Chapter Text
ZAC 3164
The hammer of legions of feet echoed off the bare metal floor and walls and straight through Alan's stomach. Bodies pressed against him, sweeping him along through what looked more like a hangar than a train station as more and more windowless carriages disgorged their nervous contents. A pre-recorded voice that tried to sound pleasant recited 'Please report to your designated check-in point.'
Check-in point, check-in point! Alan craned his neck to try and see over the throngs, clutching his official orange luggage bag close like it was all he had in the world. So many damn signs, so many damn queues. He spotted his more by luck than judgement, 77800—77899 brightly backlit to stand out among every other brightly backlit set of numbers. Clytemnestra 77829. He'd memorised his evacuation number months ago, to the point it repeated numbly through the back of his brain when he stopped paying attention. Last night he'd spent far too long staring at his papers making absolutely sure he hadn't mistaken it. Clytemnestra 77829.
Alan elbowed his way through the hopeless, gawping crowd to get to his queue, past the sniffer dogs dragging their handlers up and down the lines. Every other queuer's eye he caught looked at him like he might be the resentful maniac about to blow them all to kingdom come. Dammit, he'd been searched and sniffed at every station on the way just like the rest of them. He looked dead ahead at the neck of the person in front of him. He'd had far too little sleep to deal with their shit.
"You'll have plenty of time to sleep when you get there," mum had tried to lighten the mood over breakfast. They'd all dragged themselves out of bed at 3am to see him off, but Alan couldn't help but hate himself as he'd forced down the few forkfuls he could manage. Sure, they'd all agreed they'd sign up separately instead of as a family, everyone knew you had a better shot at the lottery if you claimed you were going solo, but he'd never imagined it would be him leaving them behind. It was supposed to be mum and dad, of course, and he and Jen would have held the fort until inevitably the lottery gods smiled on them too. Goddamn biometrics. He'd have given mum his place if he could have. As it was, dad practically had to threaten him out of the house that morning.
The queue edged forwards. They'd get on another ship, he promised himself, the same promise he'd been making himself ever since his evac papers came through. One with a less stupid name than Clytemnestra.
Small-scale security zoids paced calmly around the perimeter of the check-in hall, comfortably threatening violence to anybody who started anything. At the front of another queue, somebody yelled at the attendant, waving their luggage bag. Probably hadn't weighed it a dozen times in advance like they should have. "You can't live on two and a half kilos!" The guards stepped forwards, and a scorpion watched, lowering its tail gun. The pilot had it clack its feet on the ground, and the yelling stopped like magic. A bin was brought out and the objector stood to one side, emptying out precious belongings at gunpoint while the next person moved up.
Alan's own queue passed without incident. He couldn't tell how long—communications devices were banned on punishment of ineligibility, so his phone had been left safely in mum's hands where he could be absolutely certain it wasn't in his bag. The person whose neck he'd become intimately familiar with passed through the security gate, and it was time for him.
"Bag on the scale," said the bored soldier attending as he looked over Alan's papers. The scale read 2.3 kg, the bastards, it'd been 2.1 every time he'd checked! That was why you under-packed, of course. The friendly brochure had warned that home scales shouldn't be relied upon. Another dog came up and sniffed, the attendant unzipped it and took a cursory glance inside, scanned its ID tag, and sent it on its way. Alan watched its bright white Helic flag and his evac number disappear into the sorting machine, to be returned to him on planet Earth. A standing guard ushered him along.
A corridor led into a waiting room, again windowless metal. He grumbled inwardly—he'd hoped it'd be like an airport lounge, that he could have seen the ship that would take him and 160 000 others through the stars. Of course, it wouldn't have been finished, there was no point wasting time leaving the thing sitting there ready to go while it waited for people to be loaded, but that would almost have been more exciting to see. Maybe the ship wasn't even here. Maybe this was just a convenient staging ground. Couldn't let idiots in who'd throw away their shot at survival because they wanted to blow a hole in the only chance a tenth of the population had, after all.
Alan's ears pricked up, instinct catching something before his mind did, and the room started rolling. Some people screamed, parents hunkered over their children, but most of his fellow travellers stood their ground. It passed. The room was no worse for the tremor—maybe a 3 at best.
Entirely too quickly, a harried voice came over the announcer; "Remain calm. The cryosleep facility is not damaged, the cryosleep facility is not damaged. Do not spread rumours. Ask a guard if you need assistance." Looks and whispers went back and forth, but the guards that pushed into the crowd put a stop to them.
One by one, numbers were called, sometimes repeatedly, and people forced their way to a single door at the end of the room where a scrubbed-up orderly scowled. There were no seats. Children sat on the ground, the elderly or sore crouched.
"77829. 77829." Alan practically jumped. The orderly scowled harder.
The small, harshly lit room marked 'Cryo Prep' had nothing but a trestle table, a changing curtain, and somebody who was probably a doctor. "Hand," the probable doctor demanded, and without so much as a by-your-leave she pricked a needle into Alan's thumb. She didn't look at him as the test ran. "Don't lick it. I might need to take another one." Alan put his hand back down.
The doctor shook the test a bit, then seemed satisfied. She pulled open a packet to reveal a needle with an odd sort of opening in the end. "Hand," she said again, practically grabbing it as Alan hesitated, prodded the vein on the back, and ignored Alan's strangled scream as she drove the needle right in. "Don't mess with it. Your cryosuit's behind the curtain, get changed. The port will interface with it."
Alan gritted his teeth, but didn't argue. The cryosuit clung tight to him, obviously made to the measurements he'd had to submit (thank goodness he hadn't lost too much more weight). He swore as he pulled on the glove, the round panel on the back spun on its own and the port in his hand stung sharply again. "You done?" the doctor asked. He mumbled something affirmative as he tried not to rub his hand. "Good. Turn right, out the door at the end of the hall. Find the pod with your number and get in."
He didn't dare ask what was going to happen to his clothes.
Past the next door a guard asked his number, and pointed him to the level it was supposed to be on. A hundred pods, some closed, most open, stacked in rows of ten on prefab walkways. As Alan climbed the faintly racking metal stairs, he thanked god he was only on the third level.
There, at the far end of the walkway, 77829.
Another guard—the last guard, it occurred to him—stood by. For once, Alan allowed himself to hesitate. He set his hand on the open edge of the chamber, big enough for him and probably not much more. Thick cables ran up and down, and outside a panel showed null for every vital sign.
"This is it," said the guard, not unkindly, "your ticket to freedom." Alan forced a smile, and lay down. He fidgeted a moment, got his arms comfy on the armrests, tried to uncrick his back, choked back another scream as one of the cables drove itself into the port on his glove. Hydraulics hissed. The guard gave a casual wave, then the chamber's hood swung down.
Alan lay in total darkness.
He thought of mum, and dad, and Jen. He'd see them there, he knew it. In a better world. In a kinder world. In a world that wasn't tearing itself apart at the seams.
Damn, it really was cold in here...