Steve parked his car as close as he could to the main entrance of the building, which proved extremely easy. He had assumed that everyone had received a similar call and while he didn’t expect crowds, he thought that at least a few people might answer it. Of course, he was one of the precious few stupid enough to come in on a day like this. Traffic was great though, he couldn’t deny that. Everybody was evacuating the city and only himself and a few other fools dared venture in. No, he reassured himself. He wasn’t a fool. He had come in out of a sense of duty to his clients. Not strictly speaking of course, but they would reap the benefits of his selfish good deed anyway. He thought back to the phone call he had received, just as he was about to get in his car and drive the as far as he could in the opposite direction. Nobody knew exactly when the earthquake was going to hit, but they knew it was going to be soon That’s why he was so surprised to see work calling when everyone else was preparing for the worst. It was his boss, Pete. ‘Evacuation crew cancelled Steve! They said it’s too dangerous, not worth risking people’s lives. Can you come in and help us load up the clients for transport? Please Steve! We need every man we can get. Even the boss is here! The boss boss.’ Wow, he thought. Peter Richards was there? He hardly ever saw him around. He was the CEO after all and Steve was pretty far down the corporate ladder, working in maintenance. He didn’t even know if that was technically on the ladder, come to think of it. He had to think fast. Maybe if he came in and impressed Mr. Richards with his dedication then he’d be rewarded with a promotion whenever they reopened. He really didn’t want to go, but on the off chance of securing a bit more money, he figured it was worth the risk. If Mr. Richards was there, then how dangerous could it possibly be anyway? Steve just hoped he could get in and out in good time.
He got out of the car and walked briskly to the main door. He looked up at the giant ‘CRYOCORP’ adorning the front of the building in sleek blue lettering, wondering if it would still be standing this time tomorrow. He thought so. It was extremely well built after all, looking more like a fortress than a lab. It had been open just 10 years, having received most of its substantial funding from one of the richest men in the world, Alfred Stockton. He was one of those eccentric multi-billionaires who couldn’t stand the thought of dying. He – like any old man with a God complex – wanted to live forever, so when the investment opportunity arrived, he pounced on it. Sure enough, just three years after opening he got diagnosed with a terminal illness and had himself frozen in the hopes that one day in the future they might have found a cure. Another old eccentric with an impossible dream. The strange thing was, though, that every test they had run had been successful. From 30 minutes as far as 5 years in the ‘chamber’ as they called it, every test subject had been instantly frozen, then thawed out after a predetermined time with no adverse effects. The only drawback was that once the process had been initiated, there was no way of way of shutting it down until he pre-set time had been completed. Despite this, it truly was an amazing feat they had accomplished and Steve was proud of his small but important role in the company.
Walking into reception, he saw someone he never thought would have come here. Probably the most arrogant person he had ever met and definitely the least dedicated worker. Yet here she was, sitting down with her bare feet propped up on the desk, tapping away at her phone. Amanda Richards. She was Mr. Richards’ daughter and despite knowing nothing about cryogenics or even having a passing interest in the topic, she had somehow ‘earned’ a place on the research and development team. And all by the age of 20, 2 years younger than Steve. She spent most of her days wandering around the building, talking to her friends on the phone and generally making everyone’s life more difficult, especially Steve’s. He had had many run-ins with her in the past. She had come from money and he hadn’t. To her, that seemed enough of a justification to treat him and any of the other ‘plebs’ like they were just there for her amusement. He wouldn’t have called her a sociopath per se, as that seemed like a bit of a stretch, but she was definitely sadistic. She delighted in making his life more miserable. He remembered a few occasions where he would be bent over, working on the machines. She would spot him and sneak up behind him, then sit on his back just below the base of his neck, not putting so much weight on him that he would collapse, but just enough to pin him in position. She would then remove her shoes and socks and shove her feet in his face, forcing him to smell them until he begged to be let up. Other times, she would call the maintenance team and specifically request for him to come to the R&D lab and fix some problem at her work station. Once there, he lay on the floor to have a look and she would sit down on top of him – sometimes even on his head – and just stay there for a while, tapping away on her phone until she got bored of him. Of course there was nothing Steve could do about it. She was above the law here, no one was going to fire the CEO’s daughter. Even if he reported her to HR, he could be guaranteed that she’d just claim that he was lying, force out some crocodile tears and shift the blame onto him. Her natural beauty and charm helped her to manipulate upper management and bend them to her will. Steve cautiously approached the desk. She looked up to see who had just walked through and her eyes immediately lit up.
