Chapter 1 – Re-awakening
[-Booting-]
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[-Booting Complete-]
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[Thank you for waiting. We at CryoTech Industries LMT thank you for using our state-of-the-art CryoFreeze Technology. Remember! You are the future of our species. Welcome to the new world…!]
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[-Beginning Unthawing Process-]
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[25%]
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[50%]
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[75%]
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[100%]
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[Unthawing process complete: Wake up, Jackson Goodman. It's time that you open your eyes…!]
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I could feel my body. That was a sentence I wasn't prepared to think of ever again. Granted, when you've been shoved into a cryostasis pod for what was supposed to be 10,000 plus years you would, naturally, come to the same conclusion.
The cold that had surrounded my body slowly began to drain away from my person as I felt my legs buckle under disuse. My body slumped up against the glass of the pod, adding to the already horrid headache that I was forced to endure. The doctors said that it was bound to happen thanks to Cryotechnology still being in its beta phase, but that didn't mean I had to like it.
Now, you might be asking me: who the hell am I, and why the hell would I volunteer for something that could've possibly killed me, knowing damn well that it probably would have thanks to it still being in its testing phase?
Well, I can answer both of those questions, starting with my name. My name is Jackson Stewart Goodman. I am 28 years old, and before my 10,000-year-long Cryo nap, I was an engineer in robotics, as well as one of the many volunteers for designing early plasma-based technology and weaponry. The second question had a very simple answer. The tides were closing in, and all of humanity was about to be killed off thanks to some dick head launching twenty nukes at the polar ice caps, speeding up Global Warming at an unprecedented rate. And so, I, along with 30 other people on board a science station known as Noah's Ark was put into Cyro sleep and set to wake up 10,000 years into the future, where the land would be habitable enough for humans to walk upon once more.
From what I am aware, my group wasn't the only group that got frozen. Members of the Ark Polaris group also got frozen, though they had substantially weaker Cyro Tech than we did, so who knew if they survived? Honestly, I'd be glad if they all died. Bunch of snooty rich bastards. Could've cared less for those asshats.
Anywho, I'm getting sidetracked. What was I doing again? Oh, yeah, Explaining how I ended up in this wack-ass scenario.
After I volunteered for being one of the first people to be Cyro frozen, others came out of the woodworks to test the new technology, including kids. Lovely, right? Well, it would be, had it not been for the fact that we only had 30 Cyro pods. So, only 29 other people could join me in my new venture of being frozen for 10 millennia.
And now, here I was, face pressed against the glass of my Cyro tank as I struggled to get my legs to move without wanting to collapse on myself. Great start, am I right?
My legs felt numb, a side effect that was expected and told to us by the scientist involved in the program. What they hadn't told us or warned us about, however, was the side-splitting headache. Thankfully, it wasn't exactly too bad, maybe no less than a migraine. That was something I could handle. Migraines were commonplace in my field of work, so I was used to them. Didn't mean they still didn't hurt.
I patted my hand around for a little bit, trying to look for the handle that would allow me to open up this ice metal coffin, and eventually, I found it and grabbed onto it. It was one of those under-grab handles. The kind you slip your hand into and pull upward. Once my hand was firmly secure on the little bugger, I used all the force required and all the energy I could muster to get the thing to flip up and allow for the door to open. Once done, I heard the sound of air being released from the airlocks that, you guessed it, airlocked the doors to the chambers shut.
As soon as the air-locks finished cycling, the door gave way, and I along with it. I hit the wet ground with a thud. Luckily, the project forced us to wear these tacky white suits with a blue strip down the middle, along with a number on our right lapel. My number was 001. Yup, I was lucky number one. Jeez, who woulda thunk it? It's not like I just said that I was.
My elbows and knees hurt. I mean, I would hurt too if I was suddenly dropped out of a pod without any sort of warning. Despite that, however, I slowly began to pick myself up, my legs now finally working up the courage to work, and allowed myself to get used to my surroundings. My eyes adjusted to the light for the first time in over ten millennia. Once again, that was something that I didn't like thinking about. No human should've been allowed to live for more than 100 years. Yet here I was, 10,000 years later, still 28 years old—oh wait a second.
Would I actually be 10,028 years old? I mean, 10,000 of my birthdays did pass. Oh whatever, those are just semantics. My point still stands. Humans were supposed to only live for 100 years, and I refuse to believe that crap about how we were supposed to be immortal beings.
Well, whatever, at least now I could see myself, even if it was in a reflection of melted ice. My hair still looked messy as ever, and still looked dark brown even if there were some small particles of ice dangling off my bangs. My facial features, or muscles for that matter, hadn't experienced any signs of atrophy. I mean, I was perfectly preserved in a pod for almost 10,000 years, need I say anything more?
