VERSE 2 - Awakening
How long did he float in sleep after that? He didn't even know. Pieces of his past flew in front of his face in a constant stream, even things he should not have been able to remember. Like, the first word he spoke and his parent's happiness as he crooned it out. When he learned to walk, when he learned to run without tumbling. Going outside his house into the backyard. When he was introduced to solid food for the first time. His first pet, a kitten. The neighbor's dog chasing the cat around sometimes. His first tricycle, then a bicycle.
School came next. Very young friends, playing on the schoolyard, sometimes being teased for his name. Never maliciously. He chimed in too sometimes. Learning shapes, colors, numbers. Always top of the class.
Middle school, junior high, high school. More and more memories kept coming. His first girlfriend. His best friend. Dad's gone now, away on a long dig trip somewhere. Oh, back now. Away again. Mom died while he was in high school. A prolonged illness finally took her. Father was away more and more on his dig trips, leaving him alone. His best friend left for the military.
College now. Working for a living, staying on campus, majoring in social sciences, archeology. Much like his father, he liked to dig. Broke up with his girlfriend, lasted a long time, but it ended. New friends on campus, new opportunities. Professor took an interest in him because of his perfect grades, recommended for dig in big Indonesia site. Took it, loved it, came back. Father died the final year of college, as did his friend in the military. Same incident too.
College is finished, recommended to help at the Cradle of Humanity Center in Africa. Went, first month was great. Found the locked room, opened it, shot, voice, repeat.
Over and over, the same things flew by his face. He knew it was nothing but a dream, but he was powerless to stop it. Never stopping, over and over, time and again, until finally he couldn't take it anymore. His soul cried out for it to just stop.
..IF……….THAT IS------….. YOUR WISH-----
THEN…------I WILL GRANT IT.
He felt sluggish, disoriented. His eyes wouldn't focus, couldn't focus because of the light. He saw only foggy shapes. He felt warmth around him, but he was shivering cold. He couldn't move his body. His throat… he wasn't breathing, but he still got air. He began choking as he remembered how to breathe. The thing in his throat was pulled out. He coughed and coughed as he breathed in air himself. He was laying down, the warmth wet. The warmth receded, and he was cold. Then he was warmed up by something cloth. Voices. With the wet gone, sounds were returning.
"----------…----- ----- -------------?"
He realized the voice was directed at him. The words sounded familiar, yet not at the same time. He couldn't grasp what they were asking, yet he should. His mind was fuzzy. His eyes kept trying to focus, but his head hurt so badly. Finally, he understood a little of what they were saying.
"----man… can ----- un----stand?"
He tried to piece it together. It wasn't working. His brain was still too dull. He tried to raise his arm. It moved a little, a blurry shape in his vision. He squinted his eyes, and could make out silhouettes above him, looking down. They looked off somehow. He couldn't tell how. Still the voice continued.
"Iceman… c—you under—and?"
He nodded his head, finally piecing together what was being asked. What was happening? The voice didn't seem to be coming from the silhouettes above him. He tried to look around. He couldn't tell where he was. But he also still couldn't quite see. Then he realized he didn't know who he was. Who was he? He couldn't remember. Slowly, his eyes focused.
"Don't m---, the m----- will –ake care -- y-- for now."
He nodded his head again, and stopped moving. He felt himself be lifted up by the silhouettes. Now he knew what seemed off. The ears of most seemed wrong. They were fuzzy or elongated. He was tired. His head was still dull. But he could see despite the bright light. Four females were moving him on what looked like a stretcher. He was covered with a thick sheet of something. The walls were metallic, devoid of life, white.
They stopped, having reached their destination, and a door whooshed open to let them through. The room was very simple. It looked much like an examination room, with a raised flat-top bench/table in the middle. The females with the odd ears picked him up off the stretcher and put him on the exam table, and left the room, the door sliding shut with an electronic ping behind them. He lay on the table and looked up at the bright fluorescent lights above him, thinking he had seen something very similar to these bright lights recently. But he couldn't remember where...
Slowly, his mind fogged up again, and sleep overcame him.
He woke up to a deathly quiet room, but before he could even twitch, a body materialized beside the table.
"Do you understand me, Iceman?"
His throat was dry and raspy, but he managed to get out a word, "Yes." He tried to sit up, and felt all kinds of soreness in his body. Light nausea wracked him. Like his body hadn't been used in ages.
"That's good. We weren't sure if you would be able to truly understand us."
"Need… water…" he managed to get out. His throat was so dry.
The door to the room opened, and a female, different from the first four, entered the room with the door closing behind her. She was wearing a simple red one-piece dress, a collar of simple metal with a bell attached, and a headband to keep her waist-length hair from falling into her face or… over her ears? Her ears looked like they were from an animal, long, drooping down slightly below her chin, with gray white-tipped fur. She was holding a glass of water in her hand. While looking away from him, she walked up beside him, and held the glass out towards him. He took the glass and drank it all at once. It helped tremendously. The girl took the glass back from him, bowed, and walked back out the door never saying a word.
He wondered why she hadn't looked at him, and he realized that except for the cloth that he had wrapped partially around him, he was naked.
"You got some water? Good. Is there anything else you want? We can give you a little food, but it will take a little while for your body to be able to process food normally."
"I'm… not hungry." He stared at the man, and realized he could see through him. "What are you?"
The man chuckled. "Don't worry, I'm not some ghost. I'm projecting a hologram of myself into your room. For various reasons I will explain later, I can't actually come and meet you in person. My apologies."
A hologram? But that was science-fiction. It hadn't been invented yet. Or at least he thought so. When was he? How had he got here? Who was he? Where was he? Who were those girls with the ears? What was going on?
"Don't worry too much. You are still tired from the cryogenic sleep you were in. Don't worry about anything for now."
"How did you know I was worrying?" Even to himself that sounded paranoid, but he was scared of why he knew nothing, remembered nothing.
"The monitors in the room can tell when your temperature rises, when certain brainwaves appear, various things. Plus, you looked overwhelmed. Next time you see me, I'll explain much of your situation. Until then, please try to relax. If you feel up to it, the computer in the room is connected to the library, so you can read something to ease your mind."
The hologram of the man disappeared, and the room was plunged into silence once again. Since he didn't really feel like reading, he stood up to check the room. His legs barely held him up. He was incredibly sore all over, as if he had done all the physical work in the world in one day all by himself.
He slowly walked to the door and looked at it. I had a seam down the center, and a small screen on it. To the left of the door was a pad that had various key on it, and above that another small screen. In the corner to the left of the door was a solid cube table, and a bright fluorescent light shining on it. The wall between that corner and the next had a long, seemingly one-way window into the room. He couldn't see through it at all. He worried about being watched, but then again, watch him do what?
The back left corner had a door, and when he got close, it slid open quietly. Inside was what appeared to be a bathroom, with a sink and shower. The other corner of the back part of the room had a large container-looking object. It had two halves, a top and bottom, each with their own simple one-button panels on them. Pushing the top button, the top part slid upwards open, and inside was a change of clothes. Plain white shirt and pants, with a pair of soft shoes for inside. He changed into the clothes in the bathroom, and folded up the cloth that had been wrapped around him and put it in the container.
He closed the top part by pushing the button, and opened the bottom part. It had various things that he couldn't identify. Since he didn't know what they were, he left them alone, and closed the door. Next to the container was a computer console, or he thought it was. It had two screens that looked holographic, but no input like a keyboard or mouse. He tried touching the screen, and the screen changed to the library screen. The only option available after that was fiction. Beside the computer were two machines that he couldn't identify. He couldn't even guess at what they were. They were large and squarish, but had nothing that looking like an opening. The screens were blank and dark, like they were turned off too.
And that was the extent of the room he was in. He moved back to the center table, and lay down on it. It had no underside, as like the cube table in the corner it was solid from the top to bottom as far as he could tell. It was a lot more comfortable than it looked, since it wasn't a hard top but a very thick and cushion-y foam-like substance, even though it looked completely metallic.
Even just that small bit of exercise had completely tired him out. He fell asleep almost instantly.
He woke up to silence again. He sat up, and rubbed his head. Where… oh yeah, the small room. So, when was the man going to…
"Hello, Iceman."
Right on time. "Hello… err…" He didn't know the guys name. And why did he call him Iceman? It seemed odd.
"My name is Mizushima. What is your name?"
"My name…. is…" He couldn't remember a thing about himself. Only vague memories of the world he lived in and the events in the world he heard of. Nothing related to him that he knew of. No name, no family, no job, nothing. "I can't remember."
The man in the hologram looked disturbed for a second, but it disappeared and was replaced with a smile. "Then, is Iceman acceptable for now? Since we found you frozen in a chunk of ice, we came to call you Iceman among us, so it would be easy to keep that name."
"That's fine with me, wait, inside a chunk of ice? What was I doing there?"
"We don't know. With the science of your time, we have no idea how you were able to be instantly frozen in the manner you were. It's considered a miracle that you are even alive right now."
Iceman stared at the hologram. "What year is it?"
"Are you sure you want to hear right now?"
Iceman braced himself, and nodded.
"It is now 3XXX" said Mizushima. He stood and waited to see what Iceman's reaction would be.
"3XXX… is a long time from when I was alive." Iceman hung his head. Not that he remembered anything personal from that time, but surely he had some people that had cared for him. Hopefully, or maybe not, as then he wouldn't be able to miss them. That would be sad in its own way.
"Well, many things have happened since then. When exactly were you frozen?"
"I think… 21XX."
And Mizushima went on to briefly tell the history of the world from 21XX to 3XXX. Iceman became more and more amazed as the story went on.
