Chapter 2

Ben stared around at the facility in utter disbelief at what he was seeing. The whole place was an absolute ruin, looking like it had seen centuries come and go. Most of the cryo pods surrounding him were empty or disconnected. Thick layers of dust covered everything he could see, and the lights that once lit up the area were dim or out.

Taking his time to center himself, Ben propped himself up and swung his legs over the edge of the pod. Breathing several times so he didn’t pass out, Ben stood up slowly, taking as much time as he needed. The man remembered the docket he read about coming out of cryo sleep. He was both hungry and weak as he’d expected, something he would look to remedy soon.

Ben took several minutes, finding his center of balance before he thought about walking. When he did, it was only baby steps, just so he didn’t overexert himself. From what he could see, he was the only one awake at this moment, but he didn’t know for sure. He didn’t know what time it was, and everyone could be asleep because the hour was late for all he knew.

The Latin man was walking away from the main cluster of pods, heading towards where the storage area was, hoping to see someone there. He saw no one and the storage zone looked like someone, or multiple someones, had gone in and tossed everything around. As he passed the various pods around him, Ben noted that some were already open. Whereas others had been crushed by falling concrete, with the occupant still inside.

Ben shook himself and shuddered at the thought, thinking it was a horrible way to die. He made his way over to the place where he had deposited his personal effects and saw that there was no one there. He had the most eerie feeling that the cryo facility was completely abandoned. Ben saw that the buildup of dust hadn’t been disturbed in quite some time, which confirmed to him he was alone.

Stopping himself from panicking, Ben then moved to where the control facility was situated. He knew that if he was going to find answers about what was going on, it would be there. He felt his body restoring itself back to life as his limbs reawakened. The movement was helping, and Ben could feel himself getting stronger.

He walked up the shot stairway to the command center and walked in; the door having been left ajar for some time. Power still flowed into the place and the computer equipment still functioned. He sat down at a nearby console and typed a few keys, hoping that he could at least get into the system. A login screen was displayed, asking for a username and password, which Ben had neither of.

He looked around the center and found only a few items of note, a few clipboards, some old pens and markers and an identity keycard. Despite its age, the keycard looked to be relatively intact, and it gave Ben an idea. He went back to the terminal he was clacking away at and looked around it until he found what he was looking for. A black keycard reader sat right next to the mouse on the computer, which he used the keycard on.

The computer read the keycard and then shut down the password access prompt, granting him entry into the system. Ben looked over the whole thing, not understanding the whole schematic and monitoring system. But he knew enough of what he was seeing to know that there were no more functioning cryo pods active. This confirmed what Ben had feared all along, that he was the only person here, the last one to wake up.

None of this made any sense to him, as he was only supposed to be under for ten years! Why did this look like he’d been under for far longer? He pondered that question when he noticed the time stamp of his cryo pod opening. It was dated for ten thirty-five in the morning on May seventh, twenty-five twenty.

Thinking his eyes and mind were playing tricks on him, Ben slapped and pinched himself to be sure he wasn’t just dreaming. He was wide awake, of sound mind and coherent, so this wasn’t a trick. He checked the computer to see when the last diagnostic was run and it chimed with the time and date stamp being over thirty years ago. Ben had been asleep in the cryo pod for well over five hundred years!

Ben controlled his breathing once again, forcing his body to not panic as he came to grips with this new piece of information. How had he not known that he would be under for that long?!? He needed answers, and he needed them now! Ben went looking around the system files, searching for any kind of clue, but found nothing. He minimized the monitoring application and saw a file folder.

Thinking this may have been what he was looking for, Ben opened the folder and found two video files inside. The first one was labeled ‘Awakened’ and the second one was labeled ‘Topside’. He opened the first file to see what lay within it. The video played and there was Simon, the tech who had let him in when he first arrived.

“Hello there. To those who are viewing this file, you no doubt have a great many questions about what exactly is going on. Rest assured, I will explain everything in due time. I will start by explaining things from the beginning. Nearly a decade before everyone entered the cryo tubes and begin their long sleep, two young men had a falling out over ideals. One was named Jason Adler, the CEO of CryoTek, the other was named Darius Beauregard, heir apparent of the Beauregard family fortune.”

“Both men understood that humanity would have to undergo a drastic shift to how it was going along. Humankind had been on a collision course with disaster since the first Industrial Revolution. Yes, our understanding was growing by leaps and bounds, but we were raping and pillaging the planet for every resource we could get our hands on. We cared nothing of the consequences of our actions, as long as we could all live in comfort and luxury.”

