Big Boys Don't Cryo

“Did any of you guys order anything in the last few days?” yelled Saskia as she attempted to manoeuvre around the box in the hallway so she could reach the front door. Its presence made getting through a habitually cluttered space even more precarious, and she swore loudly as she whacked her ankle on the mudguard on Tom's bike. That would be another gripe to be added to Saskia's list at the flat meeting that evening. If she could be bothered to host it in this heat.

“No, why'd y'ask?” shouted Tom.

“There's this strange box down here, wrapped in brown paper, I just wondered whose it was.”

“Probably my make-up's arrived. That was quick, I only ordered it Tuesday”, hollered Booth above the sound of a strident horn section which always seemed to be emanating from his room. Item 3 on Saskia's list, she noted.

“I doubt it”, responded Saskia, “It's pretty big.”

“Och, no, he needs a ton o' the stuff to cover up tha' ugly mug”, came Tom' riposte.

“Yeah, and you're a supermodel Tombo”, yelled Booth, used to the Scotman's insults by now. “No, doesn't sound like mine. It should be about the size of shoe box. Who's it addressed to?”

“It doesn't say”, said Saskia, “Just a typed address 'Apartment 13, Albermarle Terrace'. Anyway, I've got to dash, my first lecture is Hydraulics and Prof Cheng is a real stickler for punctuality. “It's probably Jack's, he was out with her course mates last night and it looks like he pulled. Ask him when he gets back in.”

Saskia eventually managed to get out of the front door, and headed for her stop. She'd be lucky to make her her 11 o'clock at this rate, and she still hadn't responded to Jack's text. She do that on the bus, complete her assignment and then hope the roadworks outside campus had finally ended. The bus arrived, she flashed her pass and got on. Not too busy, thankfully. She found a decent seat and pulled out her phone, scrolling through Jack's messages of last night

“Not as bad as I feared. G not coming apparently. