Insolation

by Bradlyn Wilson

  One of the men let go of her and the other stronger one put his one arm around her waist. She kicked and struggled but it was no use. She stopped wasting her energy, instead looking around for a way out. The man who had let go of her had a shaved head and a tattoo covered his skull. She studied it while she watched him prepare various instruments and turn the machine on. His partner was just bald.

  “Why are you doing this Alice?!”

  “Purely orders Hadley!”

  “Is that why everyone made me come here today? I knew it was a bad idea.”

  “Well, now you really know. There’s a war coming Hadley and Hemmer can’t risk your death right now.”

  “Let me fight!”

  “We can’t. You’re too important to us even if you aren’t on our side right now.”

  “Ever, Alice.” She paused for effect, “I will never be on your side again Alice.”

  “We’ll see about that Hadley, at least this way I keep you away from my husband for a while.”

  Hadley just scowled; she never wanted anything to do with Kane and didn’t understand why Alice always thought that.

  The men grabbed her and pushed her into the capsule. They attached her arms and legs to the bottom of the tank through leather restraints that they pulled too tightly. The circulation to her extremities was being cut off.

  Hadley felt his hand before she could comprehend what was going on, and everything started going numb. The bald man’s fingers trailed along her arm. “What the hell do you think you are doing?!”

  He laughed. His partner paid no attention and continued fidgeting with buttons and vials.

  “Just getting a little piece before we freeze you. Or would you prefer it after you are subdued when you know what’s going on but can’t fight back,” he whispered in Hadley’s ear. She was utterly speechless for once in her life. He breathed on her ear and nipped at it with his teeth. She struggled to get away, forgetting she was restrained.

  Alice came over and smacked him across the head with her clipboard, but she didn’t say anything, she just threw a glance at the man with the head tattoo, who came over and stuck a needle in her arm. She immediately felt the cold run through her entire body.

  “You fucker, stop it. Kane and Hemmer will kill you for touching her. Just get her clothes off and finish the restraints.”

  Everything went limp for Hadley. She was trapped in her own body. Everything started going numb. The cloudiness started blocking her mind, though fight as she did against it.

  The bald man undid the restraints slightly and started to remove her clothes, piece by piece, cutting them off as he went, and pulling them out from under her. Though he was no longer blatantly touching her, his slow motions triggered nausea. Hadley’s stomach did somersaults; whether that was the meds or his touch, she’d never know.

  To calm herself she started to look at her surroundings. It was tainted blue and filmy. She couldn’t see through the box she was in. He took her wrists and bound them a second time in thick metal bracelets outstretched above her head. Then he moved to her feet, he tightened the clamps around them to the bottom of the plastic tank. He put a metal brace around her waist that attached to the bottom of the tank. Lastly, he placed a metal bracket around her neck, attaching her completely to the glass box.

  “Don’t worry,” the man with the head tattoo said coming over and staring into her eyes, “the sooner you breathe in the sooner it gets better. See you in a hundred or so years.”

  She stared at him in shock. Her eyes were as wide as saucers. She couldn’t speak; she could barely breathe with the restraints.

  Suddenly her toes felt cold. She used all of her strength to peer downwards, straining her neck to see. A cloudy white liquid was pouring in around her. It flowed over her feet. Then to her legs, body, torso and arms. She lifted her head up as far as she could to stop it from going over her face. She was stuck in her own head, unable to speak.

  The liquid flowed with the consistency of honey, slow and strong. Soon her whole body was under. The liquid rose slowly over her chin, she searched frantically for a way to stop it. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t do anything.

  The liquid poured into the corners of her mouth. It was salty, like the ocean. She felt a wave of nostalgia, of times by the sea. She spat out as much as she could and pressed her lips tightly together.

  But the liquid kept rising up. It burnt her nose as it crept up her nostrils like worms. It cooled her cheeks, which were hot from anxiety.

  She held her breath.

  She watched the liquid as it crept into her eyes; she blinked, trying to see through it. But it clouded everything. As it got hold of her hair, her head got heavy and it was pulled down. She looked up and saw the grey outlines of the two men through the cloudiness.

  Still though she held her breath. Forcing her body to go against its natural response.

  The need for air was consuming. Her chest was getting tighter and tighter. She was panicking. She started to thrash against her restraints, unable to get free, to do anything.

  Then, almost worse, everything began to compress. The liquid around her froze into a solid. Her hands tingled as they were frozen in place.

  She couldn’t hold her breath any longer and took a deep breath of the liquid. She panicked as she did, her lungs wanted to expel the liquid. But then it warmed her lungs and suppressed her need for air. It was almost ethereal. She almost smiled. She wasn’t dead nor was she dying. Just drifting into a different state.

  The liquid around her torso started to freeze; it sent chills up her spine. The compression was painful but she was drifting deeper and deeper into sleep as her body was starved of oxygen.

  ***

  Then everything went away.

  The last thing she thought about was what it had felt like the last time she had woken up, and she wasn’t looking forward to it.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  2226

  Waking up was sudden. Disorienting. Panic Striking. Hands clenched at Hadley’s sides. Her eyes were wide, as she tried to blink away the liquid in her eyes. She tried to make sense of what was happening. Her eyes searched for answers but she only saw shapes and colors.