“This attitude continued until around the nineteen sixties. When certain sections of humanity were waking up to the ramifications of what we were doing to our home. They were considered outliers and crackpots until another generation had passed and the threat to us became very real. Fast forward a few decades to the argument between Mr. Adler and Mr. Beauregard. Both men had plans to fix the problem we faced, but they lay as polar opposites,” Simon explained.

“Mr. Adler wanted to change things in the manner where we would make rapid and unprecedented changes to our way of life. Many of the conveniences would be gone, albeit on a temporary scale. The mass production of farming, of quality goods and such would be halted, while we allowed the planet to heal from it wounds. Then, humanity would adapt to the way things would become.”

“Mr. Beauregard’s plan was entirely different. He proposed a massive culling of humanity, where nearly the entire population of the Earth would be wiped out. Using nuclear and chemical weapons, hitting the major cities and other large towns. To dissolve the greatest portion of humanity in an instant was the only way forward in his mind,” Simon went on.

“Mr. Adler tried to dissuade Mr. Beauregard from this course of action, but he would not be swayed. It was in that moment that both men went their own ways, hoping to save both the world and humanity. It wasn’t long before Mr. Beauregard had stockpiled various weapons of mass destruction, with the full intent on using them.”

“Mr. Adler, having been privy to his plan, devised his own solution to the problem. He knew Darius would set the weapons off soon, but it would take time before he was ready. He wanted to achieve what he called, ‘Absolute Annihilation’, where there would be no survivors other than those he deemed fit to inherit and rule the world. In order to do this, he would need a great quantity of weapons and he would have to position them around the world to achieve this.”

“Mr. Adler used this time to research cryogenic stasis, hoping he could at least keep the best and brightest of humanity safe. Shortly before the Cryo Lottery was announced, we’d had a breakthrough of significant proportions. We had made it possible to freeze someone and then thaw them out with little to no side effects!” Simon exclaimed.

“Though we would have devoted more time to proper testing, we were running short of time. Darius had not only pulled together enough weapons to do the job, but he had also amassed a group of followers who believed as he did. That humanity needed to be culled and that only him, and those like him, were the only ones fit to inherit the Earth. Many of them were wealthy, like he was, believing that the ‘common folk’ had grown beyond control.”

“Though the lottery and the advertisements were made public, the true reasoning was not. We set the lottery in motion, hoping to find those who were among the best that humankind offered and to give them a chance to avoid a dark fate. The questionnaires you answered helped us winnow out those who are unfit or mentally unsound. The physical tests we performed helped us further narrow that pool,” Simon said, his voice heavy with regret.

“The blood samples we collected during those physicals helped us determine those who could step into a pod would also come out alive and well. Despite the breakthroughs we had made, the criteria for being able to survive a long slumber in a cryo pod were narrow. Only those with certain genetic traits would be capable of surviving in such a prolonged state. This is why there were certain rankings for those who won a slot,” Simon continued.

“Although those who couldn’t sleep as long could still help us with our research. After their reemergence from cryo sleep, we could study them and the effects that the freezing process had on them. Once we could put together enough data, we could extend the cryogenic cycle of those who had gone under. This would allow them to step back into the tubes, while also prolonging the stasis time of those above them.”

“Those who received a green card were those who manifested the basic traits needed but wouldn’t be able to stay under for very long. Maybe seventy-five to one hundred years was our best estimate. Those who received bronze cards were better off, able to go beyond two hundred years of cryo stasis. Silver card carriers were rare, as they were often from those who were of mixed backgrounds, so their genetic resilience was great.”

“Gold card carriers were the most rare, their genetic code being nearly pristine and needed if humanity was going to occupy this world again. Though genetics wasn’t the only criteria that determined someone’s status, but also their intelligence and who they were as a human being. Background checks were done on everyone. No detail about their lives too small to investigate,” Simon told him.

“Once we were certain of someone’s motives and who they were, is when the invitations were sent. Mr. Adler knew he couldn’t save everyone, but he was determined to save who he could. He built multiple facilities like this one across the globe, which we call Cryo Vaults, intent on keeping the human gene pool as diverse as possible. The location of each facility was a closely guarded secret, as he was certain that Darius would try to sabotage his efforts.”

“High end security measures and procedures were implemented in order to weed out spies and saboteurs. Several had been reported, detained and subsequently eliminated. No witnesses would report back to Darius or his cronies, as the cryo tech that we had developed was highly sought after by him. Mr. Adler was determined to keep it out of his hands at all costs,” Simon growled as he was recalling something.

“Thankfully, we were able to keep the technology out of his hands, but we were still gathering more people to populate the other facilities when the bombs fell. On June sixth, twenty twenty-three, the bombs were dropped, and chemical warheads launched. In a single day, everything that humanity had built, and the billions of people who were still living topside, were eradicated.”

