What Year Is It? - short story / fiction

What Year is it?
By Kevin O’Connor


         Cold stale air infiltrates my nostrils with every slow breath.  Eye lids are too heavy to open and feel as if they’re glued shut. My limbs and appendages seem restrained under a weight I cannot feel. Moments later a burning sensation rushes through both arms from the elbows to my chest and then cascades over the rest of my body causing fingers, arms, toes and legs to sting like a thousand pins and needles are pressing into my flesh. Bodily fluids are coursing through intravenous connections in my arms, filtering out cryogenic plasma and nano machines while slowly raising my internal body temperature back to a normal 98.7 degrees. I force one eye open only to see a faint red glowing reflection above my face. Clouds of illusion and mystery start to dissipate from my brain allowing me to construct a complete thought.
         I remember this feeling of helplessness, vulnerability, and painful hunger during the practice sessions, I thought to my self. According to the lab technicians, wake-up sickness would take about 24 hours to over come but eating as soon as possible would help reduce the effects of cryogenic sleep. Blinking several times to wet my crusty eyelids, I open both and wait a second to focus on the red reflection. I hear my heart beat increase and realize I’m still lying in bed, enclosed in the cryogenic chamber. The infrared heating elements create the glowing reflection on the Plexiglas canapé, signifying the warming process is underway. After determining the exterior environment is safe the cry-tube, as the other team members like to refer to these machines as, has also started to mix in the outside air. The smell of damp concrete replaced the filtered pure air of the cry-tube. The damp concrete smell reminds me of the basement bedroom in my parent’s old house when I was a kid. The last thing the lead scientist said to my team, in her stout southern drawl, “You can’t rush the warm up process, so you all better lay back and think of fond memories. The chambers will open after all life support systems have deactivated.” 

I have plenty of time to relax and recall my fondest memory. Two days before I volunteered to test out the companies newest Cry-tube, I proposed to my girl friend Julie, Julie Hamilton. The only daughter to PhD Charles R. Hamilton III, president and owner of the prestigious Twelve Oaks Corporation in Atlanta Georgia. I remember the first day we met. I started working at Twelve Oaks Corp in civil engineering department when the other guys bet me I would not ask the president’s daughter out on a date. I won that bet and several years later won Mr. Hamilton’s approval to marry his daughter, if I completed the first long term cry-tube experiment.
  The first extended cry-tube test had been scheduled for the day after Christmas. I spent four weeks prior to that big moment, making secret trips to the jewelers, in the driving snow, to have a special platinum and gold wedding ring made for the largest diamond I could afford. The jewelers’ handcrafted a masterpiece and they made me a matching band. I remember the big moment vividly. Our first Christmas tree was decorated and lit up in silver and gold and I just finished setting up the Lionel train around the base the tree. The living room looked like a Norman Rockwell painting. Julie had run up stairs to get ready for Christmas Eve dinner at my parents when I said to my self, “It’s now or never.” I dimmed the lights, lit a few candles and poured champagne into two Waterford crystal flutes I purchased just for this occasion. Then I removed a little white box from my sweater pocket and with a great big breath I placed it in the gondola of the electric train and parked it out of sight behind the tree.
         “Julie, do you have a minute?” I called from the living room, “Could you come down for a minute please?”
         She bounded down the stares and skidded to a stop on the hard wood floors. Her eyes were filled with wonder at the scene I had created. I gathered my wits, cleared my throat and said, “I would like to start a little tradition this time of year where we begin the Christmas holidays with a toast of champagne and we image our selves boarding the Christmas Express train and riding it into our future.” I knew I struck a heartstring with that speech for Julie’s eyes started to well up. We sat at the base of the tree and I slowly started the little train rolling. She might have taken one sip before she let out a gasp for breath after seeing the small white box sitting in the gondola. I slowed the train to a stop right in front of her and blew the steam whistle. She cautiously set her crystal flue down, picked up the little white box and opened it.
         That was my queue, “Julie, will marry me and join me on this train ride into our future?”
         Tears ran down her cheeks and started to mess up her mascara. She didn’t need to say yes, I could tell. But she said yes with a big hug and a kiss. She could afford a diamond ten times the size I purchased but she was not into material possessions. She accepted the little ring for the symbol and commitment it offered. She placed the ring on her finger and turned the throttle up on the little steam engine. We sat in front of the Christmas tree watching the train trundle around in a circle while we finished our champagne.