  Her chest was tight and she realized that she needed to breathe but she couldn’t take a breath. The bottom half of her body was in the slushy liquid that now remained from its frozen mass.

  “Breathe!” Someone said gently.

  She pulled in to breathe but her lungs were already full. She exhaled and felt the warm rush of liquid. It burned her throat and mouth. She coughed and sputtered.

  Her body took over and she inhaled. She felt the oxygen rush through her body. Her heart slowed to a regular pace.

  Hadley’s vision started to return. She was able to focus on the scene around her. The first thing she saw was people wearing scrubs and surgical masks. It wasn’t just her being pulled out of the tank. At least four other people were also still half submerged.

  She looked down and watched as the ice shards surrounding her legs swirled in the moving water. Abruptly she was pulled out and set on her feet. She stood in shock, feeling cold and naked. A towel was thrown hastily around her. She felt like ice, though she didn’t shiver. Late stage hypothermia, was all she thought.

  “Get them to the heat chamber!” someone yelled in the room. Hadley was picked up like a baby and carried to the next room. She watched as the same thing happened to the others. She was sat in a large armchair that molded to her body before it started to pulse. She felt the heat move through her body from the slow pulses. Another blanket was laid over her and she felt the blood rush back to her fingers and toes. Feeling the tingling sensation through her whole body.

  Anna was brought in after her. Followed by Pax, and then finally a man she didn’t know. Anna caught her eye and looked away, “Anna! What’s going on?” She tried to say but her voice was caught in her throat and it came out as a squeak.

  “I’m sorry Hadley. I am. They froze me a week after you
.”

  “They froze us all in the weeks after that—” Pax said.

  “Do we know how long it’s been?”

  “120 years.” The mysterious stranger said. His voice was deep and rich. Hadley noticed his tattoos.

  “How do you know?” She asked, regaining her voice slowly.

  “Hemmer told me right before he pushed my head under himself. He wanted to make sure we weren’t affected,” the man said casually.

  Hadley was awake but not present for the next hour or so. Lost in her mind. She wanted desperately to know what had happened to the world in the time they had been frozen. It had been over a century, the world and everything they had known had long died.

  Hemmer walked in and Hadley knew finally they were going to find out.

  He started to talk, mainly mumbling and Hadley held on waiting for something that truly mattered. A great deal, but then again nothing had changed.

  Hadley felt as though her life was exactly the same. Contained in the safe complex that was their military base.

  Kane came to say hi, he and Hemmer had also been frozen.

  In a way, she felt bad for the workers who had lived through the last century, waiting for the day when they could wake those frozen up. Hemmer had put a timer on himself and had woken up once a week for the last hundred years for a few minutes. Therefore, he had aged just less than five years. Though you couldn’t tell.

  Hadley got into her uniform and walked to the lab. She knew how to get there by instinct but she found her usual route closed. She looked at the large metal door, confused. She reached out and grabbed the handle but it was locked. The door didn’t even budge.

  She peered through the glass window in the door. She couldn’t see anything or anyone. She stood on her tiptoes to no avail. She laughed at herself, because why would standing any higher give her a better view of nothing? She sighed and turned around only to find herself staring at the chest of a very tall man.

  She looked up and saw the mysterious stranger from earlier. “Hi?”

  “Hi Hadley.”

  She furrowed her brow. “Who are you?”

  “Get a cup of coffee and maybe I’ll tell you?” he said in his deep voice that could make any woman swoon.

  She smiled at him. He stared at her determinedly. She was sucked into his gaze. After a moment, she embarrassedly looked away biting her lip.

  “Coffee?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  He held out his arm and she put her hand through it. They walked towards the cafeteria.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  She had been alone with her fleeting memories for the last couple of hours. Worst though, she was pelted by rain as she drove down the dark road. The assaulting dark sky meant the only light was from her bike. Beyond that, there was total darkness. The rain was slowly turning to sleet, and in the headlights, she could see the colours around her changing. The clear drops were turning an eerie white. It created a fog like appearance around her. The snow was coming. The storm was coming.

  Terribly, she was driving straight into it.

  She reached carefully into her pocket, trying to not wipe out on the gravel street and pulled out her table, which was in its coin size. She clicked the top of it.

  “How much longer?” she asked it careful to keep her eyes on the road ahead of her. For a moment, she slipped and felt the tires zigzag below her, losing traction, and she tipped a little. But luckily, she was able to right herself.

  “Two more minutes,” the automated voice said.

  She put the coinet back in her pocket and grabbed a hold of the other handle of the bike again. She turned the headlights to the daytime running lights. Everything around her became misty and unclear. She needed the subtle light, but knew she couldn’t be seen or it would compromise everything. She felt as though she was being pulled into a black hole.

  The road ahead of her narrowed, getting smaller and smaller until it was just wide enough through the remnants of burnt trees for a car to pass. Her body shook with the bike as it sped over the tiny rocks on the ground. The only thing she could hear was the hum of the motor.

