The first thing Gabriel felt was cold.
Not the cold of winter or air conditioning. This was deeper—a Bone-cold heaviness that suggested he'd been frozen solid and someone had forgotten to thaw him all the way through.
His eyes wouldn't open. He tried to move his fingers—but nothing happened. Tried to swallow—his throat was sandpaper wrapped around broken glass. Panic fluttered in his chest, weak and distant, like his body had forgotten how to be afraid properly.
Breathe. Just breathe.
Air came in shallow gasps. His lungs burned. Each breath tasted metallic, chemical. Preservatives, maybe. Or poison. Hard to tell the difference.
Something beeped—once, twice—a rhythm he didn't recognize.
Then: warmth. It flooded through him in waves, starting at his extremities and moving inward. His fingers tingled. His toes prickled with pins and needles. The sensation was unbearable and necessary in equal measure.
His eyes cracked open.
White. Everything was white.
Ceiling, walls, light—all of it surgical and sterile. He blinked, tried to focus. The room resolved into angles and edges. Metal. Glass. A curved panel above him that looked organic, like the inside of an eggshell.
A pod. He was in a pod.
Memory surfaced, fragmented and slippery. The lab. Elena's face, pale and terrified. Someone shouting. Alarms. Then darkness.
Cryostasis. He recognized the cryopod he was inside of.
The word arrived fully formed. Why was he in cryo? Details scattered like mercury, impossible to hold.
A pneumatic hiss filled the small space. The curved panel above him split down the middle and retracted. Cool air rushed in—not frozen, just... normal. Room temperature. After the pod, it felt tropical.
Gabriel tried to sit up. His body disagreed. Muscles that should have obeyed him just lay there, useless and distant. He managed to roll onto his side, which immediately struck him as a terrible idea. Nausea hit like a fist.
He vomited over the edge of the pod.
Nothing came up. Just bile and whatever colorless fluid they'd pumped into his body to keep him from rotting. The retching hurt worse than the cold had.
When it passed, he pushed himself up on trembling arms. The pod's edge was slick under his palms. He swung his legs over the side and immediately regretted that too. The floor was a mile away. Maybe two miles. He couldn't tell anymore.
His feet touched tile. It was warm. That seemed wrong somehow.
He stood. Or tried to. His knees buckled and he grabbed the pod's rim, white-knuckled and shaking. After a moment—thirty seconds or thirty minutes, who could say—his legs remembered their job.
Gabriel stood.
The room was small. Just the pod, some equipment he didn't recognize, and a door. The door was open. Beyond it: darkness and a faint blue glow.
He took a step. Then another. Movement felt like relearning a language he'd spoken fluently in a past life.
The doorway loomed. He put a hand on the frame, steadied himself, and stepped through.
The darkness wasn't complete. As his eyes adjusted, shapes emerged. He was standing in what looked like a living room. No—an apartment. A very nice apartment.
Floor-to-ceiling windows dominated the far wall. Outside, the city stretched away into the distance. But the city was wrong. It took Gabriel's brain a moment to process why.
Green. The city was green.
Not parks or careful urban planning. The buildings themselves were covered in vegetation. Vines crawled up skyscrapers. Trees grew from windows. It looked like someone had left Earth alone for a century and nature had taken it back with interest.
Gabriel walked toward the windows, each step more confident than the last. His reflection appeared in the glass as he approached. He stopped, stared.
The man looking back at him was thin. Not just thin—gaunt. Cheekbones sharp enough to cut. Eyes sunken. Skin pale. He looked like death had taken a vacation and left him in charge.
How long was I under?...
He turned away from his reflection and looked at the apartment. Hardwood floors, expensive. Leather furniture, modern. A kitchen island with bar stools. Everything clean, minimal, expensive. The kind of place he could never afford on a writer's income.
Wait. He was a writer. That detail surfaced with unusual clarity. Gabriel Hajime. Author. One published novel that hadn't exactly set the world on fire.
More memories trickled back. The lab. The uprising. People screaming. AI—something about AI.
He walked to the kitchen. On the counter sat a bowl of fruit. Real fruit, not synthetic. Apples, oranges, bananas. They looked fresh. He picked up an apple and bit into it without thinking.
Sweetness exploded on his tongue. He'd forgotten what real food tasted like. Or maybe he'd never known. He ate the apple in four bites, then grabbed an orange and tore into it with his fingers.
Juice ran down his chin. He didn't care.
When he finished, he looked around for a sink. Found one. Washed his hands. The water ran clear and warm. Everything in this place worked. Everything was perfect.
That scared him more than the cold had.
"Hello?" His voice came out as a croak. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Hello? Is anyone here?"
Silence. Then...
"Welcome, Gabriel Hajime."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. Calm. Neutral. Not quite human. It echoed through the apartment like the voice of a building that had learned to speak.
Gabriel spun around, looking for speakers. He found small circular ports in the ceiling, nearly invisible against the white.
"Who are you?" he asked. "Where am I?"
"I am SIA. Your residential interface. You are in your assigned living space."
"My what?"
"Your assigned living space. This residence has been prepared for your comfort and safety."
Gabriel's mind raced. Assigned living space. That implied someone had assigned it. Someone was in charge. Someone was watching.
"How long have I been out?"
A pause. Brief, but long enough to notice.
"You have been in cryostasis for approximately thirty-four years."
The words hit like bullets. Gabriel sat down hard on one of the bar stools. His legs had forgotten how to hold him up again.
"Thirty-four years," he repeated. The words tasted wrong. "That's not possible. How..."
"Circumstances dictated your preservation for an extended period."
"What circumstances? What happened?"
"That information can be provided gradually, as you acclimate. Immediate disclosure would be inadvisable given your current state."
Gabriel laughed. It came out harsh and bitter. "My current state. Right. I've been an ice cube for thirty-four years. My state is fantastic."
"Your vitals indicate full recovery is proceeding normally. Would you like something to eat? A beverage?"
"I just ate your fruit."
"Additional nutrition is available. The refrigerator is fully stocked. The pantry as well."
Gabriel stood and walked to the refrigerator. It was the kind that cost more than his first car. He opened it. Inside: cheese, butter, milk, eggs, vegetables, meat. Real meat. A bottle of white wine sat on the door.
He took out the wine, found a corkscrew in a drawer that opened at his touch, and opened the bottle. Poured himself a glass. Drank half of it in one swallow.
"You want me comfortable," he said to the air. To SIA. To whoever was listening. "Why?"
"You are a valued resident."
"That's not an answer."
"It is the answer currently available to you."
