respond.”
Coughed. Something warm and sticky fell from her chin to land against her shoulder.
“Medical emergency, please respond.”
Coughed, again. Loud enough for the computer to hear.
“Recommend immediate medical triage. Preparing medpod for emergency crisis response.”
The door opened, and she squeezed her eyes tight against the additional light. She hurt. Everywhere.
Coughed. Cried.
“Medpod activated.”
Her lips cracked when she opened them. “Too bright.”
The lights dimmed.
She looked through the door. Her chair lowered, waiting at floor level.
“How far?”
“You are eleven feet, three inches from the medpod.”
Her foot pressed against the floor. She didn’t move. Pressed with both feet, slipping in blood, breaking fingernails on the floor trying to pull. Collapsed in pain.
“How far?” she asked through clenched teeth.
“You are eleven feet, three inches from the medpod.”
She dug with her elbows, scrambling for purchase. Tried to kick. To crawl. To move.
“How far?”
“You are eleven feet, three inches from the medpod.”
She took a deep breath. “My name is Amanda Elle Forrest,” she said, rolling with every word. “My name is Amanda Elle Forrest.”
Rolled again.
“How far?”
“You are seven feet, nine inches from the medpod.”
She rolled. Coughed.
“My name is Amanda Elle Forrest.”
Rolled. Coughed.
Amy reached out, her hand crawling to clutch the sensors to her palm. The array burned against her skin.
The pain subsided. She took a deep breath and pulled herself in.
The pod lifted, tilted, the lid closing, and then the drugs put her to sleep.
Amy opened her eyes.
The lid of the medpod opened, revealing the white metal ceiling.
Something sticky had dried to her skin, tightening it. Everything too tight, her muscles rubbery and weak.
“How—” Her lips split with the motion and she blinked against the pain. “How long?”
“Three weeks, four—”
“Enough,” she said. “Long time.”
“—Days.”
“What’s the date?” she asked.
“July 22, 2067.”
“Hell, I’m eighteen now.”
On the tray next to the medpod, a handful of yellow vials and a couple of food pouches. Amy took a deep breath, moved her arm, bracing for pain that never arrived. Her arm, weak, worked fine.
“How is he?”
“All systems operating within recommended stasis parameters.”
“And the others?”
“That information is not located in any accessible databases.”
“You don’t have any additional access?”
“Newly available advanced diagnostics show missing sub-routines and command-executable level limitations requiring originator authorization.”
Amy turned to the tray, pushing each vial off individually, listening to the symphony of breaking glass. She inserted a food pouch and lay back.
“Any signs of life?”
“Negative. No radio or wireless signals indicative of human habitation. Sensors detect no biosignatures above the microbial level.”
“Any idea what happens if I shut off all the memory blocks?”
“That information is not located in any accessible databases.”
“Can you scan for any mental impairments?”
“There is no access to diagnostics on the medpods in the morgue storage facilities.”
“Scan Devid.”
“Scanning.”
The monitor flipped through image after image before stabilizing. Two pictures of Devid’s brain appeared side by side.
“The image on the left is baseline, the first scan done upon entering stasis. The right image is current.”
Amy studied the
m. “No clue what I’m looking at. Any abnormalities, or differences, or anything?”
“Negative.”
She removed the food pouch before staggering out of the medpod to gaze through the translucent panel at Devid.
Levi watched television.
Fourteen monitors covered the white metal walls of his room. At first, feeds from around the world shared images of Armageddon. Every so often a screen blanked, the broadcaster running out of power, and he’d try to find a different channel.
He’d stopped paying attention at seventeen days.
M watched. M paid attention.
M cried.
The first report had come in on day four. Rumors of hemorrhagic fever in a suburb of Detroit.
The CDC and WHO and the United Nations Infectious Disease Committee spun into action.
All is well.
No need to panic.
The situation is under control.
Panic set in on day six, with unverified reports of the virus mutating to travel from humans to other mammals. Pigs, first. Then, monkeys. It spread like wildfire, mutated daily, hourly. Fish. Insects. Every classification and variety of animal life.