“Though we hadn’t found every candidate to come to our facilities, we did bring in over ninety percent of everyone we identified. We went to great lengths to not only preserve all of humankind but also the knowledge we had gleaned over our history. Before the Nuke Day, agents were sent all across the world to document the world as it was.”

“Every snippet of history, every advancement, every tradition, every language, nothing was overlooked. Mr. Adler believed, as we did, that if humanity was going through a reset, we were going to save every piece of it that we could. Below the main cryo pod chamber is where the Archive of Humanity is located. Each facility was equipped with one, so that if one was to succumb to the long wait of time, others would still hold our knowledge,” Simon explained.

“Now that you are awake after all of this time, everyone who has survived is now tasked with rebuilding humanity. There will be a lot to do and much that needs to be rebuilt, but with all the knowledge we have amassed, it should be much easier than the first time around.”

“Our greatest hope is that you will use this chance to bring humanity to a brighter and greater future, where you will hopefully avoid the mistakes of the past. Build a better world than the one we left behind. I pray you succeed,” Simon finished.

The recording didn’t end there, as Simon detailed the various facilities that were included in the Cryo Vault. Ben sat back in the chair as the recording droned on, shell-shocked, as he had a lot to process! Everything he knew, the world he had left behind, was completely gone?!? That meant everyone he ever knew was also gone! That meant...

“Samara...” Ben cried out as he grieved. He wept for the woman he loved, lost to nuclear fire, as he was certain that she would have moved on with her life. Ben cried and howled in anguish, wishing he could go back and ask her to join him in the experiment. He wept until he could weep no more, yelled until his throat was raw from screaming and collapsed to the floor, angry and resentful of his actions.

He didn’t know how long he lay there, a minute, an hour, a day, but it didn’t matter. Samara was gone and even though he was heartsick at her death, he knew the die was cast and there was nothing more to be done. He stood up from where he fell, wobbling slightly but eventually standing firm.

Taking a deep breath to clear his head, Ben got to work, taking full stock of the situation. Only one thing mattered to him now; survival. He double checked the monitoring program, making damn sure he was the only one there. When the program informed him that there were no other living cryo pod occupants, he went digging. Specifically, to find the files he’d need to read up on shutting it down and shunt the power for the pods back to the facility.

It took a bit of searching before he found the relevant files, and the procedure was rather simple. He double checked each step before he executed it and maybe an hour later, he rerouted the power and the rest of the facility brightened substantially. With the power issue solved, Ben then left the command center to survey his surroundings.

Though the place had held up fairly well against time and its slow ravages, Ben knew that this place was slowly falling apart. He would have made the needed repairs to fix it up, but he lacked both the materials and workforce to make any significant progress. Sighing, the only option that he had left was to leave, but before he did that, he needed to know what he was working with.

He needed food, clothing, survival gear and, most importantly, weapons. Though the world had changed, he assumed he would need them, as he didn’t know what dangers lurked outside of the cryo facility. Ben started by heading into the storage area and looked around for unopened containers. There weren’t many, but he grabbed all that he could before heading over to where the sleeping quarters for the techs were located.

He carried the boxes over, knowing that he’d have to go through all of them to find anything of use. The sleeping quarters were a serious mess, with decaying clothes and garbage scattered everywhere. Though the task was considerable, Ben got the place cleaned up in no time at all, cleaning each room. He’d even found an old but serviceable broom and gave the place a good sweep before sitting down to go through everything.

He opened his first, knowing what lay in there. It wasn’t much, but the items reminded him of better times, happier times, before all of this. He set them aside reverently before he went to the next box. Ben tried prying it open, but found the box wouldn’t give, not even a single millimeter. He grumped for a moment before he realized that he’d need to collect the appropriate pins before they would about.

Chastising himself for having such a massive brain fart, Ben got up and went back out to the cryo pods. He went about looking for any of those chips that would open those boxes and managed to find a few. He tentatively approached the pods that still had occupants in them, a bit mortified he was disturbing the dead. Ben knew he was going to have to get past this hang up if he was going to survive.

Blowing out a heavy sigh, Ben walked to each one and searched them for their keys. He found them tucked in the same place that his was tucked into, so they were easy to locate. Once he’d gone through each of the corpses of those who were left behind, he headed back to the sleeping quarters. He thought about what might be in the boxes, when his train of thought was interrupted by his growling stomach.

He chuckled to himself as he dropped his newly gained keys on the bed he’d selected and wandered back out into the facility to find something to eat. Ben remembered that there was some sort of hydroponics facility that Simon had described in the video and went looking for it. He found it as he wandered down a hall off the primary facility, but was appalled at what he saw.

