Preserving The Future
Note: I got the idea to write this after reading two stories. One was in a book about cryonics and the other was my one of my favorites stories if not my favorite (Ruin by Soccer Dude). If you have not read Ruin before, I recommend it to you then! 12/07/02

Prologue

"Tai!" I groaned. The pain was growing quickly and it was getting worse at the same time too. I reached for my side and quickly tossed aside the gun I had in my hand. The pain was overwhelming. I flinched and fell to my knees. Instantly my sister and a few more friends came to my side. Despite the fact that they were trying to help me, they couldn't do anything to help me. This pain was going to last forever until I died. And that wouldn't be too long from now.
"Oh no! Somebody call a medic in!" My sister, Kari, had shouted out that command. She a hand on my back and one on my side, trying to support me. Sora, one of my other friends, assisted Kari in assisting me. Agumon, my digimon partner, only stood at the side, looking at me with worried eyes.
"Agh…. It hurts…" I said. It was hard to speak. The pain, it was spreading all throughout my body. I clenched my teeth to prevent myself from yelling out in pain. I couldn't take it anymore. I fell onto my side, my sister and friend began to grow tears in their eyes.
"Tai…. Big brother… hold on…." I gasped for air. The world was becoming smaller each second. My head was throbbing and so was everything else in my body. It wouldn't be too long before everything became numb.
I looked to the side to see my digimon partner frozen in his spot. He was struck with the horrible truth. I was dying and no one could do anything about it. I was suffering a long and torturing death, the worst kind of death anyone could experience.
I saw as Agumon closed his eyes. He was bringing his claws upwards from his sides. They were shaking very violently. He was getting quite frustrated at the fact that I was passing before his eyes. I guess I would be too if I were in his position.
"AHHH!!!!" It hurt really bad now. I kicked my legs, hoping that the pain and hurt would eventually fade away into nothing. But it didn't. It was increasing.
"THAT'S IT! YOU WILL PAY YOU SCUM FOR WHAT YOU DID TO TAI! CHARGE!!!!" The brave rookie digimon leaped into the air with his claws extended. Agumon roared and everyone turned their attention to my pal. He was about to go and attack a big, blue, evil digimon corpse brought back from the dead out of pure anger and hatred.
"Ugh…." I said as the pain began to strike at me once again. I was too busy to notice my digivice, somewhere on the ground ahead of me. It was glowing and letting off a bright orange glow.

"Agumon! Warp-Digivolve to…… WARGREYMON!"

I had to struggle to keep my eyes open as I watched my courageous partner flew at the enemy. My eyes began to grow numb. Soon, my body was beginning to feel numb. The pain was finally beginning to fade away. However, I had the impression that I was too, fading away from everything.
"Take this!" The brave mega digimon scored a direct hit on the digimon's left eye. It roared out in pain as WarGreymon landed on the ground. Matt looked at his digimon and nodded. I blinked once or twice. My eyes were growing heavy and my head was beginning to grow dizzy. My eyesight was soon becoming foggy and dim. I had to blink a couple times for my eyesight to become temporarily clear.

"Gabumon! Warp-Digivolve to…… METAL GARURUMON!"

"Ice Wolf Claw!" The cold attack hit the digimon square in the other eye. Metal Garurumon landed beside WarGreymon. The two looked at each other, nodded, then split up. Metal Garurumon flew to the right of the blinded digimon while WarGreymon flew around to the other side. The two digimon met up once again and made a huge attack ready for the evil digimon. The other digimon quickly lent out a helping hand even though they were nearly out of energy.
WarGreymon silently thought as he created his ultimate attack. He couldn't help but think of his partner. Tai, I'm going to miss you. And I hope that this will make you proud!
"Marching Fishes!"
"Poison Ivy!"
"Spiral Twister!"
"Boom Bubble!"
"Lightning Claw!"
"Electro Shocker!"
"Metal Wolf Claw!" And the strongest attack of all…..
"Nova Force!" With that, WarGreymon released the fireball of doom onto the mega digimon before them. All 8 attacks hit the digimon right on. No sooner did the digimon begin to dissolve into thin air. WarGreymon and Metal Garurumon de-digivolved and quickly came to my side like everyone else had.
No one was celebrating the victory, they were all too worried about me….
"Tai, please hold on. medics are coming….." I threw a fit of coughs before I replied. My throat was dry and my voice was raspy. I couldn't think that straight. As I looked at my friends, I saw doubles of them swaying before me.
"I…. won't…… make it….." I coughed again. Sora carefully held my head and softly yelled at me. The pain, it was no longer around. Everything was numb. I blinked once. With my half-open eyes, I looked at one of my best friends in the world. She was crying.
"Tai, don't think like that."
"But… I won't…. I'm…. sorry." Gomamon came close to my face.
"There is no need to be sorry Tai. You've been the greatest leader to all of us."
"He IS the greatest leader! Present tense!" Palmon said correcting the digimon. No one laughed.
The world was becoming darker now. Everything that I could see was becoming farther away from me. I blinked once. My eyes were getting heavy, the voices were getting softer.
I looked into my sister's eyes, or what I could see of them. I struggled as I lifted my arm up and touched my sister's cheek. This would probably be the last time I'd see her.
"Kari…." My sister put both of her hands on my hand. She squeezed my hand as hard as she could. She didn't want me to leave.
"Tai… Please don't go. I'll be lonely without you."
"You have Gatomon" I said weakly.
"But….. It won't be the same without you." I felt touched by that comment.
"I know Kari…. I know….." She sniffed and began to cry. My sister fell onto my chest and hugged me. Her tears began to stain my shirt. I put one arm on her back and smiled.
"Goodbye Kari. I love you…." I turned to Sora.
"Bye friend."
"Tai, please hold on." I coughed loudly before responding.
"I…. I am….. trying…..to… But I can't…. hold on forever….." Sora looked down. I lifted her chin up using my right arm.
"I'll see you again someday…… bye Sora…." I could only one more goodbye. My instincts told me so. I looked wearily at my digimon partner in crime.
"I guess…. I'll be seeing you around…..friend…." Agumon closed his eyes and bent his head down. He just couldn't bring himself to look at me in my pathetic state.
I wearily looked at my friends. "Bye everyone…. And Kari… tell mom and dad that…. I love them too…."
"I will…. I promise…" was the last thing I heard. It was a quiet whisper from my sister. I closed my eyes for what would be forever. Finally, I let my tiredness overwhelm me. The darkness was coming, and I was letting it come. No fighting against it. I was too weak and tired from the reason that caused me so much pain.
The last thing that I felt was the loud heartbeat…. Of my own heart. My breathing stopped long before that. And as soon as I heard the last heartbeat…. I knew that my time was up. It echoed throughout my mind that I was leaving this world…. To a better place…..

Chapter 1 : Waking Up

"He's coming to sir."
"I'm aware of that Johnson."
"What shall we do?"
"Notify the boss."
"Now?"
"Now."

Thoughts clouded my mind. Where was I? My brain was slowly beginning to function. Was I hibernating? No, I don't sleep for that long on any day….
BUMP! Heavy machinery was being used somewhere in the distance. I tried to open my eyes and see what was happening, but I couldn't. I tried to move, but I couldn't. In fact, I was breathing very oddly at the moment. I was breathing frigid air. Never before had I breathed in air like this before, or have I?
Wait. Frigid air, can't move my body…. I must be frozen. Are they thawing me out? What are they doing to me? Wait, a better question, who are they? I had to wait and find out.
CLUNK! I think I landed on something. Of course, I couldn't look at what it was that I had fallen onto even if I wanted to see. My body was frozen. The odd part is, I don't feel very cold inside my prison.
ZZAPP!!!! Clunk, clunk, clunk. Must have been a laser taking off a chunk of this huge ice cube I must be in. ZZAPP!!!! Clunk. The laser beam continued to cut off chunks of the ice block for what seemed like eternity. Finally, I heard some heavy machinery coming my way.
I tried to open my eyes, but they were still frozen shut. Clunk! Screeee….
Ah! That noise! It was the noise of metal claws scraping across an icy surface. I wanted to scream for some reason. I wanted to cover my ears, but my arms just couldn't do that. I endured the somewhat short scraping noise. Very soon though, I was lifted up into the air by this machine.
My ice cube eventually reached it's destination when it came to a screeching halt. I was dropped carefully into something. The metal claws left me. Next thing I heard was a loud speaker saying something. Must have started up whatever I was in.
I was on my side as something poured into a huge container like thing I was in. It was a redish orange goo and boy, was it hot. I felt the ice, the coldness around me begin to drift away. It was being replaced with what seemed to be warm goo. Not boiling hot, but warm. I let it envelope my body. Ah, the ice all around me had faded into nothing.
I was in a whole pile of nice warm goo! How fun. CHING! Brr…… the silent humming of the machine began to move me up and out of the goo into fresh air. It was cold, except worse cold than what I felt in that frigid ice cube I called home for a couple of minutes.
I felt my body begin to shiver. Whoa, what was happening to me?
"Hey, Gary, you go on the left and grab his arm."
"Yes sir."
"Okay. You other guys! Get over here and help us!"
I was being lifted up from where I was on the metal platform. I was soon in the arms of many people. Now, this time, I could open my eyes. I slowly opened them, they ached real bad. Like they were in a blender and glued back together by a little child.
A million questions flashed before my mind. Where was I? How'd I get here? They swirling about, dancing in my mind. I wearily shook my head. It hurt to do that. In fact, my whole body was sore. Was this… was this the afterlife?
I blinked once. In front of my eyes was a poor image of a man dressed in a lab coat before me. I wanted to ask him, where in the world was I? But I felt too weak to do anything practically.
"Don't worry, the answers are coming soon…" My eyelids were heavy. I let them fall.

Yeah, I'm back in business! And you know, this story is really interesting me. So you can expect updates... hopefully quite soon. I have to also tend to my other stories, but this one has caught my attention! I guess this is the result of a huge igamination, watching the Matrix twice in a week, reading Ruin once again, and trying to work on Science homework (cryonics). Well, I should be getting back to my homework. But I'll be back during the Christmas holidays. Maybe you might not see updates, but I'll be hanging around somewhere..... Right. Well, adios for now.
-Ice Wolf17, 12/08/02