"Good morning Alexandra Danvers," was the first thing she heard from the computer-generated voice.
"It's Alex," Alex replied. No one called her Alexandra except her mother. She continued to lay there trying to wake up as the computer explained to her that she was on a spaceship. The whole spiel was barely making sense to her as her mind continued to try and wake up.
By the time she made it to her room, she was still groggy but at least she remembered now that yes she had indeed booked this trip to some unknown world. The computer was telling her something about getting her luggage and she looked down at the band around her wrist and she had it scanned. A compartment opened and there was her luggage.
Now the computer was saying something about staying hydrated, but Alex was no longer interested in listening as she laid down on the bed and went back to sleep.
When she woke, the first thing she did was start drinking water. Her throat fell raw and it was two and half glasses before she began feeling better. She had read up on hibernation before finalizing her decision to take this trip. She knew people could react differently to hibernation and a small percentage could develop what was commonly called hibernation sickness. It was usually just a mild malaise that lasted a few days. She was sure she was in the clear, but decided to stay on a regiment of water for the next couple of days.
After getting dressed, she decided it was time to start this adventure – or at least pop over next door to her sister Kara's room. They had booked this trip at the same time and ensured they had rooms close to each other. Leaving her room, she walked the short distance over to Kara's and pressed the touchpad next to it to signal someone was out there. When no one came to the door, she did it again. Still no response.
Maybe they were asleep still, Alex thought. Why she expected that Kara might still be asleep – she swore her sister could sleep through a nuclear explosion. But her wife, Lena, she expected at least Lena would be up.
When she again got no answer after a couple of more tries, she decided she would at least go check out the ship.
She was immediately struck by how quiet it was. With all the people who were on this ship she expected it would be much more noisy.
But as she continued through the hallways she found the quiet disconcerting. By the time she reached the main concourse and saw no one around, she started to be slightly creeped out by it.
"Hello," she called out loudly.
Nothing.
She was looking all around her as she walked but she wasn't seeing anyone around.
"Hello. Is anyone here?"
"Hello."
She turned and saw another woman wearing what she could only assume was her pajamas.
"Hi," Alex said coming toward her. "I was beginning to think I was the only one awake."
The woman didn't respond, but Alex thought the way the woman was staring at her was alittle abnormal.
"I'm Alex," she said offering her hand.
"Maggie," the woman replied taking her hand.
When she saw a tear fall from the woman's eye, she wondered what was wrong.
"Are you ok?" Alex asked, taking away her hand.
"You, you're really here," Maggie said.
Alex was confused as to why the woman would say that, but she responded, "Yes. Are you sure you are ok?"
"Yeah," Maggie said. "But there is something I should tell you. We are alone on this ship."
Alex cocked her head. "What do you mean?"
"Um, maybe we should take a seat," Maggie said. Alex let her guide her over to a bench and Alex sat and listened to Maggie tell the story of how she woke up on the ship only to discover the rest of the passengers were still in stasis. And how she found out there was no way for her to get back into a hibernation pod.
But the biggest shock was the 90 years.
She stood, trying to process this. It wasn't possible. She had read about these hibernation pods and there had never been a report of one failing, much less two of them.
"It's not possible," Alex said.
"Yeah, I know that was my first reaction but I'm telling you that it is true," Maggie said.
"I … I need to check on my sister," she said.
Turning, she went running to one of the lifts and got in, surprised when Maggie was right there with her. She gave the command to go back to the floor where their rooms were located.
"Your sister?" Maggie asked. "You are on the ship with your sister. Is she awake too?"
"I don't know. I tried to visit with her but no one answered the door."
Neither woman said anything as the lift moved and once the doors opened on the correct floor, Alex went running for her sister's door. She again tried the touchpad, but when she got to response after multiple attempts, she pounded on the door. "Kara!" she yelled. "Kara, I need you to come to the door. Kara, please. Kara!" She paused, trying to listen for any movement. "Lena," she yelled this time. "Lena! If you and Kara are in there, please, open the door."
She continued to yell and pound on the door, until she finally stepped back, knowing they weren't in there.
"I could take you down to the bay where the hibernation pods are."
She turned toward Maggie, having practically forgotten that the other woman was there. She nodded and followed Maggie back to the lift. Again they were silent on the ride down and when the door opened, Alex didn't rush out, she merely followed Maggie, who stopped at a touchpad panel.
"Kara, that's your sister's name?" Maggie asked. Alex nodded. "What's her last name?"
"Danvers. I mean, Luther, it's Luther."
Maggie used the touchpad and looked up Kara's name and Alex saw it was displaying pod number. There were thousands of passengers on the ship and Alex had no idea how they would find the right pod as Alex had no idea where her pod even was. She was so disoriented from coming out of hibernation she had not paid attention to anything.