  She saw the vehicles in the distance and pulled her bike into the sporadic charred trees. She turned it off and kicked down the kickstand. Then she stepped off.

  She walked towards the cars. There were no voices or sounds. But still she crouched low as she walked past the first of the cars. She kept her back to them to avoid any unwanted surprises. She looked around the bumper of a car and spotted a small shack. It had plain concrete walls, a flat roof and a steel door.

  She pulled one of the handguns off her belt and tiptoed towards the door. She reached carefully forward for the doorknob and turned it slowly. She opened it with a quiet click. She pushed the door open just as the first snowflake landed on her face. She wiggled her nose as it melted and ran down onto her lips. She licked at it, immediately parched. The cold water left a spot on the tip of her tongue.

  The warmth was overwhelming as she stepped through the door. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how cold she had become on the ride there. She had been so focused on getting here that nothing else had crossed her mind. But now inside, her fingers started tingling as they regained feeling. She looked at her hands and saw the pink returning to her blue nails.

  She looked around and realized she was standing at the top of a long set of stairs. The stairs were uneven and descended so steeply she felt unsettled looking at them. They descended further than she could see and were only illuminated every ten or so feet by a tiny ball of light on the wall. She looked over her shoulder and saw the shack was illuminated by a large candle attached to the wall by a brass holder. The milky yellow wax formed dripping trails down the sides cementing the candle eternally in place.

  Contemplating for a moment, she inhaled a deep breath and took her first large step down the stairs. Her foot squished into the inch of mud that had accumulated on the cement. The mud was flowing down the staircase and she struggled to keep her balance as she went. She practically slid from stair to stair and could feel her knees starting to ache from the impact. She kept her gun raised parallel to the ground, her eyes staring down the barrel.

  She jumped back against the wall as something fluttered above her head. She looked up and saw a bat. She smiled and inhaled a deep breath, then kept walking down the stairs. Slowly the stairs got wider and wider until they became a gradually sloping tunnel. The air was getting stuffy and hot as she got deeper, though the ground became hard and crunched below her boots. She kept walking getting deeper and deeper below the ground.

  Hadley turned a corner and saw light at the end of the path. The first real sign of life she had seen since coming through the heavy door, which seemed like an eternity before. She couldn’t see anyone around and walked forward where she emerged into a well-lit room. It was empty. The candles flickered around the room. There were three doors leaving the room.

  She went to the middle one and opened it. She peered inside intensely. The tunnel went about ten feet before it twisted and her view was gone; she decided to take it. She walked down the path and after a few minutes hit an intersection between three different paths. She spun around slowly giving each of the tunnels a look in the flickering candle light.

  She heard footsteps approaching her and launched herself into a groove in the dirt wall. She was perfectly hidden by the shadows.

  “I heard we are holding them in sector 8. I am on my way there now,” a cheerful woman said, as she continued walking.

  A man replied, “Yes, Liani got almost all of them. Their executions are to begin one by one in an hour.”

  “Almost all of them?”

  “Yes, she killed a few and missed one live one. And guess what?”

  “What?”

  “Jones claims that the girl they missed was Hadley Evans.”

  “She’s dead— We all watched her die, over and over again, everyone played it a million times on a continuous loop. It just created outrage
at the GOVs. That’s what started the rift between Saul and Liani. Stupid of Hemmer too, thought it would create peace, showing that they could kill our leader so easily.” The woman was stating facts. Both the man and woman had awestruck faces at the possibility that Hadley might be alive.

  Hadley smiled at their utter confusion, and continued eavesdropping on their conversation.

  “Hadley, Saul and Liani had their differences before Had’s death.” The man stated simply, with a cock of his head.

  “Oh right. I forgot that you’d know.”

  Hadley gave them a few seconds before turning to follow them. As they wound further and further into the labyrinth, she wondered to herself if she was doing the right thing.

  She had almost turned back numerous times on her drive here, not due to fear but due to self-preservation. Which was selfish and she knew it. But she pondered whether she should have called for backup or waited. She knew it was stupid to try to save them alone. Why did she always feel the need to be the hero? She thought.

  Unfortunately, all her other options were in the past.

  Hadley stayed in the shadows just outside the door as the couple got to a room with low ceilings. She looked around the room and saw the entire room was lined with numerous 3-foot squares of bars stuck hastily into the walls, each just a few feet from the other. Hadley took a closer look and saw they were the entrances to cells. Dark, dank and tiny cells. She crouched down and looked into the closest cell she saw. Behind the bars, the cells were tall enough to stand in but just barely. The roofs were leaking water.

  Drip, drop, drip, drop.

  The water had created a small pool in the middle of the intensely dark cell.

  The man and woman stopped in the middle of the room. They were looking anxiously around. There were footsteps behind Hadley and she slunk further into the shadows to avoid being seen.

  Hadley watched as Liani and Ric, the beastly man she had met earlier walked forcefully into the room. Liani’s hair was tied so tightly into a bun on top of her head that it pulled her whole face awkwardly backwards towards her hairline.