‘Hello, Stevie! What are you doing here?’
‘I got a call. To do some actual work. What are you doing?’
Amanda faked an exaggerated yawn. ‘Boring! I’m just here waiting for dad. We’re taking the helicopter out of here to beat the traffic but he wanted to stop by first and make sure everything was okay.’
‘Well that’s very good of him. Where are they?’
‘Down in the vault.’
‘Don’t you want to lend a hand?’
‘Not really my thing, Stevie!’
‘Whatever.’ He turned down the hall.
‘Wait, Stevie!’
He stopped and turned around, sighing deeply. ‘What?’
She wiggled her toes on top of the table, ‘Don’t you wanna give these a little sniff? For old times’ sake?’ She burst out laughing.
Steve didn’t say anything. He just turned back and went down the hall, his face beet red. He could still hear her laughter as he rounded the corner and was glad when it eventually died down.
He cursed himself for stopping to talk to her. Of course everybody who turned up would be downstairs in the vault, why even stop to ask? There was only one job to job and that was to load the chambers onto the cargo plane on the runway out back, which would then carry them to safety. Trying to take his mind off of Amanda, he thought about the task at hand. He understood why this was top priority, but having worked at the company for 4 years, he was pretty sure that those chambers were strong enough to withstand an atomic blast, let alone an earthquake. The investors had spared no expense when it came to safety precautions, with Mr. Stockton proudly announcing that in the name of scientific discovery, nothing was too expensive. Steve had always found that ironic. A man dogged almost all of his adult life by rumours of extensive sexual harassment (never proven of course, never was when you had that kind of money) had suddenly taken up the mantle of scientific pioneer, working for the greater good of humanity and not for his own self-preservation. Steve wondered how history would treat Mr. Stockton. Which version of him would future generations learn about? He had elected to be the first person to choose the maximum limit of 500 years in the chamber, so Steve guessed that Mr. Stockton would one day find that out for himself.
He walked down the long hall through a series of extremely heavy doors on his way to the vault. He passed the pictures lining the walls of all the rich men who had invested in the company. Sure, Alfred Stockton had contributed the most, but there were plenty of other wannabe immortals among the business elite. Almost all of them old, almost all of them men. There was only one exception, and she was the only other investor who had actually gone through with the procedure. Lucia Benz. Steve almost stopped in his tracks as he caught a glance at her picture. She was mesmerising, even in a photograph. He had only seen her once in real life, along with the other investors as they came to check on repairs one day. He found himself struggling to take his eyes off her and focus on his work. Tall, slender, with slightly curly brown hair that framed her beautiful face, she truly was a sight to behold. There was something more to her, though, beyond the physical. While the old men in the photos had their greed and their arrogance plastered to their faces at all times, Ms. Benz had an almost ethereal quality to her. A look of wisdom that only she possessed. It was like she knew something that nobody else did. That unknowable wisdom might have been why she elected to be the second person to be frozen for 500 years, just a few weeks after Mr. Stockton. She was the picture of health and was only 40, if that, so no one knew why she would want to do such a thing. Nobody dared question her, though.
He finally reached the last, most heavily armoured door and held his eye up to the retinal scanner. A light flashed green and he heard one loud beep, then the doors parted automatically. He walked in to see Pete, Mr. Richards and 3 other men trying to lift one of the chambers onto the forks of a forklift. He rushed over to help them out. ‘Steve! Thanks for coming in man! We’re almost done but we need every guy we can get, grab a side and push!’
