The inside of the box was filled with a dingy white gel-like substance. Red splotches were randomly stern about the substance. The girl lay on her side in the fetal position. She was encased in a hard, glossy red substance. Attached to her back was a long, silver spider like devise. I looked harder at her and I began to see bruises, cuts, and parts of her body wrapped in cloth. Though I couldn’t make out any identifying features.
“This isn’t good.” Miry said.
“Yeah, she looks really beat up.” I answered.
“Well that too, but I was talking about the nutrient it supposed to be clear.”
“The nutrient?”
“The red stuff she encased in. That gives her body vital nutrients that she need to survive, and it should be clear.”
“Oh my god.” Was all I could muster.
“If you think that’s bad, wait till you hear this. Now that the traps are offline I can get a full read on her, and man she is messed up. She has several broken bones, she’s bleeding internally, and has dozens of major cuts and bruises. It’s a miracle she’s alive at all.” I just stood there stunned at the horrific sight in front of me. Then I noticed something, the “nutrient” wasn’t melting or moving or anything. If fact nothing had changed.
“Why is nothing happing?” I asked. “Can we save her?”
“Well, to answer the second question, yes we can save her. Which moves us to the first question, not a lot is happing because, well. Some of the bruising is from what we call speed thaw. Ya see normally it takes hours to days to properly de-thaw a human. Some people, though, are too damn impatient, so they hack into the pod and make the de-thaw take anywhere from an hour to, well.”
“To what?!” I yelled.
“Some of the ‘better’ hackers can make it happen in seconds. The human body does not take well to this sudden awakening. Most get some bruises and that’s it, but a case like hers. With so many bruises, I can almost guarantee she’ll have brain damage. That’s just from de-thawing to quick. We have no idea what that monster Monica did to her. She could be suffering from a type of PTSD for all we know.”
“Or” I interjected. “She could be all fine upstairs. How long will this de-thaw take?”
“Like I said hours. You de-thawed in just over eight Babylon hours, and that was a little too fast. Right now my programs are estimating nine to ten hour. That means about two or three tomorrow morning.”
“Will she be ok till then?”
“I’m not detecting anymore traps or anything out of the normal, so she should be.” The hologram gave me a hug and said. “I know she is important to you, but the longer it takes the better. Just try and stay calm ok?” She took a step back.
“Just please make sure she lives.” I didn’t know why, but for some reason I felt a connection to the girl. More than both of us being human. I had a nagging feeling that she was someone important. Someone I’d lay down my life to protect, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then I remembered Monica.
“What’ll happen to the bitch Monica?” I asked with as much hate as I could throw into every syllable.
“With this amount of physical damage? She’ll get a few weeks in, what you would call, jail. She’ll also get a fine upwards of a few billion. She could get worse if the human has mental damage too.” Miry’s body lit up in code. I wanted to ask what she was doing, but I was too worry about the frozen girl.
“Sky.” I heard my lips whisper.
“What’d you just say?” Miry asked.
“Um…Sky. I have no idea where that came from. It just sorta happened.” I explained.
“That must be her name.” Miry said slightly puzzled.
“How can I remember her name?”
“There was a study, a few years ago, to try and see what would happen if humans where shown things from there life on Earth. The study concluded that only extremely important things were about to slip passed the block, but only until the person knew what they were saying. And it would only happen once before the block would lock down that memory. Bottom line is we know her name, and that’s all we’ll know till she wakes up.”
The bell rang shortly after that. Miry locked down the box as Tina moved us back to her flying car. She drove home, and placed the tank on a stand near her bed. She and Miry kept trying to spark a conversation, but I was not interested. I had not moved from my spot in front of the box, and I made it clear that I would do nothing until she awoke. I could hear my stomach roar from time to time. As I grew more and more dizzy. Tina offered me food multiple times, but I declined every time.
The girl, Sky, wasn’t eating, so I wouldn’t eat either. After a lot of back and forth I agreed to eat a few cheese sticks. Time becomes a funny thing when you’re focused on one task. The world around me had become a blur. Objects moving. Odd sounds. Weird colors. They all became one giant mass as I dare not remove my eyes from the container. Suddenly I became extremely sleepy. I gave a mighty yawn, and took stock of my surroundings.
The lights outside the tank where dark, and I could hear a slight snoring. Everything inside the tank was bathed in light from lamps that where dozens of feet in the air. I then heard a hiss. I returned my slight to the box. The nutrient was gone, and the spider thing was slowly detaching its arms from Sky’s back. I looked over Sky.
She had long brown hair, and an hourglass figure. Her face looked gentle, almost as if she had eternal kindness. My thoughts were interrupted by the last leg detaching. I could feel the excitement building up inside me. It felt like I was about to explode.
Then her emerald green eyes flew open.