         I must have fallen back to sleep during the remainder of the wakening process for I’m now able to rub my eyes with both hands with out hitting the Plexiglas canapé of the cry-tube. Just then several pressure points touched my face from both sides and crawl up to my nose. “Aaaa”, I scream as I spastically swipe at my face to knock off whatever had climbed on. I don’t dare open my eyes. With every swipe of my hands I feel small scratched in my cheeks, across my nose and dangerously close to my eye lids. I can’t stand insects crawling on me. I sit bolt upright and frantically flail with my hands and arms to wipe the insects my face. The EKG monitor alarm starts beeping; I can hear my heat beat pounding. Slowly I open my eyes to see blurry long thick curled arachnid legs clinging to my hands. “Aaaa, holy crap!” I screamed once more, banging my hands against the insides of the cry-tube, trying to dislodge and possible smash the hideous creatures attached to my hands. With every impact a stinging, tearing feeling at my finger tips. My eyes finally focus to get a look at the creatures attaching my fingers when I notice there are no giant spiders. Lifting my hands again in front of me I realize the long gangly stems attached to my fingers are in fact my extremely over grown fingernails. The blood and painful throbbing is coming from broken nails that tore off during my panic attack. I then noticed my full beard, hanging down to my chest with pieces of broken fingernail snagged in my whiskers. With a deep breath and sigh of relief, feeling relieved that know one witnessed my episode, the EKG beeper slowed down.
The canapé had already opened and the cold damp air sent shivers down my back. The regulation sleeping pajamas were not designed for warmth. Sitting up in the cry-tube I scanned the cold darkness for signs of technicians and fellow trainees. The only illumination came from the control panel on the outside of my machine, which barley lit up the floor, five feet down. Even with my eyes dilated to the point where the control panel lights were irritating, I still could not see more then two feet into the pitch-blackness of the training room. Examining the brittle curled talons, extending from my fingers, I can only assume the technicians over looked the anti-growth serum. A marvelous product developed by the Twelve Oaks Corp. and sold as an over-the-counter beauty aid. It reduces the growth rate of hair, whiskers, fingernails, and other human functions that continuously replenish with age. What doesn’t make sense is, I was scheduled for a five-day freeze and it would take years to grow fingernails long enough to curl under like rams horns. Something is not right here, I need to get out of here and find a lab technician.
I started to remove the IV tubes and sensor wires, by pinching them with my knuckles, while anticipating hearing voices from other trainees or a commanding voice over the intercom from the control room high above the training room floor, but it never came. There were no human sounds at all, just the low humming drone from the self-contained power supply in the base of my cry tube. With my breathing and heart rate under control I can make out the faint sound of water dripping into a puddle that echoed around the room. This is very strange, for a training room would not smell like a damp concrete basement. Something is not right here.
         Instinct took over my next few movements, I had been through the wake-up drills many times in the past few years. I remembered the most important things to do first are, get dressed, to contain body heat, and to have a hot meal as soon as possible. It’s very easy to fall victim to wake-up sickness, which is a combination of hypothermia with fatigue side effects from cryogenic sleep.
All sensor wires removed, other then the EKG wires, I slowly climbed down from my bed in the cry-tube and skittishly placed both bare feet on the cold, damp, concrete floor. This does not feel like the training room floor. I held my right forearm up to the bar code scanner to unlock the LCD screen of the control panel then typed in the command indicating my awakening cycle is complete. The next message on the screen said “Good Morning, Lieutenant Butler. Please remove your EKG sensor wires now and have a safe day.”
         A moment later the personal effects and clothing locker at the far end of the cry-tube machine popped opened and I quickly flicked on the little work light that illuminated a greater area around my tube. There is a locker-room style bench next to my machine and a concrete wall about four feet away but its not enough light to illuminate the whole room. I need to get dressed first; I’m starting to shiver out of control and lightheadedness has me gripping the lock door to steady my self. I grab my uniform in one quick jab and drop down on the bench. The pre-heated uniforms feel great, like pulling on warm clothes fresh from the dryer back home. Home? Does home still exist? Is Julie still alive? I laced up my combat boots, tucked in my shirt and grabbed the light duty all weather jacket from the locker. I could feel my body heat rising and the convulsive shivering has stopped. I opened my personal effects locker and removed a small black velvet pouch that contained the matching wedding band to Julie’s ring. Holding it up to the halogen work light I examined craftsmanship and then slid it on my left ring finger.  We never had a chance to pick a wedding date. I can’t give up hope yet. This is all some elaborate training session. I just need to follow procedures, complete this training session and get back home where Julie will be waiting for me.
