Lasagna Dream

“I think there's one more over here...come on before it defrosts.”  The two men waded through an ocean of broken consoles and torn apart metal pipes to reach the last cryo-chamber.  The glass was broken into little spiderwebs and they almost could not make out the face of a girl on the other side, ice frozen in her raven hair.  

“How the hell did they miss this one?  It looks ancient!”

“I'd peg it at about...21st century make?  I mean, look at the binding.  The glass even!  I'm surprised this girl still looks fresh.”

“Should we break it open?  Looks like someone started to anyways.  You don't think it was them, do you?  Those dents are pretty deep – I don’t know what else could have done that....”

“Ugh,” the other man said shivering, “....hopefully they left at least.”  Each picked up a piece of metal to pry open the door.  After a few attempts, the metal bent under the weight of the two men and the door slowly creaked open.  Cold air burst forth in puffs of white and the glass shattered from the release of pressure.  Sparkles of white flew in every direction as the body of the girl tumbled out into the first man's arms and he almost dropped her from the suddenness of the fall.  Her limbs were stiff from the centuries of freezing and they could barely make out puffs of breath between her blue lips.  

“We need to get her back to the lab, ASAP.  If we don't rejuvenate her soon, she’s a goner,” the second man said, turning to begin the climb back over the pile of junk.  The second man followed, embarrassed to have to drag her.  Once out of the room, they shared the burden and carried her back to the vessel waiting on the loading dock, entry platform down and glimmering in the pale light of the moon.  Suddenly, a dark shadow passed briefly over the moon when they were a few hundred feet from the entrance.  The first man stopped and gazed upwards, his eyes opening wide as the moon changed from a pale golden to a watery crimson.  

“Jemmy....Jemmy look!”  The second man looked up and froze.

“Shit, we need to move.  Come on, Mica.  Move!”  They took off running, closing the distance as fast as their legs would run.  It wasn't fast enough.  A wall of darkness rose up in front of them, cutting them off from the vessel and its safety lights.  Mica dropped the girl's legs and turned around to see the wall surge up behind them as well.  

“Mica, pick her up, let's go!” Jemmy screamed.  Mica shivered in place, pale blue foam leaking out of the corners of his mouth.  They heard a high-pitched wail cutting through the air like a knife, circling the men.  

“Just go, Jemmy...” Mica push the girl on him and took off running in the opposite direction, hoping to be a diversion away from the pair.  Jemmy watched his friend till he was consumed by shadows then half ran, half dragged the frozen girl to the platform.  They barely made it when the shadows turned their attention towards them.

“Bridge, get us up, now!  They are here...”  It seemed a lifetime before the platform was fully raised, leaving the shadow people with blood-red eyes behind, snarling and grasping with their skeletal fingers.  For a moment, Jemmy thought he could see the pale face of Mica in the mix but then the edge of gloom was sealed off by metal and the two people were alone in a shiny metallic room full of blinking lights and whirring gizmos.  He looked at the pale form in his arms, wondering if she was worth the loss of his friend to the fiends.  She doesn't look that special anyways, he thought, scrutinizing the ice-encrusted black eyelashes and freckled nose.  Hell, I wonder how she afforded to be frozen.  Her clothes were the simple cryo-provided uniform of a low grade, skintight, white spandex - the quality suits were saved for the affluent.  Jemmy could see patches of frostbitten skin where the ice had eaten away the cloth.  

“Jemmy, Mica, do you copy?  Guys, that was way too close.”  Jemmy laid the girl on the floor and pushed the button on his wrist communicator.  

“Mica...didn’t make it.”  Choking on the words, he let the button go and looked back at the girl.  Some girl he’d never met over his best friend for years.  The one who had his back in every scrape they got into, trained with him in the academy, shared his first hit of Axis with...

“Jemmy...sorry man.  That’s, that’s something awful...who else is with you then?  We are registering another life form on the platform.”

“I don’t know who she is.  Send some guys from Medical - I won’t be able to carry her myself.  We’ll see what they say.  Jemmy out.”  It took only a few minutes for Jan and his medical team to arrive.  They lifted the limp body of the girl onto the auto-stretcher, examining her as they moved down the hall.

“Vitals seem stable, if not a little slow.  Appropriate for someone coming out of cryo.  Female, mid-20s, Affinity unknown.  Where did you find her?”  Jan turned to Jemmy with his portable recorder pointed at him.

“She, uh...Mica and I found her in the ruins.”

“Her chamber was still running?”

“From the looks of it, though it was badly damaged and probably wouldn’t have lasted much longer anyway.  I think they got their first and tried to get in.  Not sure why they stopped trying, though...Any way to figure out when she’s from?  That station looked old but very empty.”

“We can run a basic scan once in Medical.  It should tell us the general year and give us an Affinity.”

Jemmy continued to follow the medical team, watching the girls eyelashes flutter.  Wonder if she’s dreaming...

“Access code, please.”  The auto-Medibay drone held out its ID pad to Jan for him to enter the codes.  The door opened with a quiet “whoosh” and closed even quieter behind them.  The team lifted the girl from the stretcher and onto the nearest table while Jemmy stood near the door, chewing his nail and watching the team work..  

“Starting basic scan now.  It won’t be more than a minute.”  Jemmy watched as a thin, silver bar descended from the ceiling and positioned itself at the girl’s head, casting a line of blue light down her body then moving back to her head.  It passed over her a few more times until it reached her head one last time, retracted, then a voice from the console started to give the analysis.

“Preliminary scans indicate human female Cassandra Farroworth, born 1986, frozen December 12, 2012.  Additional notes found.  Shall I read them?”

“Yes, computer,” Jan said, eyes on his recorder as the information populated while it was read.

“Additional notes found embedded in left forearm.  They read:  ‘Female tests to highest Affinity.  To date, no others have been found.  Our facility is under attack - we can’t keep her here.  Freezing her so hopefully she’ll survive.  She is the key to saving the world from them.’  End of message.”

Jemmy looked at the prone figure of the girl on the table, shock written all over his face.  The medical team looked similar.

“Highest Affinity...you don’t think that means...?”

“It has to be.  Alert the Captain on base.  We need to get her there as soon as possible.”  Jemmy reached for his communicator, punching in the codes for base.  A gruff voice answered after a second.

“Base.  This is Captain Rogers.  What’s is the situation?”

“Sir, Lieutenant Michaels reporting.  We found a cryo-survivor, Sir.  Basic computer scans say she has the highest Affinity...”

There was a pause before the Captain’s voice came over the communicator again.  “Has this been confirmed?” the asked in a tightly controlled voice.

“Not yet, Sir.  We want to bring her back to base for a full analysis, pending your approval.”

“Approved, Lieutenant.  Bring her back her immediately but keep her sedated.  Do not, I repeat, do not rejuvenate her.  I’ll alert Dr. Vaan of the situation.  Captain Rogers out.”