Across the Universe - Beth Revis [4]
But my eyes drifted to the little doors on the wall. Beyond those doors were my momma and daddy.
I cried as I undressed. The first boy who ever saw me naked was Jason, just that one time, the night I found out I would leave behind everything on Earth, and everything included him. I did not like the idea that the last boys to see me naked on this planet would be Ed and Hassan. I tried to cover myself with my arms and hands, but Ed and Hassan made me remove them so they could put the IVs in.
And, oh god, it was worse than Mom made it look. Oh, God. Oh, God. It was cold and it was burning all at the same time. I could feel my muscles straining as that blue goo entered my system. My heart wanted to pound, beat upon my rib cage like a lover beating on the door, but the blue goo made it do the opposite and sloooow down so that instead of beatbeatbeatbeat , it went beat ... beat ...
... beat ...
...
...
... beat ...
...
Ed jerked my eyelids open. Plop! Cold, yellow liquid filled my eyes, sealing them like gum. Plop!
I was blind now.
One of them, maybe Hassan, tapped on my chin, and I opened my mouth obediently. Apparently, not wide enough—the tubes hit my teeth. I opened wider.
And then the tubes were forced down my throat, hard. They did not feel as flexible as they had looked; they felt like a greased broomstick being crammed down my mouth. I gagged, and gagged again. I could taste bile and copper around the plastic of the tubes.
“Swallow it!” Ed shouted in my ear. “Just relax!”
Easy for him to say.
A few moments after it was done, my stomach tingled. I could feel the wires inside me being pulled and tugged as Hassan plugged the little black box to the outside of my very own shoebox coffin.
Shuffling noises. The hose.
“Don’t know why anyone would sign up for this,” Hassan said.
Silence.
A metallic sound—the hose being opened up. Cold, cold liquid splashed on my thighs. I wanted to move my hands to cover myself there, but my body was sluggish.
“I dunno,” Ed said. “Things ain’t exactly peachy here now. Nothing’s been right since the first recession, let alone the second. The Financial Resource Exchange was s’posed to bring more jobs, wasn’t it? Ain’t got nothing now other than this P.O.S. job, and it’ll be over soon as they’re all frozen.”
Another silence. The cryo liquid washed over my knees now, seeping cold into the places on my body that had been warm—the crease of my knees, under my arms, under my breasts.
“Not worth giving your life away, not for what they’re offering.”
Ed snorted. “What they’re offering? They’re offering a lifetime’s salary, all in one check.”
“Ain’t worth nothing on a ship that won’t land for three hundred and one years.”
My heart stopped. Three hundred ... and one? No—that’s wrong. It’s three hundred years even. Not three hundred and one.
“That much money can sure help a family out. Might make the difference.”
“What difference?” Hassan asked.
“Difference between surviving or not. It’s not like when we were kids. Don’t care what the prez says, that Financial Act ain’t gonna be able to fix this kinda debt.”
What are they yammering about? Who cares about national debt and jobs? Go back to that extra year!
“A man has time to think about it anyway,” Ed continued. “Consider his options. Why’d they delay the launch again?”
Cryo liquid splashed against my ears as my shoebox coffin filled; I lifted my head.
Delay? What delay? I tried to speak around the tubes, but they filled my mouth, crowded my tongue, silenced my words.
“I have no idea. Something about the fuel and feedback from the probes. But why are they making us keep all the freezing on schedule?”
The cyro liquid was rising fast. I turned my head, so my right ear could catch their conversation.
“Who cares?” Ed asked. “Not them—they’ll just sleep through it all. They say the ship’ll take three hundred