Parallels I

Prologue

His breathing was heavy and abrupt. Unable to move. Body held by exoskeleton. Lower half is already sunk to the floor. Legs scraped and cut by broken glass. Some bits are already stuck in flesh. Eyes having trouble focusing. His white hair is sticking to forehead.

He is bleeding. Unable to even cry. Pain is excruciating. Yet he is already exhausted to be minding it. He’s got no idea how the glass pod broke – he woke up to pain. Still all the wires are connected to his body. Needles scraping inside of him – tearing flesh. Internal bleeding is severe by now.

From what he sees in this room – it has been decades. Many years since everyone got killed. Mummified corpses of researchers are left around, in the same places they were shot. The stench is sickening.

Facility running on reserve energy supply from hell knows where. Air is heavy, dusty, and most of the research lab is raided and destroyed. Yet quite a lot is still here and operating. Perhaps thieves just don’t know how valuable equipment really is.

Monitors, although covered with layers of dust, display graphs and stats of the last existing patients – test subjects who are still attached to the system. He can barely distinguish his stats. It looks grim. He is dying.

He knows – there is no way for him to survive. He gives a look around – glance leads to another cryogenic container. There is someone else, besides him, who’ll have more chances of survival. Way more chances than he does. Maybe there is hope.

With all there is left of him – he can last another 6-8 hours more, before his mind fails him completely, just like his disabled body that is dying rapidly.

Time that’s left – he must get her out. She is the last of the once existing family. His family. His hopes are now on her.

He closes his eyes once again. He still remembers how to operate this.

“System Compliance Granted” – the rippled muffled voice of AI says as he drifts off.