The Freezer (Genesis Endeavor Book 1) (15 page)

The first entry was dated September 1, 1966. The penmanship
was obviously that of a man’s, and the content was not very eloquent.

Today I got the results from Dr. Bill Callun. There
is no question that it is cancer. I don’t know how to feel about it yet, but
there is little doubt that I won’t live through it. Mae suggested I write in
this diary, as a way to come to terms with my feelings. I feel a little silly
doing it, but the truth is, I have never been so mixed up inside. If it doesn’t
help, I can always stop. She is a very convincing woman. She convinced me to
fight this cancer. I suspect I will be leaning on her for support in the coming
months.

So far, the only thing I have found comfort in is
the hope that when this is over, I might get to see my wife and daughter again.
With death now a certainty, I don’t think it is worth spending what time I have
left trying to find a woman, just so I can break her heart. I got my chance at
love already, and despite the fact that she was taken away from me, I feel like
I was blessed.

So Mae must be a relative or old friend, and his wife and
daughter must have died. How awful,
she had thought as she read it. She had
put down the diary, intending to savor it for a while, like a good book from an
author who only writes a new one every few years. She then looked more
thoroughly through the rest of the documents. When she came across his military
history, and the notes on what he had done, particularly involving the very
facility that was his final resting place,
Wendy knew that this had to
be brought to Teague’s attention. Despite trying to appear withdrawn to the
rest of the community, she was well aware of the challenges they faced. If he
could be brought back, he could help to solve a lot of problems.

Before taking the documents to Teague, however, she hid the
diary and the letter in her dresser. They weren’t going to need it, and chances
were, as old as the body was, it would be far too freezer burnt to have any
chance at cloning.

* * *

The wrench slipped off the nut and she banged her knuckle
hard enough to make it bleed. “Dammit!” she exclaimed and grabbed a rag to wipe
the blood away. She needed to concentrate on the job at hand, but she was like
a schoolgirl anxious to meet her new boyfriend under the bleachers to make out.
Thinking about the diary sobered her up a little. She knew she had to come
clean about it sooner or later, or the guilt would tear her apart. What she
needed was a way to bring it up and explain why she had read the diary, without
making her seem like some kind of stalking freak. It really didn’t look good on
the surface, and even when she rationalized it in her own head it looked pretty
bad.

She had read a little bit more of the diary each day,
learning more about Jack, his illness, his dead family, his mother-in-law who
was damned near a saint to him, and even about how he found out the facility he
was building was the ultimate irony in his life – a place to be stored until
someone could come along and fix the cancer and bring him back to life. The
more she read, the more she wished she could meet this man in person, give him
a hug, and maybe even ask him to marry her. At first the writing was pretty
basic and to the point, but as he got closer to the inevitable death that would
mark the end of his diary, he opened up and it was as if he was writing poetry.
Even though he was dead, he had filled the void in Wendy, and it had given her
a reason to continue on.

The diary had helped her come to terms with her own
situation. She didn’t like it, hated it in fact, but the bottom line was that
she was given a second chance at life that most people would never get. Not
only that, she was brought into a situation that, no matter how grim it was,
she had a chance to be a part of saving humanity. There were literally only
dozens of humans left on earth who could give birth to a new generation, and
she was one of them. She was a daughter of Eve herself here, and would be the
mother of a good percentage of human kind, if it could make it past the wars
and the fighting. Reading Jack’s story gave her the insight and the strength to
look at things in a different light. She had decided that she would make the
most of it, give it a shot, get pregnant and have a child and do her best to
help restart the human race.

That’s when things got really complicated. Teague had agreed
with her that this could be the best find yet at the facility, and perhaps the
solution to the second biggest problem they faced. They took the utmost care
bringing him in, and were meticulous in mapping his memories. From what Wendy knew
of the process, it was incredibly unlikely that they could bring this man into
their world. It would take a miracle. It was a harsh world, and miracles were
not in abundance these days.

It turned out that the some combination of the experimental
Cancer treatments he had undergone actually aided in the freezing process, and
they had their miracle. When Teague announced they had successfully started the
first stage and he was already growing, she was beside herself. The feelings
she developed when reading the diary were for someone that would never exist,
so it was safe to fantasize about him being alive and falling in love with her.
Now, however, it was going to be a reality. She didn’t know if she was more
frightened that he would turn out to be someone entirely different than she had
imagined, or that he would end up being exactly the man she longed for.

Wendy did not have much respect for the women here,
primarily because she felt that they didn’t have enough respect for their
womanhood. She tried not to judge them, knowing full well that they had been
raised in an incredibly different and difficult environment, but she felt a
person cannot unlearn a set of morals and values.

