This Is the End (6 page)

“If only you could see me now,” I say to the reflection and laugh again. I slip back into unconsciousness and stay there on the floor until Carol comes in to deliver the last of the pills that I’m supposed to take before I go under.

I hear her scream; I think she thinks I’m dead. “I’m not,” I try to say but can’t. She moves to the phone on my desk and calls one of the doctors. I know this because when I come to again, the doctor is there with an IV drip, poking me. The next time I wake up, I’m lying in the infirmary in the middle of my building staring at the freeze chamber. They poke me with more sharp things, things that would hurt me if I could feel them.

I’m drugged. Everything is happening slowly but in triple-speed, as well. There are people in zip-up plastic suits pulling my clothes off. I let them. I’m the emperor and I have no clothes. I giggle and one of the men in plastic looks at me like I’m crazy.

I hear, “
He’s ready
.”

I hear the machine turn on. It’s loud. I don’t fight. I know what’s coming. Someone picks me up. I’m naked except for my own plastic pair of underwear. I look down and my body follows my head. The plastic men catch me and one of them says, “Whoa there, fella.”

I look over
Fella
’s shoulder and I see Carol outside the door, and for a split second I think I see Phil. Smiling old Phil and my brain snaps back into focus. Smiling Phil is holding hands with smiling Janet? No, that’s not right.

The plastic men do what they need to do; I don’t fight them.

I hear the door to the chamber lock. It’s very cold—very very very cold. The air sucks out.
I’m dead
, says my brain. So cold when you’re dead. Smiling Phil is holding hands with smiling Janet and I’m in here, so cold. Then I’m dreaming again. But this isn’t dreaming.

10.

I’m alive. At least, I think I’m alive and if you think you’re alive then I guess it’s as good as being alive. I can’t hear my heartbeat; I can’t feel my lungs, but I know that I’m breathing. There are machines making me breathe. Lack of oxygen is what damages the brain, or lack of oxygen in the blood is what damages the brain. I think. I don’t really know. I’m good at code. I’m good at perfect things: lines and strings of letters and numbers, commands that tell other “Things” what to do.

It’s white, very white like snow. It was cold when I went in here, and I’m sure this is just my brain trying to dream up some connection, make a pattern and display a picture. It’s telling itself to do something, to make something. It’s writing code.

I laugh into the vacant white. I’m alone and this is dreaming without being able to dream. This is death. Time is, of course, completely meaningless. There are no seconds, minutes, hours or days. There is just white like a blanket of snow or cotton or milk or marshmallows or whatever else is white. Like an open editor on a screen. Empty. This is death; death is empty. I wish more people knew that. It would make living bearable.

PART TWO

1.

My left eye opens first, then my right—very slowly, just a quick flicker of my eyelids—then they shut again. It’s so bright. The next sensation that hits me is that I can hear my heartbeat, not outside of my body; I’m not floating above it like a ghost. I can hear the steady thump-thump-thumping of my heart. First, it’s behind my eyes. I don’t want to open them again; it’s so bright and white, just like the dream I was just having. Then my breathing hits me. I can’t hear the machine, but my chest is rising and falling in slow, shallow breaths. I’m alive. I’m alive enough to know that I’m alive, at least. I can feel the tubes connecting me to the machine. My stomach feels emptier than it’s ever been. I slowly open my eyes again; this time I squint until I can bear the light. It’s not white anymore. The window to the tube I’m in is fogged over.

I move my fingers at first, just enough to try and make a fist, just enough to make an open hand. I have enough room to move my arms a little and I try that out. My legs feel like jello. I’m somewhat seated. Mental facilities seem to be fine. Motor skills are setting in and so is my apparent dizziness.

Inside the tube smells terrible, like a mixture of a hospital and a port-a-potty. Speaking of which, my bladder says it’s full. I wait a few seconds and then decide to see if I can move enough to pull off the breathing mask. I hit the foot-thick clear composite window on the door. When I brush it with my arm, it leaves an open spot in the fog. I see the floor.