The hydroponics zone, which was supposed to be growing food for the techs and cryo pod survivors, had been stripped down of everything. Anything that had been edible had obviously been taken, with only some small morsels left here and there. The rest of what remained was only dead plants and slime, none of which were edible. Ben huffed and looked around anyway, hoping that he’d find at least something.

He dug around hydroponics and was coming up empty. Most of what was left in there were bags of fertilizer, some water reservoirs, and a few tools and seeds. Though there was the capacity to grow food, Ben wasn’t sure that he could wait that long. Before he left, he noticed a large pileup of garbage that he didn’t pay any attention to initially.

Curious, he dug around it a little, thinking it was rather odd that the pile would be in the middle of the area and not pushed along the walls. He cleared the initial layer of detritus and found that beneath all the trash were ration packs! The silvery bags were coated thickly with dust, but Ben wasn’t complaining!

He looked over the packs and they looked to be intact; the packaging looking like something from his era. The food inside would undoubtedly be old, but he hoped it was still eatable. He picked up a small energy bar. The silver packaging was tarnished but undamaged. Ben opened it and took a small whiff. The scent was a bit stale, but he could detect no trace of rot, so he took a small nibble.

It tasted like it had been left a bit long in the air, but he would not complain at this point, so he ate the whole thing. He rummaged around the pile of rations and found that the food was all in bar-like shapes. Ben supposed that made sense, as it would help extend its shelf life. He gathered as much as he could in his arms before heading back to the sleeping quarters.

He had to make several trips while munching on a couple of breakfast bars along the way. Once he got to the bottom of the pile, Ben saw a book lying on the ground, almost like it was placed there. Wondering what the book contained, Ben scooped it up with the rest of the ration bars and headed back to the sleeping area.

The moment he arrived, Ben dumped the rest of the rations in the pile he had amassed. It wasn’t a massive pile, but for the immediate future, Ben wasn’t going to go hungry. He then studied the book in his hands before opening it. It was a journal of one of the vault survivors who had woken a little over one hundred years ago.

The journal detailed a bygone era of when the vault was populated by people who had stayed to make it work. Originally, most of the people who had woken up were eager to help keep things going in the vault. Maintenance on the various systems and the vault’s superstructure were constantly done. Hydroponics was maintained and there was enough food being grown to feed everyone comfortably.

Many generations resulted from those who had woken up from the green and bronze pods. Those in the silver pods also added to the gene pool, which allowed for a greater level of diversity. Of course, there had to be rules put into place, to keep people from having too many children and pushing the current limits of the vault.

There had often been talk about leaving the vault and trying to make things work outside, but many in the vault refused to leave. They were determined to make life in the vault work and were adamant about people not leaving. That was mainly because there were those who wanted to maintain control over others, while there were others who were being logical about the matter.

They wanted everyone to stay behind to help maintain their genetic diversity among the population, and they needed help. The help required was mainly to expand the vault, as plans had been laid down to do that by the vault creators. But there were many who had become disenfranchised with vault life and wanted out. They wanted to see the sun, to experience day and night and many other things spoken of in the books they read.

Though their views were initially disregarded, some other survivors came over to their side. Like many who had been born underground, they wanted to see what it was like to live outside the safe confines of the vault. It was only a matter of time before they had enough numbers to outvote the current leaders of the vault. When the voting system failed to enable their views and control, they turned to open revolt.

A thirty-day battle ensued between the group known as the Renegades and the Vaultees. Though the Renegades initially had the upper hand via the aspect of surprise, the Vaultees fought back in a concerted and tactical effort. This retaliatory strike eventually put the Renegades on the defensive. In the last few days of the conflict, the leaders of the Renegades betrayed their comrades, took everything they could and made a break for the surface.

Having escaped the justice that was coming to them, the Vaultees were furious, as were those who had sided with the Renegades. Although the remnant of them had repented against what they’d done to their friends, there was too much blood spilled for the Vaultees to be so forgiving. As punishment, the rest of the Renegades were exiled from the Cryo Vault but given enough food and water to survive at least a three days topside.

Though angry with what had happened, the remnant of the Renegades took the food and left, leaving the Vaultees in control of the vault once more. Though they had carried on and survived that debacle, it left many of them scarred in obvious and not so obvious ways. Although they tried, some survivors just couldn’t go on, leaving them despondent and depressed.

Although the leaders of the Vaultees tried their damndest, they just couldn’t bring some people back around. It was at this point that people who had stayed behind started to leave. The leaders tried to convince them to stay and help them rebuild, but did nothing to physically deter them. After what had happened with the Renegades, they didn’t want a repeat of the violence from before.

