Infinity Freeze

Cryosleep is a good way to forget.

I was always wondering where I was supposed to be.

That day was no different, except in one respect.

I had gone to Infinity Freeze out of desperation, not the pull-your-hair-out desperate madness, but the slowly-taking-over-you kind �" the one that you don’t even realize is happening when it starts �" the all-consuming kind.

It wasn’t really the place I wanted to be in.

But I hadn’t known what else to do.

The glass door slid open to let me in. I walked carefully inside of the pristine lobby and a hostess wearing high heels and a high ponytail came over to where I was. She flashed me a brilliant smile.

“Welcome to Infinity Freeze,” she had said, her voice melodic. There was soft elevator music playing all around us.

I tried to smile easily but I was too nervous. She could tell.

“Is this your first time at our facility?” she asked with another smile.

I nodded. “Yes, it is.”

“That’s wonderful. We are so glad whenever we have someone new to the Cryo business. I’ll get my manager for you so he can give you a tour,” and with that she was gone.

I stood rooted to the ground, unsure of what I was supposed to do, where I was supposed to go �" unsure of everything really. At that time I didn’t really know if I was breathing, or even alive. The tightness in my chest, however, belied my inexistence and so it became the only thing keeping me in the physical world.

I felt sick to my stomach. It was the humanity coursing through my veins. I needed to escape it. Back then, humanity was a disease. It wasn’t a harbinger for life and hope anymore. It was muck and chaos.

The manager came out of a side office. He wore a white lab coat and he was as tall and beautiful as the hostess and smiled charmingly at me. A drop of sweat trickled down my nose. I tried wiping it away but he had extended his hand for me to shake and so I did.

“Good afternoon, madam. I’ll be more than happy to escort you through the facility so you can see for yourself the wonders of Cryo years,” he said as he shook my hand.

The man �" I had already forgotten the name he had given me �" lead me to the left, where he swiped his information card and this door slid open too. There was a long corridor ahead of us and the walls on both sides were half concrete, half glass.

On one side, I could see dozens of people sitting down in small cubicles talking to beautiful hostesses, all wearing high heels and high ponytails. I could only guess they were selling Cryo pods to these people. People who had decided to sleep through the decade for whatever reason �" most of the time it was simply to stay alive for more years.

To be young when everyone else you knew was older.

To try new things even when they had already been invented years before while they were under Cryo.

These were not the reasons I had gone there that day. I sought darkness and oblivion. But I was still terrified of them.

On the other side were twenty-four gleaming white pods a few feet away from each other. They were translucent enough so you could see there was a person inside of them but not enough to make out any features, like if they were male or female.

These were only for presentation. The facility went for miles below this first floor.

Each pod was connected to the wall behind them by a series of tubes, and each of those were connected to four monitors �" for heart beat, brain activity, body temperature and cryostatis levels.

“I thought they slept standing up,” I told him.

He nods, “That’s a common misconception. A body will not react to Cryo with the same zeal standing up as they do laying down.”

I felt a chill run down my spine, “Do they ever get cold?”

“It’s hard to remember. I slept during my entire 20s and I can’t remember anything much,” he said with a happy smile.

“Do you ever feel cold now?”

He shrugs, “On occasion.”

I didn’t know what questions to ask him. He went on and on about the people who came and who went under, about their reasons for doing it, about their absolute privacy laws, and their 24 hour monitoring that beat out any other company in the Cryo business.

I didn’t want to look too much at the sleepers.

But I didn’t want to move into the cubicle room either.

It became clear to me that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be asleep.

“The procedure is only a momentary discomfort for most of our clients. Only a few experience severe pain,” he said nonchalant.

“Excuse me?” My voice had trembled.

“Only for the single moment it takes to fall asleep. Clients don’t even remember it when they reawaken,” he had said.

The man had pushed a few buttons on the portion of the wall below the glass and a small drawer had popped out. A medium sized glass bottle along side two glasses were inside it. He took the bottle and poured some of the amber liquid inside a glass and handed it to me.

“For your shaking hands, my dear,” he smiled.

I took the glass and looked at it for a moment before gulping down the liquid. The burning of my throat �" as it made its way down my esophagus and into my stomach �" was another telltale of living.

“Is there any risk involved? Has anyone ever died?”

He throws his head back and laughs, “My dear, these are Cryo years, not a war zone. No one has ever died during cryostatis. Though, of course, some clients have gotten very sick and we have had to awaken them and they have gone on to pass away. However, that has never been the company’s fault. These clients never mentioned illnesses and allergies that might have had a bad mixing with the cryostatis.”

“Are there any shorter plans?”

“No. This is the only way. It’s the thawing, actually, that requires the 10 years,” he says matter-of-fact.

“How do you mean?” I had asked.

“Well, the body itself freezes relatively quickly, but if you want to be more than a pile of cells and skin and mucus and hair when you wake up �" you need the whole 10 years.”

Unknowingly being awake for 10 years was more intimidating than being asleep.

“You won’t even know when you wake up, my dear. It won’t feel like more than a moment. We do have longer plans, of course.”

We had been steadily making our way down the corridor and were nearing the opposite door. He placed a hand on the door pad but I asked him a question before he opened it.

“Would you recommend this to anyone? Everyone?”

“No, no, no, Cryo is only for the strong-minded, my dear. You seem like you can handle the change. Imagine what we’ll have accomplished by the time you wake up! Some of our clients won’t wake for 70 years. Imagine.”

He slid his information card again and this door too, slid open. We were in another lobby that looked exactly like the first one. I could see from the glass windows that it was raining outside.

I knew there were no trees around me but the wind blowing through tree branches came from somewhere, crackling, enveloping me.

I followed him out of the lobby into a small room off to the side. It seemed like an examination room at a hospital. Except for the bed, there was a pod, and it was attached to the same four monitors that the ones outside had been.

The hostess that greeted me first was in there. From the ID badge at her hip I could see she was a registered nurse. I wondered if this was all she did for a living, to put people to sleep. Did it pay well?

Would I dream? Was I meant to stay awake? To live through this pain? Or was I meant to sleep and forget?

“Has Cryo ever solved anyone’s problems?” I asked him softly.

He shrugged again, “Nothing can do that, but it might be a start.”

My fingertips were tingling and my muscles were contracting against my will. I could feel my heartbeat start to gallop inside of my chest.

I was doing this.

I wasn’t doing this.

“The pods out there,” I said out of breath, “They were too close to each other. How can they breathe? How do any of them breathe?”

I felt as if I was about to faint. My chest heaved.

The hostess and the manager each held one of my shoulders. I felt so small besides both of them. So small.

“None of our clients have any issues breathing,” he said in a friendly voice. “Don’t worry. You’ll be monitored 24/7.”

What followed was darkness.

And oblivion.