The Awakening (part 4)

 Part 3: Getting out

He was surprised but shrugged his shoulders. "People get used to everything."

"You'd be surprised," he added.

"Can I see the others you managed to wake up? Maybe I know someone."

After the physiotherapy, I looked at the pages on the small computer board with faces and more faces of the awakened. Some people's faces were slightly blurred and had the words "deceased" across them. The whole search was frustrating and sad. The whole planet went to hell and mommy's and daddy's rich children got away with it and the rest of us are just experiments, who can explode at any moment like an old hand grenade.

The first time I went outside after getting on my feet was a shock, and not just physically. Before that, I barely got rid of Darko, whom I mentioned earlier as a confused red-haired young man with a beard. Darko seemed to be a little to fond of me, he hanged around me saying the most incredible amounts of the weirdest "compliments" I've ever heard.

"Your liver is in such a good condition, so beautiful, and so are your lips, which are even the same color as your liver!"

"The women from two hundred and fifty years ago were more beautiful and in better shape than women today. Even those over sixty.”

"I've seen all your organs, I have to admit, I'm absolutely impressed! Congratulations!"

"Your body that drives me crazy, that's partially from being rejuvenated by the stem cells, but a lot of it is your own doing from before the icing."

"You shook me to my core as soon as we took you out of the ice and more with each day!"

I didn't know whether to laugh or be horrified. One day I managed to get rid of him out and enter the waiting room that led to the tunnel which led to outside. The waiting room was a large sterile room painted a dazzling white with rows of equally sterile benches made of polished surgical steel. The room was completely empty and silver-white with the exception of a control panel on the wall near the exit. I entered the data into the control panel and sat down to wait. What frustrated me quite a bit about this world, among a number of other things, was that there was nothing to do. Even when you are on the toilet, you need to read something, not to waste time. There was absolutely nothing to read or do here except to wait alone, with your own thoughts. But at least I had enough thoughts, and even more questions. They showed me another catalog of people, besides the one with survivors and those who didn't make it. A catalog of frozen people, as I was. Faces caught under the ice, some of them calm, others horrified, some just blankly staring, a catalog of the eternals. Each person had information, or lack thereof, because not all identities were known. With some of the faces, there was also, ironically, an indicator of "vitality", that is, what was the estimate that extraction from the ice would be successful. The whole spectrum of factors was taken into account, data about the person extracted from the database, physical vitality, state of organs, psychological state and of course, almost the most important factor, the depth position within the ice, in meters.

Maybe half an hour later I was sitting in some kind of train on the way through a concrete tunnel, claustrophobically narrow, so that there was hardly an inch of free space between the body of the train and tunnel walls. Was it better to be alive in this world or to remain in a frozen sleep? The faces of the survivors did not give much room for optimism. Dark circles, a tired, hopeless look, sometimes a barely there smile for the camera. But there were also those with a defiant smile and unusual freshness in their faces. On the other hand, the frozen faces, although there were some frozen in horror, were mostly calm, like mine (they showed me my face while it was frozen), as if they were deep in thoughts, some even with a questioning expression, as if they were observing everything around them. It sounds impossible, but I was looking around me while I was frozen, I remember I did.

She was among the frozen ones, still relatively young, her face wide-eyed in surprise. I'd swear she was watching from in there. Her status was "close to the surface" and "vital status excellent". I could be with her again. But was it okay to give her a wake like mine? And given my stem cell treatment, we'll be the same age, which would be completely unnatural. But on the other hand, can I just not give her a chance to live again? And is this life worth living?

Suddenly there was darkness. For a moment I thought the power had gone out. No, it's a train, or something similar to a train, coming out of a lighted tunnel into the darkness outside. We weren't even technically outside, the city was under a huge protective dome. It was complete darkness, but in the distance, nevertheless, I could see the illuminated city, the buildings full of light, the street lighting that barely succeeded in dispelling the complete darkness. There was a city, and people who survived the disaster of more than two hundred years ago. There I will be able to check whether the future is worth coming out of the frozen sleep.