Still, Maggie moved to a corridor to their left and then entered a bay that was filled with pods and walked right up to a section where Alex said one pod was open. It was hers, she knew it because when she looked into the pod next to it, there was her sister asleep in hers. Next to Kara was her wife Lena.
Her beautiful little sister, was lying there like she was frozen in time. And that was how it was supposed to be. They were supposed to be asleep until they got closer to the planet and then they would be woken up. They were going to a new planet, going to start new lives. It was to be a new beginning but now …
"This isn't possible," Alex said. "There has to be a way to fix this. There must be someone on this ship who can fix this."
"I'm sorry," Maggie said. "But there isn't. You and I are the only ones awake on this ship."
"There has to be a way."
…
Maggie left Alex alone the next few days. As near as she could tell the other woman had spent the entire time much like Maggie had on her first days of being awake – running around trying to find some way, anyway to put herself back into hibernation or else get in contact with someone who could possibly help.
When she wasn't running around, Alex was down in the hibernation bay sitting on a chair next to her sister's pod.
Being an only child, Maggie didn't know what it was like to have a sibling, but she could tell just from Alex's reaction that she must have a close relationship with her sister. In some ways, Maggie thought Alex was worse off for it. At least Maggie was alone on the ship so when she died she wasn't leaving anyone behind.
She was at the bar drinking when Alex came and took a seat beside her.
"How long have you been awake?" Alex asked.
They hadn't actually spoken much to each other since their initial meeting. Alex hadn't wanted to hear that there was nothing she could do fix the situation and Maggie as much as she craved human interaction didn't want to waste more time on the dream that they could get back into hibernation.
"One year, one month and three days," Maggie responded.
"And you've been alone here this entire time?"
"Yep, unless you count Winn here. Oh, I should introduce you – Winn this is Alex, Alex this is Winn. He is an android who gets a little testy when you call him a robot."
"Pleased to meet you," Winn said. "May I get you a drink?"
Alex looked over at Maggie, and said, "I'll have whatever she is having."
Winn placed a glass in front of her and then began to pour in whiskey.
"Do you want topped off, Maggie?" Winn asked.
"No, I'm good," Maggie said, although she wouldn't mind being topped off, she didn't want Alex to think she was an alcoholic or something.
Alex took a small drink. "How did you do it?"
"What?"
"How did you last all this time alone?"
Taking her own drink, Maggie turned toward her. "I don't know," Maggie said. "I just did. It wasn't easy, but what other choice did I have." Even as she said it, she thought about that moment where her hand was on the release lever that would have sucked her out into space.
"I saw the crew's quarters," Alex said. "That was when I wondered how long you had been awake."
Maggie had left all the tools she had used to try and get into that door lying around outside of it. She had done everything she could think of to get into that door, to wake someone up. She knew she would be dooming that person to a life like her own but she felt like someone needed to be held responsible for what had happened to her. Plus, maybe that person knew something that could help.
But she had failed at getting into the door.
"I'm sorry," Maggie said. "I'm sorry about your sister."
"You aren't responsible," Alex said. "But thank you."
There was a pause and then Alex spoke again, "What have you tried so far to solve this problem?"
Maggie downed her drink. "Everything. Everything I could think of. If you want to try everything you can think of, go for it. I will be right here when you come to the same conclusion I did, which is that we are royally screwed."
"I refuse to believe there isn't a way."
"I know you do," Maggie said. "Because that is who I was a year ago."
Alex left her unfinished drink and walked out. Maggie took Alex's glass and drank the rest of it before turning to Winn. "I will have another."
She knew Alex was looking to her for something more positive but she couldn't do it, she couldn't give her false hope.
….
Maggie had a hangover – not her first – the next morning so she didn't emerge from her room until later in the day. When she did, she asked the computer for Alex's location. Since they had their ID bracelets, the computer knew where they were at all times. She was unsurprised when it told her that Alex was once again in the hibernation bay.
While she would have preferred getting something to eat first, she instead made her way down to the bay. As expected, she found Alex sitting on a chair next to her sister's pod.
"Hey," Maggie said.
"Hi."
"I wanted to say sorry for yesterday," Maggie said. "It's just that I have been here alone for a while now and I didn't mean to be dismissive of you trying to find a solution to our problem. I didn't want to give you and if I'm being honest, I didn't want to give myself false hope. So, if you still want to know what I tried I will tell you what you want to know."
"Thank you," Alex said.
When Alex didn't say anything else, and just continued to sit there looking at her sister's pod, Maggie told her she was going up to get some breakfast. It was only then that Alex moved. "I haven't eaten yet either, I will come with you."