He could remember vague things on the news about a hotbed of activity in some African countries that was putting tension between the US, Russia, Japan, Korea, basically all the large powers with nuclear weapons. Apparently something happened, and some country fired a nuke at another. Which touched off a worst-case nuclear war. Nearly all major cities were destroyed, and the world was plunged into what was thought at the time to be a decade long nuclear winter. But that wasn't the end. Suddenly, a month after the last nuke hit, the Yellowstone volcano had a Category 8 explosion. This meant that there was little to no light getting in from the sun, and the average temperature of the surface of the planet dropped. Ozone in the atmosphere, already low, became nearly nonexistent. The surface became uninhabitable by human standards.
So the last bit of humanity built these underground facilities to wait out the winter.
"Unfortunately," Mizushima concluded, "now that the surface is inhabitable, our metabolisms and immune systems can't handle the surface. We have been isolated far too long underground. That's why we need your help."
"My help?" Iceman echoed. "How can I help? I can't remember anything."
"You can't remember anything? That's... not so good. But your body can live on the surface, unlike ours."
"How do you know that?" He had noticed Mizushima's frown when he said he couldn't remember anything. But he couldn't exactly help it.
"Because, you are living there now."
Iceman was amazed. "Then, that's why…"
"Yes, that's why I can't come see you in person. We could bring you closer to us, but that increases the chance of us getting infected with something from the surface. Your food comes from us, but your water and air are both supplied almost directly from the surface. It would be suicide for me to come visit you." The hologram finished talking, and waited.
"This is… then what about the girls who had the odd ears? Who are they?"
"They are called maruta. They are some of our attempts at making a human capable of living on the surface."
"Then, the ones that were up here are able to survive?"
"Yes. Most can that are alive today. But they are all still somewhat incomplete. Noticeable isn't it, their ears and tails? Though the tails don't show as much, covered by clothes."
"Incomplete…" Iceman muttered. He talks like they are objects… maruta, huh? The same name as those given to the WWII POWs in Japan. Meaning logs, so as to desensitize researchers towards the experiments performed on some. Somehow that knowledge surfaced, unlike so much else. He couldn't comment much on their system though. It was something, in their minds, that was apparently normal at this time.
"I do have one more question. Have you noticed that you wear a mask?" Mizushima pointed to his face.
A mask? Iceman didn't know what he was talking about, there wasn't... but when he felt on his face, there was a hard platter with protrusions sticking out. He stared at his reflection in the one-way window. It was an odd gray mask, covering only the top of his face from his nose up. Horns stuck out of it near the top. From the top center of the top edge a small upside-down T slit with holes also right above the arms created an odd symbol, right on his forehead. When he tried to pull it off, a searing pain shot through his head. It was odd, he hadn't even noticed it until it was pointed out.
"I take your reaction to mean no?"
"I had no idea. It won't come off either. What is it?"
Mizushima was quiet for a second, the hologram not moving. It was like... he left his body for a second. Unnerving. "Your mask is apparently what allows you to survive outside. We are attempting to replicate it so that we can use it ourselves, but so far research has not been terribly successful."
"..." Iceman didn't know what to say. Incredulous would have described him at that moment.
"On another note, it is time for us to part. Since you have woken up, no problems have appeared on your bio readings, but just to be sure we are sending one to check up on you."
"One… one of the maruta?"
"Yes. I will see you again soon." And Mizushima's hologram disappeared.
The door slid open soon after, and the same… maruta… as last time came in. She walked over and ran something like a scanner over his body. It was kinda awkward, so he tried to create a little small-talk.
"Uh… what is your name?"
The girl didn't respond immediately, so he thought that maybe she didn't understand him, but she suddenly answered.
"Ah… I… am called #3510." She spoke extremely soft, so much that he almost couldn't hear her. She finished the scan and paused, looking down. "Are you… feeling poorly?" she asks.
"No… I'm fine. A little tired, but otherwise alright. And a little thirsty. Could you get me something to drink?" He smiled at her.
"O-okay," said the girl, quietly. She walked back out the door, and came back a second later with a glass of water and a pitcher filled with ice-water. She handed the glass to him, and bowed. "I will leave now. If you need anything, I can be called simply by calling out my number at any time." She quietly walked out of the room, the door swooshing closed behind her.
How much the world had changed. He couldn't remember anything about himself, but he knew that nothing like these maruta existed. The closest thing would be a slave, though servant seemed to be a nicer way of putting it... Not a pretty thought. He decided to try not to think about it.
Then, could it really be 3XXX? The story he had been told seemed so far-fetched, like science-fiction taken to the extreme. A nuclear war, followed directly by a supervolcano eruption? It would be the worst catastrophe ever in the history of humankind, besides maybe the Toba eruption that nearly killed off humans. It was hard to believe he missed the hell by barely a month or two. Even harder to believe it actually happened. But the room seemed to be proof itself. He didn't know how the holograms could be faked, and they didn't have anything close to the maruta in the 2XXX's and he was sure of that.
So, it was at least possible that it was true. But he had to see for himself. So he shuffled over to the computer, noticing the non-fiction section was open. The only way to find out himself in that little room was to read whatever they allowed him to. It would have to do.
End of Verse 2
