Author: Doug Lambdin

Lewis Flaherty opened a cryobox drawer and pulled out the container with the head labeled CB-9, belonging to one Deborah Beale, steam rising out as the inner container became exposed to room temperature.

Lewis inspected the case, her head, and the “life-stem” attached into her neck, as was his Friday duty, ticking off boxes on a digital clipboard.  “Okay, Debbie, see you next week,” he said, sliding the drawer back in place.  Her face still as a mannequin’s and her hair frosted at the tips.

Working through the alphabet, Lewis spoke to each head, as though greeting an old acquaintance: “And how are we today?” he would say in his doctor-voice.  Or, “You haven’t aged a minute,” he would say in his genteel Southerner voice.  Which, of course, they hadn’t.

Lewis loved his job, and he saw himself more as sentry than caretaker.

Rolling Oliver Laughton, CB-110, back in and then sliding the clipboard, he opened the drawer of CB-111, Mavis Linstrom.

No steam!

No alarm!

“No,no,no,no,no!”

Lewis looked into the drawer at a woman’s head, locked into a plasma mold, whose face was now looking back at him.

Lewis fell back and slid across the floor as though he had been shot in the forehead.

He stared at Mavis Linstrom’s drawer label, summoning the courage to lunge forward and kick the drawer shut.

“Helloooo?” called a faint voice from the drawer.

“Helloooo. I know you’re there.  I saw you.  Please?”

Lewis squeezed his shirt over his heart into a tight ball, trying to catch his breath.

“I can hear you. Please!”

Lewis scurried away across the floor.

“Did you find a transition host?” Mavis Linstrom yelled.  “Is it time?  Heyyyyy!”

He caught his breath and remembered from his training that all he had to do was reset the cryobox’s individual breaker in the back, which he raced around and did, and then hit the RESTART button under the ledge of the drawer’s frame.

At the drawer, he reached up and found the RESTART button and was about to press it, but instead, looked in once more, and once again his eyes met the eyes of Mavis Linstrom.  They were green.  Beautiful green, he thought.

“Please” she said, her voice soft and kind.  “What’s going on?  How long have I been here?  When can I reattach? The contract said it would be less than a year.  Where’s the young man who ‘en-safed’ me?”

“I’m Lewis. The fifth caretaker.  By the date on your nameplate…you’ve been here eighty-one years.”

Lewis saw Mavis’ eyes look beyond him, mouthing ‘eighty-one’ again and again, her eyebrows calculating the data.

“Why?” she demanded, Lewis feeling the burn of her stare.  “Tell me!”

“I think they thought they would master the procedure by now,” Lewis said, “but I guess they just haven’t yet.  The money you all spent, I believe, went into research.  But… All I do know is that you’re just here.   I hate to say this, but I have to restart cryopreservation and see if anyone else is…well…awake.”

“No!”

“What do you mean–”

“Just, no.  Unplug me.”

“What?”

“Just do it.”

“I can’t–”

“Do it now!  You’re killing me either way.”

Lewis looked into her green eyes one more time, which were now begging for mercy. Maybe she’s right–they are the same.  But if that’s the case…

Lewis pushed the drawer shut and pressed RESTART, blocking out a muffled scream.

When he pulled open the last drawer, CB-208, Lewis was relieved to find, as with the rest, another head, perfectly at peace.

“And how are we today, Mrs. Zielinski?”