It had been discovered fairly early on that the freshly
reborn men were like seventeen year olds that had been locked in the closet
with a porn magazine and a flashlight. Wendy wasn’t sure who had figured it
out, but it had become something of a ritual to try to get the men alone on the
first morning after regaining the ability to move. Even if the love she felt
for this man was based on nothing more than whimsical fantasy, she didn’t want
Jack to fall
victim
to one of those women. She rationalized her hanging
out as close to the medical ward as she could by telling herself she was just
trying to protect him from something that would likely embarrass him. From what
she read, she saw Jack as a fairly old fashioned guy with a strong sense of
duty and incredible loyalty to those he loved.

When he first gained consciousness, she didn’t wander more
than a hundred feet from his room, and when he woke that night, she told
herself that she was watching over him to make sure none of the predatory women
tried to take him in the night. Before five sentences were out of his mouth,
however, she had turned into the exact sort of predator she was supposedly
protecting him from.

She was incredibly embarrassed by her own actions that first
night, and laying here under the HVAC unit daydreaming about it, she colored a
deep red at the memory of how she had seduced him like that. Regardless of her
brazen actions, she was, in a word, happy. Last night had been positively
wonderful, as had this morning.

So far he was turning out to be everything she had hoped. He
seemed to enjoy the hours they spent talking, and he latched on to every word
she said as if it were the most important thing he had ever heard. When she
smiled at him he would pause as if his train of thought had been interrupted.

Despite the emotional high and the signs he was interested, deep
down she knew that the chances of him having similar feelings for her were very
slim. He was still driven more by his raging hormones than by any coherent
thinking, and she had been for him what every man would desire. Soon he will
meet many more women all just as attractive as she is who are willing to jump
his bones at the first opportunity, and the special intimacy that they had
shared will probably be viewed by him as the result of just another woman
looking to get pregnant. From what she had read in the diary, his wife’s memory
had stopped him from not just looking for companionship from another woman in
those last few years of his life, but kept him from even seeking a single night’s
reprieve from loneliness. She had feared that the first night they met he would
decline her advances just based on that alone. Now she feared that her boldness
would drive him away when he learned that every woman here would be doing what
they could to get intimate with him.

On top of all this, as if that weren’t enough, if – no,
when
– she gave him the diary, he would probably see her not only as a slut, but as
a slut that used his personal information to help seduce him. The thought of
losing him like that made her bowels feel loose, and she threw the wrench down
in frustration and fear.

In the past couple days, Jack had envisioned various motives
for being brought back to life. None of them included building a massive
underground city. He was a glorified contractor; his best asset on a project
was his ability to see where there were potential problems and fix them. Not
just with machinery, engineering, or structure, but also with people, material
logistics, and political conflict. He was a wizard when cutting through a
bureaucracy, but that was in a different world, with different people,
different politics, different machinery, and different conditions. “Teague, I
don’t know what kind of help I could possibly be. I’m no engineer. So much has
changed. I…”

Teague held up a hand, “Nobody is expecting you to design
anything. We have a few people who are pretty smart, and some of the technology
we have enhances that greatly. The problem we have is not whether we can
conceive a project of this magnitude, it’s finding someone to go out and do it.
There isn’t a man alive that has dug a hole bigger than a grave, let alone
excavated enough earth to house a park like this,” he gestured to the courtyard
all around them, “eighty feet underground. We need someone who can lead men,
not into battle, but in a project of awesome proportion.”

This did relax Jack a little. He still didn’t think Teague
had any idea of what he was really asking though. “An operation like you are
describing requires a lot of specialized machinery, a lot of skilled operators,
and the resources Teague…” He let that hang while his mind processed the amount
of steel and concrete alone it would take to build something just the size of
this structure, let alone something larger.

“We understand it will be a monumental task, but there are
two factors that we believe make all the difference here.”

“Yeah, what are those?”

“First, we have done it before. The EoS built more than you
can imagine, and they started with nothing. We might not have those resources
at hand, but we have, for all intents and purposes, a detailed history on how
those people were able to build magnificent cities from nothing but wasteland.

“Second, we have a need, and the fate of humanity may very
well ride on it. We simply can’t fail here or in another hundred years, humans
might just be a part of the Earth’s history, not a part of its future.”

They sat in silence as the weight of that statement settled
in. Jack finally spoke, “I don’t know what to say. I need to learn a lot more
about what we have to work with before I can wrap my mind around the idea of
leading a project of this magnitude.”

“If it helps, this is not the most immediate issue, so you
will most likely have months to prepare. As long as this can be ready in five
years –”

“Five years?!” He shook his head, “No no no, you don’t know
what you are asking here.” Jack scoffed, “Impossible! Maybe twenty years with
the right crew, but five? I truly hope you have a plan B because what you are
saying simply can’t be done.”

