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COLD START
Cryogenics, fancy word for the big freeze. Why would anyone want
to do that, right? I mean, come on, you hop in this tub on the off chance that
your rotten carcass will be worth something in the future; they’ll decide to cure
your horrible diseases, wake your ass up and say,” Hey, welcome back as a fully
fledged member of society, here’s a job, and an apartment, and your new girl
friend.” What are the odds?
Anyone knows that the ice ruins your brain, breaks up the cells, or
something, when the ice squeezes them… or something. So why the hell am I in
this tub? Well I wish I could tell you it’s a long story, but really it’s
pretty stupid… Make that really stupid!
We were just walking around, right? Me and a couple of guys and a
dumb dog. We were pretty plowed before we started walking, nothing to do since
the Water Wheel had shut down early; but just before the bar closes, Jeen says
we should grab a couple of forties. Then we’re walking along this trail that’s
supposed to be closed, but nobody cares; and we’re just shooting the breeze
when we pass this parking lot and it’s full of these people and they’re all
screaming and throwing things.
We had no idea what was going on, but there’s this group of guys
with guitars and drums just setting up in the parking lot. The front window of
the clothes shop is smashed, the latest fashions are being used to fuel a
bonfire, and it looks like an interesting time.
Turns out to be a modern war of the worlds. Someone told someone
that someone was dropping something, and we were all about to die. Everyone
said it was on the news, and everyone knew it. So things were a bit crazy. My
memory is a little vague, but I wouldn’t trade that night for anything. There
were these two girls; and well, we were all about to die, right?
The weird thing is that nobody knows where the news report came
from. All the stations swore that they didn’t broadcast any such thing, but
everyone saw it on all the channels. Well, me, Jeen, and Rick didn’t see it,
but everyone else we talked to was convinced we were all about to be fried.
I don’t know what the fuss was. I didn’t hurt anyone, didn’t even
drive. Hell, I spent half the night making out with this chubby meter maid, and
passing a joint with her and a couple other cops. This was after the two other
girls, I think, maybe before, or hell with it. I don’t remember. Anyway, some
camera someplace got my picture when I happened to pick up another case of beer
without bothering to pay for it. Sure, getting it involved a trashcan and the
front window; but really, no one was using doors, and there wasn’t a single
intact window by the end of the night.
Jeen was saying later, when it turned out that we were all going
to live, that if he were involved in civic authority, he would avoid any
official reprisals. Jeen talks like that, he’s like this physics guy, real
genius; but he can’t hold his liquor.
Anyway, he was saying that, under the circumstances, the authorities
would be ill-advised to punish people under that kind of extreme psychological
stress. That such a move could foment further unrest; where as, amnesty would
allow people to pick up the pieces with a minimum of repercussions.
Maybe you saw it on the news. They said that only the key
agitators would be prosecuted. Get that! I’m a key agitator. I saw a guy take
an axe to a cop car, and another guy setting fire to somebody’s house, but I’m
a key agitator. Apparently they were agitated by my walking off with a case of
beer.
They must have filled the county lockup, because there was this
list of alternate ways you could make restitution to society. Some of it would
give you chills, scary ass behavioral stuff. I’m not a fan of electric shocks;
but I saw this cryo thing, and when I asked about it, it turns out they need
volunteers to test a new freezing method. They pump you full of a bunch of new
drugs, you take a two week cold nap, then walk out. Sounded pretty good at the
time.
Speaking of which, I wonder what’s taking the Doc so long. I’ve
been sitting in this tub for awhile.
Well, anyway. They spent a couple weeks poking and prodding me.
The tests weren’t bad, even if some of them were mind numbingly dull. I’d have
to spend an hour or so watching pictures on a screen, and telling them what I
saw, and I’m covered in these wires, and nobody told me I’d have my head
shaved, but no big deal, right?
Finally they stick me in this tub, and they give me this little
notebook. I’m supposed to write down my thoughts and impressions. At least
that’s what that doc said before taking another blood sample. I’m surprised I
have any blood left!
Ok. Doc just showed up with a bunch of needles and baggies and
wires. It’s time to go under. Wonder if I’m going to see god or whatever. Here
goes.