         Wait a minute, something is wrong with my uniform. These are olive drab fatigues and the arm insignias are also wrong. This uniform belongs to a member of the Forward Interdiction Teams. I should have a gray uniform of the Scientific Teams. I quickly reached for the release lever inside the clothing locker that opened the equipment locker on the other end of the cry-tube. Well this could only mean one thing; if the training exercises are complete then the mission has started, I thought to my self.  I stepped down to the end for a quick inventory of the standard issue equipment. If my science equipment is not there then something has gone very wrong. Jerking the heavy steel door open and flicking on the internal work light confirmed my fear. The standard backpack with survival gear is inside; a pistol belt with 9mm automatic pistol is all there but none of my scientific test equipment or satellite communication gear. Instead, I found one create of fragmentation grenades, four white phosphorous grenades, and of all weapons, a M-21 sniper rifle with a night vision scope.
This is not right, I thought to my self. I signed up for the scientific team and trained with them. How could they screw up so bad and stick me in a FIT unit. Granted, I did qualify as expert marksman in training but that does not explain how I got stuck on a forward interdiction team. I’m a mechanical engineer, trained to fix and start up damaged power plants, not a, kick the door-in, machine gun wielding jarhead. There better be a good reason for this mess and I bet the answer is waiting for me on-line.  I need to power up this bunker and check in with central command.
Sniper rifle; what good am I going to do with a sniper rifle? The only use I could think of for a sniper rifle is hunting with it. If I ran out of rations I could hunt deer or buffalo for food. But this is crazy, there is no way the situation out side could be so bad that I would need to hunt for food. This can only be an elaborate training episode, it has to be!
I left the rifle secured in my weapon locker but picked up the pistol belt with attached canteen and bayonet. Strapped it around my waist then turned to face the concrete wall. I know the basic design of the FIT bunkers is two square chambers made of reinforced concrete walls. One chamber contains the cry-tubes for each team members and the other, much larger chamber, contains the team’s specialty vehicle and the main control panel. Just then I remember from the team-training manual, there must be other team members on a Forward Interdiction Team. Three more people to be exact.
I run my hand along the concrete wall and walk into the pitch-black darkness in search of the door to the other chamber. After a few steps I notice little blinking green and blue lights the red glow illuminating from the other three cry-tubes, all in a row behind my tube. Wow! At least I’m not alone. I wonder who they are? I pause and gaze in the darkness, watching the blinking lights on their control panels, knowing they will soon awake and go though the same wake-up sickness drill I did. I then realize the gut wrenching feeling in my stomach is from not following directions. I should have opened one of my daily ration packs and heated the beef stew to get some hot food in my stomach. I buckle over with cramps, after a minute I strain to stand up right. I’ll eat after I power up the bunker and turn on the lights. Shuffling my feet I managed to find the door to the vehicle chamber.
The door resembled a heavy steel bulkhead hatchway aboard a ship. I needed both hands on the center wheel to unlock the door. The door to the vehicle chamber could only be opened from the cry-tube chamber side. The door latches all give way at the same time with a gush of stale damp air rushing in around the opening. The heavy steel door swings inward to the cry-tube chamber with the help of a small tidal wave of cold-water that pours into the chamber. The water level quickly levels out leaving about six inches deep to wade through. Oh no, my other team members are going to have a rude awakening climbing down from their tubes. I probable should have waited till the others were awake and dressed before opening the chamber door. Something tells me that’s a rule I forgot from training.
The vehicle chamber is pitch black also and too large to wade through the water while fumbling around for the main control panel. I sloshed back over to my equipment locker and removed the flashlight from the contents of my backpack. I had no doubt it would illuminate after long-term storage. The mini fuel-cell power source, that replaced D size batteries, was a major technology break through for the corporation. They last 20 times longer then batteries. In fact, that little invention is what funded the whole cryogenic development program. The flashlight came to life with a simple click of the button. Bright white light washed over the large cryogenic machines and reflected off the ripples from wading through the water. Clearly, there are three more cry-tubes in the chamber but before I waist more time checking out who the other team members are I need to turn the power on.
I could now wade through the ice-cold water with confidence and enter the vehicle chamber to search for the main control panel. Steeping through the hatchway I made a quick sweep of the chamber with the flashlight. Instantly the team vehicle caught my eye, a very large military SUV with eight giant wheels, sloped sides and a turret on top. There are creates of equipment stacked in the corners and various size barrels line the walls. The vehicle is facing a large heavy steel door that operates much like an overhead garage door. The main control panel is located in a small alcove that is about three feet above the floor level. The emergency exit is located next to the main control panel. I climb the three concrete steeps leading up to the alcove. My soaking wet boots slosh and leave puddles on the floor with every step. Standing in a small puddle of water in front of the main control panel I wonder if it’s safe to grab circuit breaker lever. My boots have thick rubber soles and I’m tired of spelunking in the darkness so I reach for the lever, pushing up to engage the power source. The circuit breaker lever makes a loud clunk and instantly the control panel comes to life. Faint sounds of humming transformers are heard and a single florescent light in the alcove blinks then lights up.