Teague’s confidence appeared to waver slightly, but he
smiled anyway. “I know it sounds impossible, but in my life I have seen the
impossible achieved countless times, and I have faith in you.”

“Why? You barely know me, how could you possibly think that
I am going to be able to pull off a miracle?”

“Because you are all we have, Jack, and it will have to be
enough. Shall we finish the tour?”

* * *

The tour continued but Jack was struggling to pay attention.
He needed time to process again, to accept what they were asking of him, just
as he had needed time to accept how he had come to be here. They spent some
time touring the single and family apartments, and by the time they were
finished he had pushed his thoughts aside so he could concentrate on the
situation at hand. He would worry about things later. As they took the elevator
to the top level, he asked about the families. “So do you just put the women
and kids in the family apartments?”

In his usual fashion, Teague seemed to see right through the
question, “What you are really asking is do the men and women practice your idea
of relationships, am I right?” Jack had to give the man credit, he was really
good at reading between the lines. That made him both a great asset as well as
a dangerous man. He hoped he never had to play politics against him. Teague
went on without waiting for an answer, “The men and women from the past dozen
or so generations have lived under the pressure of rebuilding humanity. Relationships
are not the same now as in your time, any more than they were the same from
your time to say, Wendy’s time.” If there was supposed to be some kind of
subtle message in that statement, Jack pretended he hadn’t picked up on it. Even
in the last decade of his life, he had seen the changes in the social
structure, particularly toward sex and morality. He was well aware of the
challenges that lay ahead if he tried to make a relationship with Wendy, or any
of the women here for that matter. “Since the fall of the EoS, monogamy has
taken on a different meaning than it had in your time. For the most part, people
of today’s world see sex as a function that is required to survive. It is not
tied to emotion or intimacy for them, so sex is not exclusive to a relationship
and copulation outside the relationship is not a threat. Also, there are no
moral or religious ties to sex. It is not like the parents teach the kids that
sex is something they should be ashamed of or kept hidden, so it is a natural
part of everyone’s life. The fact that it is enjoyable practically makes it a
good form of entertainment. Oddly enough, one of the reborn put it into words
that I particularly like. He said, ‘The women here don’t get out much, and it’s
not like they can watch TV or go shopping. They need something to do to relieve
the monotony.’”

Jack chuckled. It all made perfect sense. However, he was
raised to believe that being faithful to your partner meant not having a sexual
relationship with anyone else. Just thinking about adultery was a sin in some
people’s eyes. This concept of sex not being tied to emotion or morality was foreign.
“How do the reborn handle this?”

“The men typically don’t have a problem with this at first,
as you can imagine. However, once they start having feelings toward a
particular woman, things can get difficult. For the women, it’s far worse. Overall,
it is not the ideal situation for us, but we have established some ways around
it. If a man and woman want to be exclusive, we allow it as long as they agree
on two things. The first is that he either procreates with other women or at
the least, donates sperm to continue diversifying the gene pool. The second is
that the woman agrees to have children sired by other men, as long as it is
necessary.”

Jack was not sure he would be comfortable with his spouse
having other men’s babies. “Necessary? How often is it necessary?”

“As far as I am concerned, it is vital, but in the past few
years there has been some debate as to how to approach gene pool
diversification. Frankly, my area of expertise is not in genealogy, so I am not
really qualified to quantify how necessary it is. We have only run into a few
situations, and in those situations it was the men who were not completely
comfortable with our form of monogamy, so we have let the women decide, and it
has become an almost primal instinct to diversify our families.”

He hadn’t really answered the question, but it seemed like a
sensitive subject, so he just nodded, “Fair enough. I suppose it’s comforting
to know that you aren’t going to force me to have sex with other women.”

Teague laughed. “You realize you are probably the first man
in two hundred years to say that.” Jack grinned and nodded, conceding that most
guys’ fantasy was to have dozens of women willing to have sex with absolutely
no strings attached.

The elevator had opened and Teague said, “So let me show you
some of the defensive designs on this level.”

* * *

After the tour they got lunch. Then Teague excused himself,
citing some duties to attend to at the medical lab. He asked if Jack wanted to
join him.

“If it’s all the same to you I would rather wander around a
bit. I still have more questions, and if I am going to be busy tomorrow I would
like to get them answered sometime today. Right now I just want to collect my
thoughts.”

Teague approved and told him to either come find him later
or page him with the datapad. Jack looked at his datapad again, marveling at
the technology.
Imagine the Army having communication like this... the
effectiveness of such a force would be astounding. That is of course, as long
as the enemy didn’t have the same or better communications.
The thought
actually sent a chill up his spine.

