Ailbeart Rend had made a friend when he was ten years old, one Frankie Lassiter, a boy five years his senior, yet the rich children often stayed in their cliques that took little notice of age differences. Frankie was wild-eyed and red-headed, with an appetite for destruction and a rebellious nature. He was disliked by most of the preppy rich kids who had their parents watch their every move, but Ailbeart and Frankie had things in common that brought them together - such as distant parents who thought money was a substitute for affection. Frankie took Ailbeart through side-doors in cinemas and showed him raunchy women in magazines. Their personalities differed, certainly, but Ailbeart was content to experience something of a hoodlum's life, as long as he always had a quiet house and a selection of books to return to in the evening. He was never particularly invested in any of the activities they performed, but there was some films that he gained a great interest in - James Bond films. Blockbusters where villains did as they pleased and controlled veritable criminal empires, and even Bond got what he wanted - but they all did it with firepower in their hand and a keen observation over everyone else in the room. Frankie only had the '83 instalments on video - Octopussy with Roger Moore and Never Say Never Again with Sean Connery. Ailbeart and Frankie would watch those films over and over, and the former gained a great affection for the commanding presence Bond or the villains took when they had a gun in their hand. Frankie got him a handgun, the Walther P5 - the same gun that was used prominently in both of the '83 films - for his birthday that year. It was one of Ailbeart's most prized possessions. Frankie Lassiter died in 1990 in a car accident, only sixteen years old - it was said that he was too short to reach the pedals and brake in time. But Ailbeart held on to that Walther P5. He held on to it tight.This bunker or holding that they were being kept in was excessively small. Rend was used to grand, open spaces, entire rooms devoted to a single function - yet it seemed only a couple of corridors were needed to connect each room to each other, and each of the rooms were cramped with several different machines and screens with varying purposes.
One would think Cryonautics would invest a little more towards the comfort of their project members. Feels like we're living in a damned futuristic caravan. Well, I'll make sure to get out of this hellhole - first chance I get. He had been stalking the metallic corridors, keeping away from the sound of voices and waiting for the cryotank storage area to be empty. His clothes - clean, pressed trousers, a rudimentary buttoned shirt and one of his old suit jackets - had first felt like garments composed of ice against his exposed body, but beads of sweat, formed from the warm, distasteful air and the hours of sneaking around had quickly changed that.
Earlier, he had waited outside one of the entrances to the cryotank room, one knee on the floor, being as quiet as he could be. It wasn't a practised skill of his, subterfuge. He was more likely to enter a room after a fanfare than to do so unnoticed. Still, the circumstance advised subtlety, at least for now. This was different than any challenge Ailbeart had ever faced before. His personality didn't take to it, but there were just five other people in this bunker: one whom he had already seen was unstable, another who had watched him like a hawk in their time together, one who was so involved with technology that he had no idea what to expect... This was the future, and until they could get back to the surface of the planet, he had to play it careful, gain allies where he could and be wary of all. He had shifted his weight onto his other knee, grunting audibly, when the unsettling young doctor's voice arose from within the cryotank room. Ailbeart held his breath and shuffled back slowly away from the window into the room. The woman who was already in there he was aware of, but she seemed invested in one of her machine friends and had been flirting with it for several minutes, from what Rend could deduce. The doctor was immediately unpredictable, though, and there was always the chance that a camera had Rend in its sights at every moment and the doctor was aware of him.
What was his name...? Benjamin? No, Benji, that's the one, aye. The young man rambled on in trepidation and the girl seldom replied, or rather he did give her a chance to. Just listening to Benji speak was a task in itself, for he stuttered and the dynamics in his voice changed suddenly and often - his tone brought the ringing back into Rend's conscious mind, a subtle droning that swallowed his train of thought and made his nose and mouth twitch. He abandoned his task, rising to his feet slowly and tip-toeing back down the hallway. He could return later, and hopefully Benji would have departed.
Ailbeart had taken temporary solace in a bathroom further down the corridor. He had fumbled with the door until it had set itself to 'private' and a locking mechanism had made a sound in confirmation. The utilities in the room hadn't been spared from a technological overhaul either, unfortunately.
Seems you can't even take a shit without interference now. The next one I take will probably be scanned and uploaded to some website where they rank the size of shits. He might have chuckled to himself, if the thought weren't borne out of a deep-set anger. He took a deep breath and strode in front of an oval shaped mirror. An un-groomed man appeared before him. This man had unkempt translucent grey strands instead of a head of hair. He had a nest of crow's feet and an audience full of rows of wrinkles. This man's cheeks were bereft of colour, and they sank down lazily. This man was a melting mockery of the man Ailbeart Rend should be. Water came thick and fast upon his initial hand movement towards the tap. It was cold and refreshing on his skin, but still it seemed a far cry from the quality of water he remembered. It was a more electric shade of blue, and needless to say Rend refrained from drinking any. He stepped back from the mirror and sink, hands raised and dripping, searching for some kind of towel. Then he spotted two hand-sized indents in the wall by the sink - luminescent and inviting, like a neon sign in front of a motel.
Oh, you would like for me to put my hands in there, wouldn't you. You're just itching to prove your efficiency. Well... He lunged forward and chucked as much water as he could from his hands into the two hand-dryers. Of course, they didn't spark flames or lose power as Rend hoped they would. He smeared his damp hands across the pure white wall and adjusted his eye-patch quickly in front of the mirror before the door hissed open.
Ailbeart now had returned to the corner before the door to the cryotank room. He rejoiced in his mind as the room showed itself to be empty. Sparing not a moment, Rend dove into the room, almost crashing into the door as it slid open. He panicked for a second as his memory failed him and the six cryotanks surrounded him.
God, damn it, which one of the bloody things was I in. He breathed in and immediately resorted to his simplest but most degrading method. Time was not on his side. He closed his eyes. A tiny blue flash. Rend jerked towards the one just to his left and felt the exterior of it, searching for some panel to pry open. He soon sighed again and shimmied round to the back of the tank, where of course there was a screen. He remembered vaguely some instructions from a scientist about a storage capability of the tank, what to press and how to open it. He jabbed his finger quite forcefully at the screen, scanning through each of the options and blindly choosing each one that had a word related to 'storage' or seemed like the right direction to go in. Cooling unit, respiration fail-safe, exterior casing - there! The scientist had stated, however many years ago, that the storage pods had not been prepared for proper use, but that long day Rend had spent in the bowels of the Cryonautics facility was a day when he got what he wanted. He had suffered through the compulsory videos and taken the injections, but his handgun had been cocked and aimed at someone the entire time. A hesitant release of air brought a panel within the tank open, and there it was - just as he had left it.
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