The Cryonic Man
Prologue Part 2: Project Archimedes
A bit of foreword
This is my first story so please no flames.
I do not claim ownership to the rights to Mass Effect or its characters (sadly only Bioware and EA can claim that).
I do however claim ownership of the characters I create
Looking at his watch John realized he was late by about a half an hour. Silently he was praying that Mr. Decker, his manager, didn't notice.
"DESMOND!"
Apparently whoever he was praying too was out today.
"Care to explain why you arrived 30 minutes for your shift?"
"Sorry Mr. Decker, it won't happen again, I promise," said John.
"Sorry isn't good enough Mr. Desmond, you're going to have to work the late shift if you don't want to lose your paycheck," replied Mr. Decker.
"Yes sir," said John
Long ago, John had learned 2 things: 1) His boss was a fricken slavedriving jerk and 2) He had to deal with this crap if he wanted to keep the only job he could find in New York.
Let me explain, John Desmond was not a dumb man by any definition, in fact he was quite intelligent. He actually was going to Empire State University to learn Mechanical Engineering. That all changed when his parents died. The shock and sadness he felt lasted for weeks, but what was worse was after his parents died, their financial records vanished, leaving his family essentially penniless. Scholarships refused him also, which left him unable to pay tuition. He then dropped out of college, and was forced to work for minimum wage delivering packages.
"Here is your route today, I expect it all to be done by closing time, understand," said Mr. Desmond.
"Yes sir," replied John.
He headed out to the loading dock to grab his packages for his route and his bike, and set about his route."
After One Day's Work
"Ugh"
It was 10:00 p.m. and John had finally come back to the office after a long day of delivering packages to high up floors in office buildings.
"Man, I'm surprised I don't sleep for weeks after days like today," John said to himself.
He headed to his locker to grab his subway pass and the rest of his stuff to get ready to head home, which everyone, including Mr. Decker, had done.
"If I run I should be able to catch the next train."
He then slammed his locker door, and just as he was about to leave he heard a loud thump. Turning around he saw a small package. "Weird" he thought.
"One of the couriers must have forgotten to deliver it."
As much as limbs screamed not to, he decided to just go deliver it since he had seen Mr. Decker's anger when a package wasn't delivered. It was so bad it could make the most heartless soldier cry. So, being the good guy, he decided to quickly deliver it since the address wasn't too far away.
He grabbed a bike and pedaled as hard and fast as he could.
Later at the delivery address
"Alright, this is the place."
The building looked like a science lab, and since some of the lights were still on, John assumed that there was still someone there, so he headed inside.
"Hello, is anyone here, I have a package addressed to this building, hello," called out John
"Hmm, let's see here, apparently it goes to a certain department, Lab AR apparently."
So John began his trek across the building.
"Let's see Lab AB, AP, and ah here it is Lab AR."
The lab itself was strangely empty, except for a couple machines, a weird metal pad, and a couple of weird pods. He moved over to one of the machines and stared at it for a little while. He found the design strangely futuristic.
He then heard a noise coming from the back of one of the machines and decided to investigate.
"Excuse me, is someone there?"
The grey-haired man who was behind the machine all of a sudden looked up with a look of shock on his face and all of a sudden was running towards John.
All of a sudden, John found himself tackled to the ground and in a struggle with the weird man.
"What are you doing," yelled John in the midst of the chaos.
"I'm sorry, but I have to stop the project," said the weird grey-haired man whose eyes had begun glowing a weird yellow color.
John pushed the weird man off of him and began searching for some sort of weapon.
Finding none he began a fist-fight with the man.
They each fought each other with all their might, trading blows until both of them were bloody and bruised. Taking advantage of John's weariness, the grey-haired, yellow-eyed man tackled him into the controls to one of the machines and began to choke him.
As much as he struggled, John couldn't seem to break free. He felt his hands move all over the machine looking for something that could help him. He found his saving grace with a loose pipe, which he forcefully pulled off the machine and hit his attacker with it. Momentarily stunned, the yellow-eyed man was about to charge for another assault when the pipe hit him and knocked him out.
John stepped back for a moment to catch his breath, and wonder about WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED? However his musings were interrupted when the yellow-eyed man came up from behind and tackled him for the third time in the fight. They both were knocked onto a weird pad-shaped thing next to a console. The battled continued until John was knocked to the floor again.
"The project must be stopped," the man said over and over.
"I don't know who you are or what you are doing, but GET OFF OF ME!" yelled John.
He picked up his pipe again and hit the man repeatedly until the yellow-eyed man fell off him.
Then John noticed that the man wasn't moving, his forehead was bleeding and something else, his eyes had stopped glowing. Then he heard a high-pitched alarm coming from the console next to the metal pad he was standing on.
"What's going on?" said John just as some kind of container covered him and the pad.
He quickly made his way to the small window of the container and started yelling for someone, anyone to help him.
"HELP, SOMEONE! GET ME OUT!" John said as he pounded on the window.
He then heard an electronic voice say, "Subject 6 of Project Archimedes, please remain calm. Cryogenic sequence initiated."
John felt his eyes widen, and he began to pound harder and yell louder.
"Flash freeze commencing in 10, 9, 8,"
John kept pounding, praying that someone would come and save him.
"7, 6, 5, 4,"
"PLEASE SOMEONE," John yelled as tears began rolling down his face.
"3, 2, 1, 0."
John saw a flash a light and then everything went black.
(The next morning)
The employees of Lab AR began the preparations for the transportation of the six cryo pods to Cape Canaveral, where Project Archimedes would begin it's final stages. A project which would allow humankind to see if it was actually alone in the universe. Unaware were they that the sixth pod contained a 19 year old bike courier whose life was about to change drastically.
After the pods were airshipped to the shuttle, the countdown began, for the launch.
"3, 2, 1, we have lift-off; repeat we have lift-off."
The shuttles rockets ignited sending the shuttle, and its frozen passengers, skyward. Little did the operators of the project know that the shuttle would lose contact after the fifth year, when the project would officially be considered a failure.