He found the elevator again, and went back to the third
floor, figuring out how to use his datapad to get the elevator to work. There
were buttons of course, but he figured it was important to learn to use the technology.
The fourth floor icon on the datapad was washed out in red, and when he pushed
it, nothing happened. Whoever was in charge didn’t want him on that level by
himself, obviously. When the doors opened, he started walking through the
halls, trying to get a feel for the layout. When he passed the same
intersection of three hallways for the fourth time, he began to wonder if he
was lost, or if it just all looked the same.

The fifth time he got to that intersection, he noticed a
mark on the wall that had definitely been there before.
I’m walking in
circles,
he thought to himself. He knew he could just press the button to
call Teague, but he was a little embarrassed and the doctor was probably busy. Instead,
he started knocking on doors. He hit almost twenty doors before one opened. Jack
was somewhat taken aback when a little girl with long curly blond hair and rosy
cheeks answered the door. Before he could think of something to say, she said,
“Hello, my name is Jessica, what’s yours?”

Jack found his voice and said, “Hi, Jessica, I’m Jack. I
seem to be lost, is your mother here so I can get some directions?” He figured
if her dad lived with her, he probably wasn’t home, being as it was the middle
of the day.

“Why don’t you just use your pad?” Her innocent question
didn’t keep Jack from flushing in embarrassment. His ineptitude with the
datapad was probably incomprehensible to someone who had been around one all
their life.

“Well,” Jack said, “I can’t figure out how to use it.” The
little girl thought he was being funny and giggled.

Probably thinking it was some kind of game, the little girl stood
up straight and put a look on her face that was remarkably reminiscent of a
school teacher. “Would you like me to show you how to use your pad, Jack?” He reluctantly
nodded, figuring it might be enlightening.

She reached up and took it from him, stepped out in the
hall, and sat down cross-legged. When Jack didn’t sit down right away, she
said, “Come on Jack, you can’t learn anything from way up there!” He quickly
sat down, feeling like he had just been scolded by his grade school teacher. “Okay,
this is the stylus” she said as she pulled a pen like object from the bottom
corner of the pad. Teague had been holding one of those whenever he was working
on the datapad, but Jack didn’t know he even had one. “You can use your finger
most of the time, but the stylus is more ack-arit.” She stumbled on the word,
obviously not knowing its real meaning, but he knew she was saying ‘accurate.’ “Tap
here to get the main menu. From here you can do things like call your mom or
your friends. If you press here you get video, if you don’t it’s just sound.”

Jack was impressed, not just with the pad, but with this child.
“You seem to know a lot about these. Does everyone have one?”

She shook her head. “Only the adults, but we get to use them
when we go to school.” She went on with her lesson. “You can also bring up a
map of the city, or even of the outside, in case you ever find yourself out
there. Of course you would be in bad trouble if you went outside, and the Mutes
or Calis would probably steal you away, so you will never need to use the
outside map.” She showed him how to bring up and read the maps. The map of outside
showed terrain, radioactive zones, and could even show old roads that probably
no longer exist, but might come in handy if he ever needed to travel by ground
transportation. Jack was particularly intrigued about the mention of dangers
outside the complex, and he made a mental note to ask about it. He recalled how
Chuck had just come back from an evening patrol. It would be good to know what
he was patrolling and why.

“Here you can control the temperture of the ‘partment,
lights, and even see what you have in the fridge. There is video so you can spy
on the kids in other rooms too! Once I got mom’s pad and spied on my brothers
and sisters for the whole day!” Jack was reminded again that these people grew
up with this technology and it was an integral part of their life, even if he
barely understood any of it.

“And if you ever want to learn stuff, you just click here,
and then write what you want to know and the answer comes up. You can also
press here and say what you want if you don’t know how to write it! The teacher
makes us write our questions because we have to practice our spelling and
grammar.” She demonstrated by clicking the button for voice search, and saying,
“What is an apple?” The screen showed a picture of an apple followed by
information about the species of the plant life, nutritional value, climates
they are best suited for, and history of the apple including the biblical
history in the Garden of Eden, and the story of Newton getting hit in the head
with an apple, leading to the discovery of gravity.

Now Jack was impressed. He wondered where the information
came from, and how much information was there. He intended to spend some time
playing with it later. Before he could thank Jessica, she said, “Oh, and you
can press here and it will take a pik-sure or video that you can save.” She
pressed the button and a picture of Jack’s crossed legs appeared on the screen.
He flipped the pad over and saw a small lens embedded in the top corner.