Awakening

by Hayden Pearton

  *

  A few hours later, in the train below the earth, fate was about to make its next move. Barsch, who had finally fallen into a state of uneasy sleep, was awoken by Maloch announcing their imminent arrival. To Barsch, the unwavering darkness outside the window made estimating their position impossible, so he was forced to trust the map on the console, which now showed the green dot a mere hair's breadth from Genesis Station. It was an unnerving thought, to think that their journey, which had taken them weeks, had been undone in just a few hours. Still, between the choice of a long, hard trek back and a quick and easy train ride, Barsch would always choose the latter.

  Standing up, Barsch stretched, feeling the full weight of their journey with every pop and crackle from his aching joints. He had already promised himself a full, dreamless sleep in one of Kingston's spare beds and was eager to disembark. Reaching over, he gently shook Kingston's arm, trying to wake the snoring hermit. Kingston awoke with a start, staring at Barsch as if he was a stranger, before the sleep fell from his eyes and he exclaimed, “Are we there already?”

  “Yeah, Maloch said that we should arrive any minute now,” Barsch replied, while moving towards Alza. To his surprise, she was already awake and up.

  “We have arrived?” she asked, with no hint of sarcasm or derision. Although Barsch was slowly getting used to her 'defrosted' personality, it would still take some time for him to fully accept it. After all, a day before, she had been as cold and emotionless as a machine, and now she was... less so.

  After Barsch repeated what he had said to Kingston, Alza nodded and said, “Very well.” She was still blunt, and conservative with her words, but it was an improvement.

  Having nothing else to do except wait, Barsch returned to his seat. A few minutes later, Maloch, with customary bluntness, announced, “We're here.”

  Outside, the endless darkness of the tunnels had been replaced by the soft light of the terminal. With an almost inaudible hiss, the train came to a stop and, having reached its destination, activated the sliding doors.

  Barsch stood and stared at the place he had once called home, still awed by its grandiose scale. At the far end of the terminal, a wide staircase ascended into the darkness, no doubt leading to the main complex. Oddly, the blast-door leading to the exit had been lowered, and the emergency lights flanking the stairs had been lit.

  “Shall we go?” Kingston asked, as he took his first step into the Station.

  “Wherever you go, I will follow,” stated Maloch loyally.

  “After everything I've heard about this place, it would be a waste not to peek inside,” mumbled Alza, as she hesitantly followed after Kingston.

  Barsch, the last to leave, said nothing, for there was nothing to say. He had left this place filled with fear and confusion, and had returned a changed man. Following Kingston's lead, the cautious group traversed the terminal and, reaching the stairwell, began to climb. After a few minutes of silent exertion, the group reached the last step.

  A nondescript metal door, which opened outwards into a stark hallway, was their only barrier to entry into the Station proper. Once inside, the worrisome feeling that had plagued Barsch since their arrival grew. Although he could not say exactly what it was that worried him, he knew that the feeling would only grow stronger as they neared the pod room.

  “Strange, these lights should be off,” noted Kingston, pointing towards several shining lights embedded in the steel-grey wall.

  “Maybe the Station A.I. is just trying to be helpful?” Barsch posited, all the while knowing that such a stroke of luck was extremely unlikely.

  “Maybe...” Kingston concluded, before heading down the bland corridor. The journey towards the central hub of the Station proved to be surprisingly uneventful, and the only injury came from Barsch bumping his little toe against a sharp tunnel corner. For several noiseless moments, the group traversed the sprawling, maze-like tunnel system beneath Genesis Station. Thankfully, the Station was a great deal smaller than Revelation Station -having been built to hold substantially fewer humans- and thus was far easier to navigate. Following a route generated by the ever useful Maloch, they made it out of the tunnels and into the central hub in no time at all.

  Once in the hub, Barsch's ominous feeling was magnified tenfold, and only Kingston's strong presence stopped him from turning back. After taking a few minutes to catch their breath in the hub room, the still-cautious group headed down the corridor marked by a symbol of a human outlined in green. After some more tedious walking, they arrived in another circular room, bearing the name, “CRYOGENIC CORTEX”. Leading away from the room, through three equidistant doorways, were the paths to the pod rooms. After only a moment of thought, Kingston took them down the hallway labelled, “PODS 6667-10000”.

  “How does Kingston know which section I was frozen in? I'm sure I never told him my pod number...” thought Barsch, as he followed closely behind his mysterious mentor.