Day eight, the death toll in Paraguay passed six million out of a country of slightly more than seven million.
The death toll in the United States of America broke three hundred million on day twelve.
China broke one billion on day thirteen but by that point no one bothered to count.
On day fourteen the world ended.
Satellites detected nuclear explosions spanning the Pacific Rim. The last death rattle of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, apparently taking out a handful of final grudges on Japan, China, and South Korea. The Kim dynasty going out in vainglorious style until all three countries responded in kind, covering the planet with ash and shadow.
By day seventeen, only one lonely channel still broadcasted, and that had showed nothing but the same scenes on a loop now for days. Probably would keep repeating until whatever backup generator had kicked in finally ran out of gas.
The nuclear winter of weaponized Ebola and fusion bombs destroyed all signs of life from the face of planet earth.
Levi turned the monitors off. “It’s time to forget.”
“Clear.”
M screamed.
“Clear.”
The computer chimed.
“No pulse detected.”
“Keep trying.”
“Clear.”
The medpod lid opened after Amy gave the command to shut off the memory block. Three uses of the defibrillator had yet to restart Devid’s heart.
“Clear.”
On the monitor, the flatline shuddered, ticking a beat, once, twice. Finally beeped, slow and steady.
“Devid,” Amy said, using both hands to turn his head to face her. “Wake up, it’s time to wake up.”
He blinked, grey eyes peeking out before hiding behind closed lids.
“Dim the lights,” she said, and the lights dimmed.
He opened his eyes, looked at her. “Amy?”
She nodded. “What do you remember?”
He closed his eyes, resting his forearm over them. “Everything.”
Amy reached out, touching his shoulder, resting her fingers there. “Devid?”
“My name is Levi.”
He screamed.
Amy stared through the translucent glass panel.
“Any change?”
“Negative.”
Devid seemed so peaceful, sleeping beneath the crushing weight of the drugs the computer started pumping into him when the screams never stopped.
One week later, she’d woken him.
“My name is Levi,” he said, before starting to scream.
Again, after one month.
One year.
Two years.
Five.
Nothing ever changed. Amy wandered the habitat alone. Slept, ate, wandered some more, fixed what needed fixing. She survived, waiting for something to change.
In five years, nothing had changed.
Staring through the panel at Devid’s face, Amy remembered laughing with him, loving him.
“Goodbye,” she whispered, fingers pressed on the translucent surface of the medpod.
“Shut them down.”
“Please repeat your request.”
“They’ve suffered enough, let them die.”
“Override of prior command instructions requires DNA authorization.”
Amy sighed. “Of course, it does.”
She bent to kiss the glass, tears falling to land on the medpod. Wiping her eyes, she tried to focus on his face, burning him into her memory.
“Let me hear him, again. Please?”
“‘It’s beautiful, like you,’” M said through the speakers.
“Again.” She rested her face against the panel, wrapping her arms around the medpod as far as she could reach.
“‘It’s beautiful, like you.’”
The other four medpods she didn’t bother with, there was no point in saying ‘goodbye’ to them. She’d done that the night before they initiated the memory blocks. Now, they’d been trapped in the shared memories of what they’d done far longer than Devid, what hope did they have of being themselves? Of being sane?
Worst of all, without authorization to shut the system off, all four would remain there, imprisoned in the past, remembering the terrible things they’d done, unable to die until the power ran out someday.
Initiating their memory blocks had caused sudden medical emergencies requiring immediate stasis protocols. That was just the beginning of what Amy remembered.
Devid had carried them into their medpods. He’d chosen the morgue drawers for their central location and dual functionality.
Amy had worked on reconfiguring the memory block software and Devid hacked the computer. Finally, she’d initiated their own blocks. They’d worked. But not for long.
Now, she remembered everything.
And wanted nothing more than to forget.
She remained the last, lonely young woman on a dead, forgotten planet. Nothing would ever change that.
She’d just turned twenty-three and had nothing to live for. No one to ever forgive her for what they’d done.
She’d never forgive herself. She’d never forget.