I start to panic. It’s so small in here. I haven’t spoken yet. I try to make sound with my mouth but nothing comes out. My eyes are hurting, they go wider. I have to tell myself not to panic. “Don’t panic,” I say, but it’s all internal. And then I ask, “Where the hell is everyone?”

I want to say something out loud. I need to. Maybe they’ve left me. Maybe they think I’m dead. Didn’t I install a failsafe, a button on the inside? Questions. Questions. Questions.

My hands try and move around the nearly invisible seam of the door. I start to panic when I don’t feel a lever, latch, handle or button. I have yet to make a sound or move from the waist down. I’m very pale. I feel as if I am going to be sick. I am rebreathing the air I exhale. I will die in here.

The suction cup breathing mask itches. I’m drooling and my chest hurts. I hit something big and white and bulbous and then I hear the door decompress. The vacuum seal releases; a burst of warmer air floods the inside of the tube’s chamber. The fog on the window gets thicker—too cold in here, too warm outside. I push forward with every ounce of strength that I can possibly muster; my stomach feels so empty and adrenaline floods my body.

My arms are shaking as I push the door out away from me. It’s heavy but the hinges are in good working order; they glide and then I fall out of the machine, slamming into the floor. The mask pulls up and off of my face, over my head with no resistance. I try and brace for the impact, but I’m too weak after pushing, no use of my legs yet.

I slam into the floor and it hurts worse than anything I’ve ever felt, worse than it should because pain is new again. I’m on the floor and I gag, too much adrenaline not enough food, no liquids. Need liquids.

Isn’t this how I got here?
I ask myself. My throat still doesn’t make a sound—nothing but the heavy breathing of my lungs. I’m naked, save for the plastic pants they put on me before, and covered in something that feels like Vaseline, water and jelly. Something slick and slimy. Little shattered memories stab my brain: the plastic men, the doctors, Phil and Janet standing watching me. They were smiling.

I feel it in my chest, nothing. Am I cured? I had cancer. I reach for the floor to pull myself up, try to stand. I feel my feet. I feel blood entering my feet. I’m looking at my arms; they’re so pale. My head begins pounding; my mouth is so dry. I kick out with one leg then another and crawl away from the tube, the machine. My plastic pants are making crinkle-crinkle sounds as I drag myself across the floor. I leave a trail of clear jelly grease slime behind me. There’s a table to my right. I reach up and try to pull. My hands are weak and come crashing back on top of my head. I have no hair. I rub my head; it’s bald. I have no hair.

I lay down. I curl up into a ball. I begin to shiver. I’m alive, awake and it’s so cold. I’m alive and awake and I’m lying on the floor. Then I hear it—my own voice. It’s small and quiet at first. But it’s mine. I remember it.

“I’m alive,” I say though my throat hurts. There’s no moisture in my mouth. I say it again and again and again: “I’m alive.”

I pass out.

* * *

The second time I wake up is much smoother; it feels normal, almost natural. I’m still cold and my head still feels like it’s been used as a soccer ball, but my body is more receptive. I’m able to get up without falling over. I’m still not that steady on my feet but I can stand upright. I brace myself on the corner of the table that I tried to crawl to before.

“Where the fuck is everyone?” I say. I need to use my voice. I need to hear it enough to get used to it again. Everything looks dirty—not filthy, but dusty. I shiver and then start to look around for something that I can put on. There are two lab coats hanging on the wall that appear to be clean. I use the table as a guide and walk myself over to them and put them both on. I’m freezing. I look around for evidence that someone has been here recently to check on me.

There are some forms outlining procedures to take and levels to check on a metallic clipboard. I scan the piece of paper looking for the last date that someone was here and stop when I come to the last entry. I double-check the date. Then I triple-check it to make sure. I leaf through the rest of the documents and try to find something else that would show me that they stopped using this particular form or maybe even paper in general. Nothing.