They didn't speak on their way up to the concourse, so when they reached there, Maggie feeling nervous began to give Alex a tour of sorts. Maggie had been all over the ship in the year she had been awake and knew her way around well. There were some areas she couldn't access because of the security level involved. She assumed those were crew only areas.
Maggie let Alex order her food first, and then sat down with her own usual breakfast.
"You have simple tastes," Alex commented, looking at the tray of food in front of Maggie.
"Not really," she responded. "But I am not a gold passenger member, I'm just a bronze."
Alex looked down at her bracelet and over at Maggie's. "You mean you can't order what you want because of these ID bracelets."
Maggie nodded after taking a bit of her toast.
"Well, that's ridiculous," Alex said, standing up. "Tell me what you want and I will order it."
Maggie wasn't about to pass up this offer, but she hadn't actually seen the full menu. Once she determined she couldn't order any of it - or successfully hack the machine to get it to do what she wanted – she hadn't tortured herself by looking at the offerings. She stood now and approached the screen to look.
In the end she ordered a stack of pancakes with strawberries on them and a double expresso mocha.
"Thank you," Maggie said in between bites. To her it was the most delicious meal she had ever tasted.
"You're welcome," Alex smiled as she saw how happy Maggie looked eating her food. Maggie caught her looking and smiled back at her.
Maggie continued devouring her food, trying not to look like a giant slob in the process, but she kept sneaking looks at Alex. She assumed they were around the same age, but with the gold class passenger ID bracelet she could easily assume they didn't have similar upbringings. Not that too many people had pasts like hers. It was one of the reasons she decided to take this one-way trip – a chance to start a new life and leave that past and its baggage behind.
Knowing what it cost her for her fare, she could only imagine how much Alex and her sister must have paid to have the accommodations they did. Alex was on one of the first-class floors as far as rooms went, which meant she actually had a suite, not a small cubby room like the one Maggie had been assigned. Of course, Maggie had a suite now too, but it's not like she was paying for it.
"So, what do you do?" Maggie finally asked. "I mean, before you decided to travel to a brand new world."
"I'm a doctor of microbiology and genetics," Alex said. "I worked for the united world government studying non-terrestrial life forms."
"Non-terrestrial – you mean like alien life forms?"
"Yes," Alex said. "You could say it is sort of a family interest. What about you?"
"Mechanical engineer," Maggie said. "I've always been fascinated by machinery so I tend to like to tear things apart to see how they work and build my own hopefully better versions. But you're a doctor, does that mean you understand how all of this hibernation stuff works? Because I understand the pods and how they work. The first day I was awake and realized I was alone, I found the operation manual for the pods and studied it. Somehow my pod's internal timer got triggered – not entirely sure how – but it sent the command to the pod that it was time to wake me up. I repaired the timer and put in a safeguard to block any external triggers from happening again, but the pod isn't the problem any longer. The problem is the hibernation itself. It's that process that we had to go through for them to put us under in the first place. I don't know anything about that."
For a moment there, Maggie allowed a little bit of hope in that maybe the universe was done dicking around with her and had sent her someone who could actually help.
"I went to school to be a medical doctor, but changed my course of study near the end, so I never actually went on any medical rotations or anything like that. I studied what I could about hibernation a lot before I agreed to this trip. I guess I needed it for my own peace of mind before I was willing to go to sleep for 120 years, and as you can see that worked out well," she said. "The problem is that the process itself is proprietary information from the company so all I could really do was read papers that were theoretical in nature. So I understand the theory of how it works, but not the specifics of the process."
And there was the universe kicking her again, Maggie thought.
"But I'm not going to let that stop me," Alex said. "Maybe there is information here on the ship that will help me figure it out. There is a whole medical bay here and it's not like I have anything else to do with my time."
"Yeah," Maggie said. "I guess not."
"Do you think you could look at my pod and see if it was the same thing that happened to yours?"
"Certainly," Maggie said. "But do you think can get me another mocha first?"
…
Maggie went to grab her tools and then headed down to the hibernation bay to examine Alex's pod. It wouldn't take long if she went straight to the timer, but she was never one to hurry on a job if she could help it. She decided to start with a full diagnostic check first.
She wasn't sure if she was surprised or not that Alex came down with her. After all her time spent alone, she found she was a little weirded out by having another presence so close to her, especially one that was being so quiet. She remembered waking up the day after meeting Alex and lying in her bed afraid to go out and discover that maybe it had all been in her head or that she had dreamt it.
If she had conjured up Alex in her mind, she would have been devastated perhaps even more so than when she learned she was alone on the ship.
Of course, leave it to her to conjure up a beautiful woman. The fact that Alex was attractive had not escaped her attention at all.