She sat in the vault of yellow vials, holding the injector.
“Let me die.”
There was nothing to miss, nothing to leave behind. Without a medpod waiting to save her, no sensor array, and no stasis, she’d close her eyes, fall asleep, and never wake. The barren globe would spin until the sun swallowed it whole.
Amy loaded the injector.
The computer chimed.
“Life form detected.”
She put her finger on the plunger.
The computer chimed.
“Full artificial intelligence functionality restored. Accessing all databases. Initiating Step three thousand, four hundred-eighteen. Commencing Genesis process.”
She studied the ceiling, the familiar metal walls, the yellow poison surrounding her.
Breathed.
Breathed, again.
“Human?” Amy asked.
“Negative. Subject is arthropod. Unknown species. Northern hemisphere, European continent. Planetary air quality has passed the minimum threshold capability for sustaining life.”
“An insect? You interrupted me for an insect?”
“No,” Elizabeth said. “I interrupted you for the children.”
Amy moved her finger from the injector.
“There are no children. We killed them all.”
“The Svalbard Seed Vault currently contains 49,782 viable human embryos in storage on level L, in addition to all known animal and plant species. Inventory includes one thousand fetal medpods modified for artificial embryonic gestation. The children are your responsibility. You are their parent.”
She pulled the vial, placing it gently in its case.
>
Amy made her way through the maze of corridors until reaching the largest pair of tall doors at the end of a massive loading area.
Machinery hummed, the giant doors opening, admitting gusts of chilly air in the heart of summer.
Waves crashed against the shore of the Greenland Sea. Pale sunlight broke through grey clouds, sending shadows across the empty streets of Longyearbyen, Norway. Stretching deep into the earth behind her, thousands of unlocked rooms held the future of humanity.
Acknowledgements
This novel has been a rebirth of sorts for me as well. It’s been five years since my last novel, ALL THOSE BROKEN ANGELS, and so much has changed.
Four moves (St. Petersburg, Fl, Naples, FL, Salt Lake City, UT, and Atlanta, GA for those keeping score). Three poetry collections. I founded National Dark Poetry Day. And one divorce.
Through it all, I wrote (or tried to). Now, five years, eight minutes, and thirty-two seconds later, it’s so very good to be here.
This book wouldn’t exist without the incredible support system that I’ll humbly try to thank and acknowledge in some small way.
Years ago, I was invited to join a beta reader support group. The benefits I have received from each of them is a true gift. James Chambers, JG Faherty, Patrick Frievald, Erinn Kemper, Chris Marrs, and Rena Mason have each made me a better writer in so many ways.
I also had three additional beta readers who provided important feedback and criticism: Terri Molina, who has been beta reading me for around twenty years now, Stacey Donoghue, and Jillian Boehme for her beta reading grammatical prowess.
Thanks, also, of course, to all of the Miss Snark’s First Victim Success Stories for their support, encouragement, and assistance over this journey. And to Ammi-Joan Paquette, of the Erin Murphy Literary Agency, and to Cherry Weiner, of the Cherry Weiner Literary Agency, for their belief in this story.
My parents and my sister, Shayna, have always been my biggest supporters. My brother-in-law, Bruce Steinfeld, provided philosophical references and background which were vital to the research I undertook for 8:32. As was Kim Collins of MommaArts for her extensive doula knowledge and patience in answering a lot of random questions. Dr. Wanda Yang Temko, Christina Robertson Whitehead, Laurie Thompson, and Carrie Gordon provided so much more than moral support through some of the darkest moments of my life and I am blessed with their friendship. The entire Atlanta chapter of the HWA helped in so many ways, as did Cat Scully, who is still a member in spirit even if she’s moved away. Jonathan Maberry provided YA guidance, which is always appreciated and, in this case, vitally needed. Matthew Revert was infinitely patient in designing the brilliant cover. And Angela Quarles (Geek Girl Author Services) for her stunning design work in helping to bring 8:32 to life in all her free time between her own writing and running The Haunted Book Shop in Mobile, AL.
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