This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Ok-Peak9537 on 2025-07-01 09:49:00+00:00.
—————————————————————————— The Cryostasis pod hummed and released a hiss of cold air, which made me back up, bumping into a stainless steel lab table. Chemicals and more rolled across the table and clinked together. A vial filled with a deep purple liquid rolled off and shattered right next to my right foot. I jumped away as the liquid began hissing and eating the tile.
ERROR_#06281 power draw is excessive for gradual awakening speeding process up the process.
“Wait! Wait! Wait! Stop!” I yelled at the uncooperative AI.
The entire scientific bunker was shaking. More vials and glassware were shifting clinking and shattering all to the pained whine the Cryostasis pod was making. The purple fluid was flowing towards the base of the machine. The pod doors opened and I scrambled to catch Elizabeth as she fell forward towards the caustic fluid. Catching her I stumbled under an improper stance and the unexpected dead weight. My heel fell into the purple liquid and I smelled burning rubber and flesh. The soles of my sandals were melting, and my skin was burning.
Screaming through the pain I readjusted us and heaved both of us to the side and out of danger. The shaking had subsided the room was quiet. No noise. No humming lights or equipment. I lay there heaving breaths causing my chest to rise and fall.
Boot initiated. Hello world. This is iteration #116413. I have been named A.N.N.A. Instituting memory recovery please wait. . . Power threshold is at 37%. Please repair the solar panel to generate a positive energy coefficient.
“Solar panels!?” I exclaimed. That could do more for New Haven than any miracle cure!
“Ungh where?” The woman next to me who was still ice cold clutched me close. Her lips were a faint blue but she was alive. Her eyes blinked open her Ice blue ones meeting my warm brown ones. Both of us stared for a moment before she scrambled away from me scooting her ass backwards till she hit her head against one of the stainless steel tables making me wince in sympathy as she clutched her head and whined in pain.
“Ow! Who- Who are you!?” She yelled accusingly but the effect was a bit ruined as she massaged the back of her head.
I looked her up and down. She was petite nothing like modern women of today who were muscled and scarred. Her skin was so pale too. Like she’d never even seen the sun. Her hair is a golden blonde.
I slowly got to my feet wincing once I put weight on my burned heel. Yeah, the flesh was tender there. Standing fully at 5’11” I spoke. “Names Rigger,” I said in a gravelly tone that I hoped sounded cool.
Only to be met with the girl-Elizabeth breaking out in laughter. “Ri-Rigger?! What kind of name is that?!”
“I-it’s mine!” I fumed indignantly.
“Ok… ok…. Rigger.” She snorted devolving into giggles again.
I honestly should be mad but her laugh was cute. Her smile was beautiful. I was in trouble…
“So, Rigger. Who are you? Where am I?” Elizabeth asked.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” I asked.
“Hmmm, I remember passing out at my 22nd birthday, waking up in a hospital being told my leukemia was aggressive and had reached stage 2. Went through treatments that barely did anything. When my best friend Kathy with the help of her professor mentor offered an experimental treatment. Cutting edge new to the field. I was the first human to be tested. The first 3 tests were inconclusive. I had reached stage 3 by then. So they had me sign some paperwork and I was to be…. Frozen… they automated the tests. I would wake when I was cancer-free!” She looked excited and examined herself. She moved her body like she was testing her joints. I wasn’t sure why.
“I feel like I have so much energy!” She laughed. “Where’s Kathy?! Are you her boyfriend?! She always did like to scruffy nerfherder type.”
Vaguely insulted I touched where my beard was trying to grow in. Elizabeth was scanning the room looking at everything searching.
“Where… where is everyone?” Elizabeth asked.
“What was the date when you went in?” I asked gently.
“June 19th, 2035” she replied.
“It’s 2085.” I calmly explained.
“2085?! I’m old as shit! I qualify for SSI, AARP, all the old people programs!” She yelled.
I just blinked at her.
“You don’t know what that is…. Do you? Rigger…. What happened while I was under?” Elizabeth pressed.
I stayed quiet.
“Rigger. What? Happened?” She demanded her gaze fierce.
I looked away.
She bolted. Scrambling I took off after her She spammed the elevator call button that didn’t work but when she saw me coming she made for the stairs. I don’t know why I wasn’t telling her but I think I just didn’t want to crush the hope in her eyes. The hope that was gone from everyone else’s eyes I had ever seen.
Elizabeth yanked the door open and climbed the stairwell her bare feet pattering the concrete stairs. I had to swerve around the door she had flung open into my face.
“Elizabeth!” I shouted.
She looked down at me from two flights up her eyes filled with a sense of betrayal. I paused at that look. She returned to her climbing. Man, she was fast.
I finally caught up at the door for roof maintenance. She had burst out onto the roof. Looking all around her at the ruined city of what had once been her home. Skyscrapers, strip malls, abandoned cars, burned out stores desolation.
“Rigger?” She asked.
“Yeah?” I replied.
“When did Cleveland become Detroit?” She asked.
“When the world as you knew it ended,” I replied. Honestly, I had no idea what Detroit was. But saying that line sounded cool to me.
“Rigger?” She asked again.
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.” She said.