He took a deep breath and heaved with them as hard as he could. The chambers were each almost 10 feet tall and fitted with their own power sources in case of emergency. That way, they could temporarily maintain the clients’ temperature if disconnected from the main power source. That was another one of Mr. Stockton’s ideas. To his credit, he had been very thorough. It made them almost impossible to move, though. They could have done with some extra space underneath to allow easy access to a forklift, so maybe the design wasn’t completely perfect. After about 5 minutes of constant pushing, they finally moved it far enough so that the forklift could take it to the cargo plane, which was parked and ready to take off. They started into the next one immediately, having no time to waste. At least there were only 2 left. The benefits of living an hour and half’s drive away, Steve thought. There weren’t very many occupied chambers to begin with. It was an extraordinarily expensive procedure and apart from 4 volunteers currently taking part in longer-term tests, so far the only serious clients were Mr. Stockton, Ms. Benz and a terminally ill old man named Kevin who only wanted to be frozen for 2 years so he could witness his granddaughter getting married. He was a sweet man. It was a shame he sneezed just as the chamber activated. The freezing was instantaneous, so unfortunately for him his face would remain a contorted mess for the next year and a half. Steve felt bad for the old man, but couldn’t help but laugh every time he walked past him. Ms. Benz, on the other hand, had looked as regal as ever when she froze. She wore the same enigmatic expression on her face as she had in her photo hanging on the wall. It was a shame she was one of the first loaded onto the plane, Steve would have liked to see her face again.
Half an hour of incessant pushing and shoving later, they were finally finished. The 6 men congratulated each other and Steve even earned a word of appreciation from Mr. Richards, ‘When we open up shop again kid, come and see me. Someone with your kind of work ethic deserves to be paid a little bit more, don’t you think?’ Steve was delighted. As long as he could get out of town and away from this earthquake, he knew he had made the right decision. ‘Okay guys, I’ve got a helicopter to catch. The pilot wants to go and collect his family, so he’s leaving in 10 minutes, with or without us. I’d better find Amanda.’ He started to leave, but turned around just before going and addressed Steve. ‘Oh, shit. Steve, was it?’ He nodded. ‘I almost forgot, could you go down and switch off the main power supply before you go? I don’t want to take any chances of a surge.’
Steve wanted to leave as soon as possible, but didn’t want to disappoint the CEO. ‘No problem, Sir. I’ll do it now.’
‘Thanks.’ He gave a thumbs up and was off. Everyone else exchanged goodbyes and left as well, leaving Steve alone in the vault. He jumped down into the area where the chambers were kept and went to start the process of shutting everything down. There were still 13 empty ones and each had to be manually disconnected from the mains before switching off power. As he approached the first one and went inside, he felt a force push him in the back, slamming his face against the inner wall, where the client would normally lie down. He turned and looked up to see Amanda grinning down at him.
‘Hey Stevie! All alone?’
‘For God’s sake Amanda, just let me do my job! I want to get out of here as soon as possible!’
‘Relax Stevie! I’m about to go too, got a helicopter waiting for me. I just wanted to do one more thing!’ She started to programme to the keypad next to the chamber. Steve knew what that meant. He tried to stand up and get out, but put one foot on his chest, preventing his escape. ‘Aaaaand there! 500 years! Have a nice sleep Stevie!’ She started to close the door to the chamber.
‘Amanda! NOOOO!’
She giggled, stopping short of fully sealing him in, then opening it again. Then closing it, then opening it. She repeated this process a few times, pretending each time to condemn Steve to 500 years in the chamber.
‘AMANDA!! LET ME OUT OF HERE NOW!!!’
‘Ugh, whatever Stevie, you’re no fun! Fine, come on out.’ She opened the door fully and held out her hand, which Steve grabbed on to. Just then, a loud quake shook the vault and knocked Amanda into the chamber with him, closing the door behind them. They heard beeping, slow at first and increasing in speed until it gradually became one continuous high-pitched sound. The chamber started to shift into a standing position, meaning only one thing. It was too late.
‘Oh shit. Oh shit! Oh shit!! What have you done Amanda?! You’ve sealed us in here!’
Amanda started to panic too. ‘It’s not my fault! I was only joking! Oh God, what’s going to happen to us?!’ She started to cry uncontrollably.
Steve was furious. He turned to Amanda, finger outstretched and poked her in the face. He shouted, ‘YOU STUPID BITCH! WHAT DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING!?!? YOU’VE ALWAYS BEEN AN ASSHOLE TO ME AND NOW LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE!! YOU’VE SEALED US IN HERE FOR-‘
The process began and they both froze, Steve caught mid-scream with his finger in he face of a distraught looking Amanda. And so they would stay for the next half a millennium. How would history look upon this image? Steve and Amanda would soon find out for themselves.