#
Hey, back now. They told me after sticking all these tubes in my
arms and covering my head and chest with more wires that I wouldn’t feel
anything, that I’d fall asleep before they started cooling me down, or shutting
down my heart. The damn Doc has a weird sense of humor. I’m getting loopy,
right? The room’s spinning around. I feel like my body is inflating. I see
these funny swirling colors; and doc says be sure and say hi to Elvis for him.
So, like they said, doesn’t hurt when you’re going under; but it
sure as hell hurts now. It’s like the hangover from hell, and my hands and feet
are all bruised. Even holding this pen kind of hurts so I’m going to stop
writing for now.
#
Hey, it’s the next day. They just finished redoing some of the
tests they did when I was about to be a me-cickle. Doc says I’m no dumber then
when I went under. The swelling in my hands and feet went down, and they’ve
turned back into my normal day glow complexion instead of the purple and yellow
from before. I feel fine. In fact, I feel fan-f-ing-tastic. They just gave me
800 bucks for my trouble. The money guy said it was a modest stipend used to
reimburse volunteers for their time. Get that! And here I thought I was an
agitator!
Doc says I should come in a few times a month for awhile just to
be certain I’ll be ok; but he’s like, don’t even worry about it. I’m like no
prob, 800 bucks and free checkups.
They told me to keep this notebook and keep writing in it. They
made some poor guy type it up. I feel sorry for the sucker trying to read my
handwriting.
#
It’s something like four months later, and I’m back in the cryo
clinic. I lost my job, not that I really liked working there much; but I’m
short on cash, and Doc hears about it and asks me if I’d be willing to go under
for six months.
I need a calculator. Girl behind the desk had one. She’s kind of
cute too. So 800 for two weeks, times 2, times 6, 9600 bucks, and no rent or
bills while I’m under. All and all I’m thinking “What the hell?”
Just talked to the money guy. I get twice the rate as a free man;
that’s 19200 bucks. I’m so going under.
#
I’m famous! There was a little article in the paper the first time
I went under. It was a tiny little thing, and they spelled my name wrong. There’s
two l’s! So, last time I slept through my fifteen minutes; but now that I’m
going again, I get to be on TV. I met this chick last night, real high class
too; the sort of girl who wouldn’t have looked at me twice.
People have started calling me frosty; kind of a dumb name. Why
can’t I be the iceman? I looked really stupid on TV. Mom says I looked great;
but she’s my mom, so of course she thinks so. Anyway I had to borrow money from
her and dad to pay my last months rent and the last of my bills; but the
apartment is vacant now, and mom made up my old room so I’ll have some place to
stay when I wake up.
#
Today’s the day. They’re done with the tests and I’m sitting here
doing some last minute writing in this thing. Jeen told me that he wants to
have a talk with me when I wake up. I guess he’s got some experiment and he
figures I’ve got experience as a lab rat. Doc just came in with his needles,
time to go.
#
Man, this is too easy. It’s like being paid for sleeping it off.
I’m back, and feel like crap again. Only this time my hands and feet are fine.
My head is pounding though and I’m hungry enough to eat a horse, and the guy he
rode in on. Now, if things go like before, I have a day of tests, a big check,
and all the drinks I can stand when I get back to the Water Wheel. Not bad.
Doc says my
reaction times are a little slow, so he’s going to keep me here an extra day.
#
This morning I saw the news. Man, six months is a longer time than
I thought. We’ve got a new president, we went to war with some piss ant little
country in South America, and the Japanese and Australians are building their
own space station. Crazy stuff.
Doc just gave me a clean bill of health. In fact, he says I did
better on my tests then before. I asked if maybe my brain runs better after
freezing, but he says that I’m probably just getting familiar with the tests.
No kidding, I’ve lost count of the times I’ve named the same picture, or done
those stupid little puzzles.
I got my check; almost 20 grand. I’m so going to eat a steak and
get plastered!
#
Wow! What a night. I feel like death warmed over twice and served
cold; nothing to do with being frozen, unless you count the ice in the drinks.
I tried to call that chick, but her phone is disconnected. I guess it was nice
while it lasted.
I’m on the news again, but they’re just replaying an old clip of
me walking out of the clinic. Nobody is all that excited about Frosty anymore; which
is fine, though I wish I could have seen that girl again.