Others from among the population tried their luck out in the wilds of the new world above and left. In twos, trios and sometimes entire family units, people kept leaving until it was only the one man left behind. He continued to do his duty to the rest of people who were still under, which was Ben and two others on the Gold list. He was going to stay until they either woke or he died, to make sure they got a chance at life that others never did.

Ben checked the date of the last entry in the journal and it was well over thirty years ago. If he was reading the dates right, this whole revolt and subsequent abandonment of the vault happened around fifty years ago. The poor bastard must have died maintaining his vigil over him and the other two men. He went back to the control room to see what became of the other two, who were still alive and in their pods at the time of the last entry.

Ben sat at the computer and input their names, which instantly located which pods they had occupied. He then stood and ambled over to where they were, finding them quickly. Neither man had gotten the chance the author of the journal had tried to give them. The first one died via an enormous concrete block that fell through his pod, crushing his sternum, with the pod glass puncturing his lungs. The second had died when his pod malfunctioned and failed to open, suffocating him.

With a weary sigh, Ben said a small prayer for each one before turning around to leave. He checked the time on the terminal and saw that it was past midnight. Ben knew that the only thing to do right now was to get some sleep, as being tired would do him no favors. He needed to be well rested if he was going to tackle the problems that lay before him. Without further ado, he headed back to the bedroom he had piled his stuff in, collapsed onto the bed, and fell asleep.

Ben was pacing around anxiously as he stood by the entrance to Kelsey’s, waiting for Samara to arrive. It had been quite a few years since Ben had seen his ex-girlfriend. Since being discharged into civilian life, he’d gone around trying to reconnect with everyone he’d known. So far, Samara had been the only one who he’d managed this with, and that was by pure happenstance.

He was walking out of his local EB Games when he’d run into Samara coming out of a nearby Starbucks. They were both delighted to see each other and got caught up on what they were up to over the last several years. Taking a gamble for the first time in a long while, Ben asked Samara out on a date, fearing she’d turn him down. His heart nearly hammered its way out of his chest when she’d accepted with much enthusiasm.

Now, here he was, waiting for his date to show up, and was giddy as a teenager going on his first date. A set of bright lights broke his concentration, and he squinted against it, thinking it might be her. The lights went out and out of the green BMW, stepped Samara. She was just as beautiful as he’d remembered, wearing a casual red dress for their date.

Ben was glad that he’d shaved and gotten cleaned up, wearing a pair of khakis and a black polo shirt. He’d also forgone the sneakers and put on some nice black leather shoes, shining them until they had a nice luster to them. He waved to Samara, and she smiled, waving back to him as she ran up to him. Jumping into his arms, Samara hugged Ben, which he returned.

Breaking away from him, Samara stared up at Ben in adoration, before she pressed her lips to his. Surprised by the move, Ben was unsure of what to do, but he then surrendered control of the moment to his body, kissing her back. His arms encircled her waist, and he drew her into him, letting his body tell her how much he missed her. Samara backed away once again before she spoke to him.

“Ben, I know that it’s been a while, but ... I just...” she started.

“I know, Sam. In case that kiss didn’t spell it out, I missed you too,” Ben chuckled.

“So ... you don’t mind me being a bit ... aggressive?” she questioned.

“Not at all. Be as aggressive as you like,” he told her, his voice soothing her insecurities. Samara’s eyes danced, and she smiled at him, a fire within her stoked beyond what she thought believable. Ben the offered his arm, and she took it, the two of them walking into the restaurant.

It was a busy night, but there was no wait for a table, so they were seated quickly. After the hostess guided them to their table, their server showed up moments later, asking them for their preferred drinks. He then bustled off and arrived a minute later with their iced teas. Ben and Samara knew what they wanted, having had ample time to peruse the menu. Their order was placed, but not before the server got a good eyeful of Samara, a fact that Ben had noticed.

He and Samara made small talk while they waited for their food, getting caught up with all the goings on with their lives. Since they had parted some years ago, they had both gone different ways than they thought they would. Ben enlisting in the armed forces, choosing to serve as both machinist and mechanic to the mechanized side of the army. Sam, who originally thought of becoming a naturopath and herbalist, was now an emergency nurse who was also learning about kinesiology.

The server returned a short while later with their food, and Ben and Samara dug in, as they were both famished. The server tried to catch Samara’s eye, but caught Ben’s glare, which had him promptly back off. Smiling inwardly, Ben enjoyed his meal as the food at Kelsey’s was always good in his eyes. They quickly polished off every morsel in front of them, while also taking the time to enjoy their meals.