I clicked off my flashlight and clipped it to my belt then run my finger down the control panel flicking on the light switches. The vehicle chamber slowly starts to fill with yellow light as the special low energy light fixtures start to warm up. With every minute the yellow light fades to white while consuming the darkness. Shadows grow and creep along the gray concrete walls. Electrical conduits intertwine with junction boxes, covering the walls and reaching to the ceiling like roots from a tree. Three large fuel cells are suspended from the concrete ceiling, 12 feet off the floor. They’re much larger versions of the mini fuel cells used as flashlight batteries. The large fuel cells can supply electric power for many years and last forever when turned off. When the times comes to exit the bunker all available power will be needed to raise the heavy steel doors in the vehicle chamber.
The water level started to recede after the power came on and the air purifier system removed the damp concrete smell. Even the air temperature increased a little. The bunkers are designed to function automatically, as small self-contained environmental chambers if needed. During our training the survival instructors prepared us for many different scenarios, from nuclear and biological disasters to crowd control and humanity relief.
It’s time to eat, I can’t wait any longer.
The floor is already starting to dry in spots now that the dehumidifier is running. Maybe the other team members won’t notice I flooded the cry-tube chamber before they awoke.  I pulled the survival gear from my equipment locker and removed one Meal-Ready-to-Eat ration pack from the backpack. Sliced through the tough plastic package of the MRE with my bayonet and dumped the contents on the bench next to my tube. With fresh drinking water from one of the barrels in the vehicle chamber I pored a little into the dry chemical heating pouch. The chemical reaction generates sufficient heat to warm the beef stew pouch when placed in side the heating pouch. Dinner is served.
With a glove on one hand to hold the warm food and a small plastic spoon in the other hand; I ate the beef stew as I inspected my new teammates laying in their cry-tubes. The first team member is a tall husky man with blond hair, in his mid twenties. All the cry-tubes are the same size, which is the reason for the strict height and size requirement. Although, the corporation must have made an exception for this guy. He barely fit in the tube. I can’t review his personal information until the awakening process is complete. That information is locked away in the on board computer but every cry-tube has the sleeper’s rank and last name stenciled on the side bellow to their canapé.
“Welcome Sergeant Wilkes. I will be interested to hear what your area of expertise is,” I said out loud. It seems to ease the lonely waiting period, to talk out loud, while the other members wake up. Walking over to the next cry-tube I discover a short thin man that seems to have slid down towards the foot well of his tube. He looks like a little boy with just his head visible in the clear canapé area. His light brown hare is thinning on top of his head and his pale skin has age lines around his eyes indicating that he must be older then his mid twenties. According to his nameplate this team member is known as Staff Sergeant Kennedy.
“Good to meet you Staff Sergeant. I look forward to hearing about your specialty as well. Hopefully your taller in person,” I said with a chuckle. Humor is a rare gift in this job. Too many trainees refuse to relax and joke about the unfortunate circumstances that created our jobs. Those who could make light of the situation at hand performed better under pressure, according to my survival instructor. Normally a team of four to six people would train together. This allowed them to form bonds that were crucial for survival. Every team member needs to trust the other in order for the group as a whole to be successful.
Now finished with my beef stew and feeling energized I pulled my canteen out and start to drink while walking around to the last cry-tube. I choked and accidentally spit on the canapé of the last teammate. The last sleeper turned her head and stared directly into my eyes. Her sudden movement startled me then her green eyes gently closed. I caught my breath and cautiously approached her tube. She seemed to be as tall as Sergeant Schrader but slim and fit. Her arms and shoulders had more muscle tone then mine or Staff Sergeant Sollars. Her short dark brown regulation hair cut now dischelved from tossing and turning in her sleep. I caught my self staring at her firm body through the thin pajamas and quickly turned away after noticing her name plate.
“Pardon my intrusion Captain O’Hara, I’ll just wait in the other chamber till your dressed.”
I quickly walked back in to the vehicle chamber hoping the Captain didn’t realize someone was watching her sleep. That wouldn’t make for a good first impression. Especially when I didn’t know the rest of the team through training.