Just got a call from Jeen. I haven’t seen him at the Water Wheel
lately. He says he might have some work for me if I’m interested. That’s pretty
cool since I can’t find anything in the want ads. I’m meeting him tomorrow to
sign some papers and hear more about it.
#
Oh my god! Jeen wants me to go under for a whole year! Worse than
that, I’ll be out of contact for a year and a half. This project is all super
secret, so they’re going to fly us out to some nowhere place. I won’t get details until we get there. On the
plus side we’re talking 50 grand plus expenses. No way am I going to say no to
that!
#
Ok, after the longest and dullest flight you can imagine, the
middle of nowhere turns out to be the middle of Australia. I always pictured
this place as swampy, full of crocodiles and snakes; but it may as well be
Montana, nothing but hot, dry and more hot. At least there’s a beach.
The local girls seem to like Americans. One of them asked me what
I do, and I had to tell her that I couldn’t tell her. She must of thought I was
mysterious, or romantic, or something.
Let’s just say that I like this country!
I’ve seen where I’ll be sitting for a year or so. I’ll be inside
this big bubble shaped thing. Jeen tells me that it needs to be surrounded by
some really cold stuff. I mean, really really cold; so cold that a person at
normal temperature couldn’t sit in the bubble without making it too hot; so
cold that if I was that frozen I’d never wake up again. So as cold as I’ll be,
it’s going to take them a year to super duper chill the outside of this bubble.
Jeen says that once the thing is ready, they’re going to bring my
mind back up. I’ll still be frozen; but somehow, I’ll still be awake. He said
something about quantum synaptic resonance, whatever the hell that is.
#
Well, we’re locked down. No more hanging out on the beach. Out of
sheer boredom, I was forced to learn a bit about what will be happening. The
outer layer of my bubble will be full of barium gas, kept so cold that it’ll
act like a single particle, even though it’ll be hollow. How does a giant
subatomic particle get to have a big empty space in the middle?
There’s all sorts of techy stuff about holding the stuff with a
magnetic field, and blah blah blah; but all I need to
know is that I’ll go under, wake up, do some stuff, and go under for a week or
so longer. Then they switch on the heater, wake me up, I get my check, and get
to hang around with the girls on the beach again.
I saw this video about the first guys to make something as cold as
my bubble needs to get. And I thought Jeen was nerdy! The guy on the video was
explaining how they used lazars to cool down the gas and then do whatever new
thing he’d come up with.
He kept saying, “The hottest thing in cold.” Bet people at
whatever bar this guy hangs out at are sick of that joke.
The tests are a pain. These guys take forever, and I’ve been poked
in ways and places that I shudder to think about. The weirdest one was when
they stuck needles up the back of my neck. They pumped something into my brain
and I was supposed to name pictures. I couldn’t. Took awhile to wear off, and
it’s really scary to suddenly not be able to talk; but I’m all right again. I’ve
got the go ahead, so no food tonight. How thrilling.
#
Well, you don’t get everything. I was looking forward to seeing
the inside of the bubble; but they plan to freeze me first, then stick me in,
then weld it shut. So I’m sitting here in the same old boring tub waiting for
my friends, the needles, to show up. Oh hey,
here’s Jeen, and here’s the Doc. Here I go.
#
This is truly weird. I’m not awake, or I am; not certain what I
am. My body is clinically dead at this moment. I’m there frozen, and I’m here
floating around. Jeen has me writing with the same computer magic that let’s me
think at all. He says I probably won’t remember any of this when I wake up for
real. I guess the brain can’t make a memory when it’s a TV dinner.
Getting here to this sort of awake was strange. I recall seeing a
lot of swirling imagery, and little lights that would go streaking past me
leaving tiny little tracers. I sort of grab one of the lights, all the swirling
stops, and I’m seeing the bubble’s inside. By the way, the inside of the bubble
is nothing to write home about.
We’re trying a whole bunch of different stuff. I’m supposed to
move this, or send a signal like that, or read the other. So far, it’s all been
pretty easy. I can see anything I want. I’m watching Jeen at his keyboard right
now; and if I think of her, I can see that girl from the beach. Wow! She’s in
the hot tub... sorry, I’ll try and concentrate.