I look back at the date: one year. And the last time anyone checked on me was roughly six months after I was put in the tube.

“Can’t be,” I say out loud, still trying to recognize every syllable. I scan the room again; nothing looks out of place, but nothing looks touched either. The power is still on or, at least, the lights are. I pull the piece of paper off the metal clipboard and shove it into the pocket of the outermost lab coat and then pull the inner one shut around me.

“I paid a shit-ton of money to these people and they can’t even do their fucking job right…” Then it hits me. I remember Phil standing with Janet again. They were holding hands, and they were smiling. My brain starts to put two and five together and comes up with I-got-fucked.

I look around to see if there is anything else in the room. One last time, anything to make me feel like I’m wrong. Then I look over at the machine. The door is still standing wide open; the breathing mask is flopped on the floor just outside. All the monitors are turned off. The power to the machine was cut for some reason. I blink.

I have to get to my office and find out what the fuck happened. After that, I have some people to find and hurt.

2.

The doors swing open and the motion sensors trip; I hear the click and hum of electricity in the bulbs above me. It takes a few minutes for all of them to flicker on, a few panels stay dark and I wonder where everyone is. There isn’t anything to tell me that anyone has been here in quite some time. I look around and, again, like the other room, nothing looks out of place but nothing looks right either. I start walking and the tiled floor under my feet is ice cold.

It’s a funny sensation as the blood comes rushing back to my body. I can feel it move through my veins. I feel the pressure in my arms and legs returning; everything is swelling up inside me, back to normal, I guess. Someone was supposed to be watching me 24 hours a day, every day. But the room I’m in right now, I’ve only been to, conservatively, twice before. Maybe they moved operations up to another floor and have some sort of vid-stream on the room?

No, if that were the case then someone would have seen me by now. This isn’t right; none of this is right.

I’m standing here, practically naked and freezing fucking cold and no one is here and Janet and Phil were holding hands. This is a set up. I never should have trusted him.

I stop in front of the elevator doors, push the button and wait. Nothing. I push the button again, wait a few more seconds and then realize that there isn’t any power to the elevators. The lights are off; the little digital screen that should show you the floor you are on is black and silent. I turn around and look at the room; by law there has to be an entrance to the stairs here somewhere. Why has the power to the elevators been cut? Jesus Christ, I bet they stole my money, closed this fucking place down and then cut all the power to kill me.

That can’t be right. Why would the rest of the building have power? Why would the lights come on?

“Solar membranes,” I say to nobody. “The windows, all of them, have solar membranes.”

It helped sell the feature to other companies; the whole building is running on solar right now. It’s not that there isn’t any power, just not enough. They were originally a backup plan until we could install our own grid. They were never meant to be the sole powersource for the whole damn building, just a reserve for the server banks. I need to see the outside. I need to get to a set of windows.

The entrance to the stairs is off to the right. The floor is starting to become colder than my feet and it’s making my toes ache. My stomach turns over a few times. I need to eat something soon, something with a little substance or else I’m going to pass out again. My hands are shaky when I reach the push bar of the security door that leads to the stairwell. It opens with ease and I look up and then down. I’m on the third floor, only three more to go until I can get to my office. Grabbing hold of the handrail, I begin to pull myself up, one foot at a time. The emergency lights are the only lights in the narrow space; big, red exit signs throw just enough light on the floor to make it accessible, and my eyes instantly feel better.

I make it up one flight and have to sit down on the landing. I haven’t moved in a year. Take that and couple it with the fact that I haven’t had anything but medication, and you get a very weak and tired man. My hand goes to my head and I rub the smoothness. I used to have a pretty good head of hair, but I guess the chemo and the other treatments along with the freezing process pretty much killed that. I can deal with baldness. The skin on my hands and arms shines in the low light; my whole body is pale enough to glow in the dark. After I take a few deep breaths, I pull myself up to the handrail and look into the glass opening of the security door in front of me.