Although, I guess there's nothing really to be impressed about. I had a rather slim build, and while my arms were decently built, as were my legs, I had nothing else to speak of. I could punch or kick something pretty good, but that was it. It wasn't like I worked out to get to where I am. My job required me to lift things 10 times my weight, so I was bound to get some form of muscle gain from doing hard labour like that.
Outside of that, I was your typical, everyday white man. I had no outstanding hobbies, I had a wife who I hope was one of the 29 others that got frozen, along with a five-year-old daughter who I also hope joined me in this little experiment, though, I can't be certain.
"Fuck… my back…." The words came out of my mouth with a groan. My voice was dry, and I was starving. I could hear the Cryopod close behind me, and as I turned around, I was greeted with a sticky note on the front of the capsule. There were a set of numbers on the note, though I knew immediately what it was they were. They were referring to a locker number and combination. Specifically, my locker and locker combination.
My gaze swept across the other pods. They were all still on, and they were all in their thawing phase. My heart sank when I saw something I hoped to not see on any of them, let alone the over half of the ones that did display the insignia.
You see, all the Cyropods had holographic screens underneath the glass that displayed whether or not the person inside was alive or dead. A green smiley face for alive, and a red skull and crossbones for dead. Out of the 29 other Cyropods, over 24 of them had skulls and crossbones. Only pods numbered 10, 15, 29, and 28 were still alive.
"Son of a bitch…." I murmured. I wasn't about to break down into a panic attack. It wasn't as if I knew any of these people, or at least, I hope I didn't. I was frozen first out of everyone who volunteered, so I had no idea who the people who were joining me were going to be. That being said, if any of the dead were my family… then that would be an entirely different story.
I turned away from the Cryopods. It would take at least 20 minutes for them to be fully unthawed, so I had enough time to look around the room and get my barrings as to where in the laboratory I was. As for how I knew how long it would take for the other five to unthaw? Well, it might have to do with the fact that I designed the damn things.
Funny, right? I worked for a lot of companies. After all, I was a freelancer, so I had to make money somehow. And with how humanity was shaping up to go extinct, and seeing as how Cyrotech Industries needed a freelancer to come up with a design for the Cyropods, I jumped at the opportunity. And hey, it worked… sorta. Not everyone can be a winner… some gotta be losers. Oh well, it just means that we have more supplies.
Hey, I gotta think on the bright side. I have no idea how much the outside world has changed, or even if we'll be able to survive more than a week. But… I have to try and think about this in a positive sense.
I went around to each of the pods with the deceased within and ripped off the sticky notes, including my own. After that, I turned around and was greeted by 30 lockers, all of which were located on opposite ends of the room and split up into two sets of fifteen. They were all a bright white with a blue line down the middle, which had been the same colour as our suits. I guess management didn't have the time to be creative.
Each of the lockers was numbered one through thirty, and all of them had a keypad attached to them. The first locker I approached was my own. Sorting through the collection of sticky notes, I found mine and input my code, 10001. I know, basic, but it was easy to remember and easy to write. Desperate times meant lazy passcodes it seems.
As soon as I input the passcode, the locker opened. Inside the locker was a book, two pairs of folded-up jumpsuits like the one I was wearing, a plasma pistol—one of my creations—a couple of packets of instant ramen, several odd packets of seeds meant for growing crops, an instructional manual on how to grow them, and several bags of cooking utensils, pots, pans, and even a pack of Marlboro cigarettes.
"They knew me well… thank God!" I said, grabbing the pack of cigarettes. Where there were cigarettes, there was a lighter. Sure enough, I dug around in the bag and I found one of those barbeque lighters. I'm not complaining, though I did have a fancy for those old-fashioned "flip-up the lid" lighters. They just looked cooler in my opinion. To my surprise, the oil inside was still flammable, so that was good.
I took out one of the cancer sticks and shoved it into my mouth. After that, I lit the thing and sighed a breath of relief. 10,000 years mixed with no smoking, that was a disaster. But now that I had my trusty pack of cigs, I knew that migraine would go away in no time flat. Were they healthy for me? No, no they were not. But you see, I have this little thing called an addiction. At least I wasn't an alcoholic. That would've made things worse.
The rest of the materials were basic stuff, though the seeds threw me for a loop. It was better than having nothing to grow, and if memory served me right, there was a greenhouse nearby where we could grow crops with. Speaking of crops, most of the seeds I got were stuff like corn, carrots, and potatoes. There were a few packets of watermelon seeds and even apple tree seeds, but that was it. Nothing too outlandish, but also nothing too basic either.
I just hope that one of the people who survived was a farmer, or at least knew how to grow food. Yeah, there was a manual, but I don't think we'd survive more than a month if my dumbass was the one growing the shit.
As for the canned food and instant ramen, while I was no survivor expert, so long as we didn't have someone who had an eating disorder that made them overeat, we'd probably be able to survive about 6 months with the food I got in here alone. There were eight boxes of Ichiban noodles, and behind them were several cans of tomato soup. Thank god I wasn't a picky eater.