Does Jeen know I can do this? He didn’t. He’s really excited about
it. He wants me to move my point of view up from the lab slowly. I’m doing
that. This is so cool! I always wanted to be a pilot.
Ok, make that an astronaut. It’s getting harder to work the
computer though. The earth looks like a really blue orange.
Oof! Didn’t come back on purpose; got snapped back. Must have been
as far out as I could get.
#
Jeen is an evil evil man. He hasn’t let me rest for the last
several days. Of course, I’m not certain I could rest like this, or that I need
to. I’ve been moving little things around the lab, like a pencil or piece of
paper. Sometimes I float it across the room; and sometimes I give a sort of
push, there’s a pop, and it’s suddenly where I wanted it.
Thanks to my computer magic, I can watch TV even though I haven’t
got an antenna, television, or anything like that. When Jeen takes time to
sleep, I’m still awake, still able to move around; and I’ve been watching the
news.
#
Today’s experiments were all about the clock. They tell me to move
forward or backward in time and tell them what I see in a specific place. How
Twilight Zone. I can even send little objects or radio signals forward or
backward; but it seems to make them nervous, so they haven’t had me do much of
that.
The war has been heating up. I never paid it much attention; but
now when I watch the news, I can sort of feel what’s really happening. People
are really getting killed! I suppose I could get a look directly at the
fighting if I wanted to, but I’d much rather not.
#
Jeen and his buddies have been arguing about paradox. Some of them
want to try an experiment specifically to see what would happen if someone
kills their own grandpa. At least they don’t plan to use a gun to test it.
Others are afraid that since I can move stuff and see things that haven’t happened
yet, I might tear the universe a new time hole. I think if I could do that, I
would feel it. Like when I went out as far away as I could, I could feel that
it was getting harder.
Jeen, who’s more of a big wig then I thought, has put his foot
down. How did he put it?
“No deliberate paradox! We are not going to risk the universe just
to see whether or not creation can survive your curiosity!”
#
It’s the next morning, local time. It just hit the fan. I don’t
know how they got them, but the bad guys just launched a whole flock of
missiles. I’m going to try and send a message back. If I’m going to make a
paradox, maybe I can keep this from happening.
That was hard. I tried to push the signal back a couple of years.
I don’t know how far it went, and it looks like I didn’t change anything. I’ll
have to try something else.
I found the missiles. I can feel them. I think I can get rid of
them. Jeen is trying to get me to stop. He’s getting everyone out of the lab,
and he’s saying that I might not survive what I’m about to do; but I can’t let
this happen.
#
Good morning. I’m back in the land of the living, though I’m kind
of half dead. When I grabbed all the missiles and threw them out as far as I
could, I must have overloaded something. The bubble disintegrated. Thank god no
one was standing next to it.
#
I was on the beach today. I have to use crutches, one of which is
sort of tied to my right arm, since that hand doesn’t work any more. I did some
sort of damage to myself, and it has been getting worse. Jeen says that
technology will probably advance enough to fix me in ten or twenty years.
While I was sitting there, I noticed this little girl. She must
have been eight or nine and it hit me. If I wake up again she’s going to be
twenty or thirty. I started to cry then and the kid’s mom came to scoop her up.
I wanted to tell her not to worry, but I don’t talk very well now either.
#
It’s time to go under again. I don’t care to write much since my
left hand has always sucked, and typing one-handed is even harder then using a
pen in my southpaw. Still, I thought I should make one more entry. If I wake up…
when I wake up, I’ll start a new journal for a new life especially since this
one will be classified. Get that. I wrote a secret document.
I read what I wrote while under the magic bubble. Jeen was right.
I don’t remember anything. I guess I saved all those people. I might even get a
medal, though nobody will ever hear about it. Mom would be so proud.
Jeen promises to explain what he can to my parents and the folks
back at the Water Wheel. I don’t know if I’ll ever wake up again, but I don’t
feel too bad about it. After all, anyone can die anytime they go to bed. If I
hadn’t been doing what I was doing, a lot of people would have.
Docs here, but I want to mention one last thing. I don’t know why
I didn’t think of it, but I know where the signals I sent back went. They must
have reached that night when me, Jeen, Rick, and that stupid dog were walking
along a trail that was supposedly closed, though nobody cared. Get that! I
guess I was a key agitator after all!
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