Ten years later…

“I need those funds, Damon. Now. Yesterday. What’s taking so long?”

Dr. Damon Bardsley spun his entire desk chair around to face Ryan, his glare of irritation not unexpected. “Do I look like I have an accounting degree to you? I don’t work for the bank, Ryan. I’m a scientist, just like you. And besides, we’re not ready. Let’s focus on how we’re going to reanimate these people, instead of how we’re going to pay for it. The money will be here when we need it.”

Ryan blew out a breath, his grip on the doorframe tight. “You’re right. I just get so frustrated with the bureaucracy. The clock is ticking.”

“Yeah, and you’d better keep your temper under control, or you’re going to find the powers that be yanking you from this project. Half of them are already leery about you leading this team as it is.” Damon pointed at the computer in front of him. “Take a breath. Look over this data with me. Data always calms you down,” he joked.

Ryan stepped into the room and pulled a second desk chair up next to Damon. The two of them had been working together for two years. They spent a lot of hours in this bunker with little outside human interaction. Ryan’s motivation was personal. Damon was just a geeky scientist with a vision.

While Ryan had spent a year after medical school and residency buried in a lab developing a cure for AP12, Damon had gotten his doctorate in cryobiology and then moved into cryonics. They met two years ago when Damon was brought on board to help with his end of the project. Both had been hired by the government to put together a team of doctors and scientists to revive the twenty-two people cryopreserved inside this bunker—twenty-one scientists and General Custodio. Now that they had the cure for AP12, all they needed was the technology and the funds to reanimate the team and administer it. They were so close.

“I’ve been poring over the stats on all twenty-two victims, and I think we need to start with Lieutenant Emily Zorich. Twenty-nine. A doctor of hematology, same as you. West Point graduate like your parents. She was the one who came the closest to developing a cure before she succumbed to the disease.”

Ryan ran a hand through his hair. Naturally, he wanted to bring his parents back first or at least as soon as possible. But he was also reasonable, if not a little selfish. After all, if his team failed in their attempt to revive anyone, he didn’t want the first experimental reanimation to be on his mother or father.

Ryan stared at the vibrant photo of Emily Zorich and nodded. Dark hair, smooth pale skin. Green eyes. He had never met her in person. He’d known ten years ago that she was crucial to the project, but every time he’d been in the bunker, she’d been either involved in something on another floor or not around.

Since then, however, he’d gotten to know her well. After all, her notes were the most comprehensive of anyone’s on the team. She had been so close to a cure. After years of studying her extensive research, Ryan felt like he knew her better than he knew himself some days. “You’re right. She’s the best choice.”

“It’s a longshot, but we could use her advice. If we’re lucky, and we succeed in bringing her fully back to life, hopefully we’ll have enough time for her to look over our data before we start injections.”

They didn’t really need Emily to peruse their work. Damon was being overly cautious. The cure had been perfected months ago and used to save the lives of thousands of people since, but Emily would probably still be able to add some insight, given the opportunity. Particularly because there was no guarantee the disease hadn’t mutated enough that the cure wouldn’t work on these victims from ten years ago.

Ryan set his hands on his knees and lowered his gaze toward the floor. “This is really going to happen, isn’t it?”

“Yep. And you’re really going to be a part of it.” Damon slapped him on the back. “Your parents are going to be so proud of you.”

“Let’s hope,” he murmured, still worried about the practicality of reanimating twenty-two people.

In the last year since the technology existed to bring people back from cryopreservation, seven human beings had gone through the reanimation process at a civilian cryonics facility in Arizona. The difference was that in every one of those cases the people had completely succumbed to their illnesses when they were vitrified. Only two had been successfully brought to consciousness. Neither of them had survived more than a few weeks.

Ryan would give anything for the opportunity to see the files on the individuals reanimated in Arizona, especially the two who had lived. What did they die of so quickly if the reanimation was successful? The facility hadn’t released enough information for him to do much digging on his own. However, if all seven people had been clinically dead of natural causes at the time of vitrification, it wasn’t hard to believe doctors would have struggled to revive them.

In contrast, the government employees of Project DEEP, most of them high-ranking military physicians and scientists, had been cryonically preserved before they would have died naturally. It wasn’t legal in most of the world. It wasn’t even legal in the US—with the exception of this secret government venture.

For years Ryan hadn’t been completely privy to this detail. He was a civilian. Even though his parents were among the preserved, it wasn’t until the government hired him as a full-time employee to restart the exploration into AP12 that the truth of their preservation was confirmed. He’d suspected, but no one had come right out and told him.

The original team working in this bunker were considered invaluable members of society, their knowledge and expertise important enough for the government to permit them to be vitrified in the last stages of the fatal disease, instead of waiting until they were legally dead.

Every member of that team—twenty-one scientists—had made the conscious decision to be cryonically preserved before death. Each of them now stood a chance at a full and happy life, albeit ten years later.

With the exception of the general, the original scientific team had succumbed to the disease within months of their exposure to the live virus. General Custodio had been preserved fifteen years ago.

A precedent had been set that day fifteen years ago. One that paved the way for the entire team of doctors and scientists inside the bunker to argue for their own preservation five years later when a beaker of the virus that caused AP12 shattered, spreading the virus throughout the containment area of the facility. All twenty-one souls inside knew immediately they would not survive and worked rampantly over the next weeks and months to find a cure before the last man standing—Ryan’s father—had to be preserved.

“I know this has to be emotional for you,” Damon whispered. “I can’t imagine if my parents were among those we’re about to reanimate.”

“Yeah, it’s hard to believe,” Ryan conceded. “It’s been ten years, but in a way it seems like weeks. I’ve devoted my life to this project.”

“I know, and no matter what happens, you should be proud. You’ve done your best. We have the cure in our hands and the technology to revive these people at our disposal. However, be prepared that we might not save all of them.”

Ryan blew out a long breath. “I know. I try not to think about it.” If he had even five more minutes with either parent, he would consider himself blessed.

“So, we’re going to start with Lieutenant Emily Zorich,” Damon declared. Unspoken was the order of revival after Emily. They both knew Ryan’s dad would be second. He was the last man to be preserved, and the healthiest. Weeks after preserving his own wife, he turned to Ryan, looked him in the eye, and said his goodbyes. He claimed he didn’t want Ryan to see him sick.

Ryan didn’t know the true circumstances for many years. The general in charge of Project DEEP—General Temple Levenson—had brought two men in from another classified government bunker to preserve Tushar Anand weeks before it was imminently necessary, as there was no way he could do so himself.

Although Ryan had known his father was preserved in the same fashion as his mother, he had not had proof neither of them had been legally dead at the time the decision was made to preserve them. That detail had lit a fire under him to find a cure for AP12 and bring his parents back to the land of the living.

“Looks like it. Shall we go over the procedure again?” He sat up straighter, tugged over a stack of file folders, and opened the top one. The last thing either man wanted was to be unprepared to care for each individual as they were brought back to the living.