The book was, annoyingly enough, the Holy Bible. I'm not religious, but I guess it would come in handy. Perhaps one of the onboard priests wanted their religion to have been persevered. If that was the case, then I'll do my best to keep on to it. I might not have grown up around religion or ever so much as wanted to be in contact with it, but who was I to squash someone's dream? I might be an atheist, but unlike a majority of my fellow antitheist peers, I wouldn't put my own beliefs over someone else's.
You're free to do what you want, just don't push it on me. That was how I rolled. If you wanted to talk to me about it, that was fine, but just don't try and convert me.
Besides all of that, that was what was in my locker. If I had to guess, all the others would be the same. If there was enough for 30 people here, then that would mean—depending on if we did things right—we'd be able to survive for at least a decade. Maybe not in the best of shapes, but enough to at least expand the human population.
And who knows? Perhaps there are other base camps out there that could meet up with us? Maybe there would be more survivors? From what I was aware each country had about 80 Cyropod camps, 3 per city. If even a quarter of them survived and are now just waking up, then I wouldn't mind getting things in order. We might have been driven underground thanks to the tides shifting, but I'm sure it won't take too long to find where we need to be. These things were interconnected, so I don't doubt for a moment that we could find each other sooner or later.
But for now, I think waiting for everyone else to wake up would be better than running off on my own. After all, the saying always was "safety in numbers." Could never go wrong with common sense. But just in case, I took the plasma pistol and strapped it to my hip. There were only 10 minutes before the rest of them would wake up, and I think having at least a friendly face greet you would be better than having no face at all.
And so, I waited that ten minutes. It was boring, standing around doing nothing, but there wasn't much else I could do. I mean, I could've opened the other lockers belonging to the dead, but that would be disrespectful. I was only going to open them when we needed them. It just felt wrong, opening something that wasn't meant for either me or us, seeing as it was tantamount to grave robbing. But if things got tough, I wouldn't have much of a choice.
I think I got through two cigs before the first Cyropod opened, Immediately put the cancer stick out, and watched as the Cryopod opened. When it did, just like myself, a person fell out, though they weren't a man. It was a woman, which made my heart stop beating as fast as it was. She had blond hair and tan skin, and as she began to pick herself up, I saw that she had brown eyes.
This was not my wife. My wife had blond hair, yes, but she had blue eyes and her skin was lighter than that. Either way, I helped the lady up, and that was when I realized that this "woman" was actually a young lady, no older than 16, maybe 17 if my judgement was sound. Once I fully brought her to her feet, she stood at nearly 5 foot 8 inches, which was nearly as tall as I was, give or take an inch. She cupped the side of her head, letting out a groan of pain.
"Hey, you good?" I asked, and to which I got an answer in the form of a grunt and a scowl. Her eyes peered into mine, and for a split second I could see a hint of recognition, quickly followed up by tears. I had no idea why the girl was crying, but then, something strange happened. The kid hugged me. "Whoa! Hey now, what's this about?" I said, startled as I lurched back with surprise. I didn't get any answer, all I got was more sobs. I slowly hugged her back, unaware as to why she was crying, and seeing as I probably wasn't going to get any answer from the teen, I simply let her hug me.
It took another minute or so for her to stop, and by the time she did, she let go and wiped at her eyes. "I-I'm sorry, I… I'm just…." The teen mumbled, still wiping at her eyes. I looked down at my newly wet shirt as I grimaced. Not exactly the best start for an introduction.
"Yeah, don't mention it, kid. So… you gonna tell me what that was about?" I asked, confusion in my tone of voice as the teen looked a little offended.
"You don't… recognize me?" The girl asked as I raised an eyebrow.
"Am I supposed to? Look, I don't know who you are, but—"
"Judy. Judy Goodman, does that name ring any bells to you?" The girl asked as I blinked a couple of times. I looked at the girl. Now it was my turn to be annoyed.
"Yeah, it does. That's the name of my five-year-old daughter. How would you know her name? I don't remember hiring any babysitters for her, especially none that looked like, well no offence, you," I replied, only to get a facepalm from the teen.
"My god… I guess mom was right, you really can be dense. Can't blame you since it's been a decade, but… that's my name. I'm Judy. Judy Titania Goodman. Uh… Hi, Dad…."
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This is my first time writing a Humanity x Splatoon story, slightly inspired by The Polaris Project by Piston24 on Fanfiction Dot Net. The thing separating their story and mine is that I'm going in a first-person approach, and a "rebuild-it" approach rather than a post-apocalypse survival story.
That being said, I highly recommend you all check out their story, as it is REALLY good, like seriously, stupidly good. I can't say the same for mine, though seeing as I'm just starting out. I hope you all stick around, and until next time, peace!