But Alex was real and as she knelt down to start examining the pod, there was Alex right beside her – something Maggie was hyper aware of. As she began to work, Alex was right there beside her, not saying anything or interrupting her, but Maggie found her presence to be distracting enough.
"You said what you do was sort of like the family business, what did you mean by that?"
"My father and mother both have their doctorates, although I followed in my dad's footsteps in terms of my studies. My mother probably would have preferred I had stayed in med school. She is actual doctor," Alex said. "But my father, he worked for the unified government in studying extraterrestrial life. He developed several of the working protocols that are used today to test life on planets before they are chosen for colonization."
"Wow," Maggie said. "You must be proud of both of your parents. What did they think about you and your sister taking this trip?"
When there was silence, Maggie looked at Alex and could tell immediately there was something painful in the answer to that question.
"Sorry," Maggie said. "It's none of my business."
"No, it's ok. Our parents are dead. My dad died when I was a teenager. He had been doing field work on the outer ring planets at the time. He had gotten called back to Earth and was a passenger on the Nautilus."
Alex didn't need to say anymore. There wasn't a person alive on Earth that didn't know about the Nautilus. It was the flag ship of the unified government's fleet. It had been attacked by an alien species called the Daxamites. They had invaded the galaxy and made it to Earth. It took three months to defeat them. The attack on the Nautilus was the defining event of a generation. There wasn't a person alive at the time that probably couldn't tell you where they were when word reached Earth.
In a lot of ways it was the invasion that fueled the commercial travel to planets like Kronos II. Part of the problem was that there was simply not enough space on Earth for everyone. The roots of it could be traced back to the 21st Century when the gap between rich and poor began to become extreme. A series of elections across the world were won by conservatives who had made laws that contributed tp furthering that gap. Their laws also contributed to pulling back on health care for the poor and access to things like birth control became more restricted. Those who cautioned against such maneuvers were silenced. Election laws and maps were changed to keep conservatives in power. In some countries they even gave up the pretense of having elections.
It caused a population boom that eclipsed even the baby boomers generation. A series of economic crashes and recessions pushed people to the brink and wars broke out. The backlash was ugly as wars broke out. In the end, a unified government was formed and they had begun to work together not for the betterment of countries but of the Earth itself.
It took a couple of generations to get beyond the turmoil, but the government worked not only on the Earth, but began a massive expansion in space travel almost from the beginning. Explorations began and now they were at the heights of colonization.
It wasn't to say everything was perfect. It was far from a utopia and there were those who opposed the unified government and wanted power returned back to countries. There were those who believed the better times were back in the past.
"Sorry about your dad," Maggie said.
"Thanks," Alex said. "My mom passed away last year, not long after Kara got married. Kara and Lena had already been planning on taking one of the colonization flights and after mom died, they asked me to come with them. I guess I couldn't imagine not being able to talk to my sister."
She again looked at Kara's pod with sadness. Maggie couldn't imagine what it must be like. She was lucky in that she was alone, no other pod to sit beside and wonder what it would be like to die without that person knowing about it until they woke at the right time.
"Is your sister also a scientist?"
"No," Alex laughed. "She's a journalist. She has this dream of going on this grand adventure and chronicling life on a whole new planet. She's lucky to have found Lena who would go to the end of any universe for Kara."
"You said her last name is Luther, is she related to those Luthers?" Maggie asked. There was no reason to expand on which Luthers she was referring to. They were one of the wealthiest families on Earth.
"Yes," Alex said. "Although you could hardly tell it from the way Lena is. I was worried at first when Kara started dating her, but that was before I spent time with Lena. Now she is just as much my sister as Kara is."
"I really do hope we can find a way out of this mess, so you can be with them again."
"Thank you."
Alex smiled at her when she said it and Maggie was sure she was blushing as she smiled back. She turned back to the pod and tried to concentrate on what she was doing. She asked Alex some more questions to keep her talking as she worked.
In the end, she found out it wasn't the timer on Alex's pod that went out, but some circuits had burned out, which was strange because the secondary systems didn't kick in to prevent the pod malfunctioning. Two pods malfunctioned but in different ways, what was the chances of that happening, Maggie wondered.
"Is it a problem you can fix?" Alex asked after Maggie explained what went wrong with the pod.
"Sure," Maggie said. "Shouldn't be too hard. I can get started immediately. Not like I have other commitments."
"I should probably start my part then and start to figure out how the hibernation process works," Alex said.
Maggie stood up and faced Alex. "I really hope you can figure it out, but don't put too much pressure on yourself, ok? I can't have the only person I know on this ship going crazy on me."
"I will try," Alex said, giving her another smile before leaving the room. Maggie watched her go and then looked over at Kara's pod. "Is your sister single?" she asked.
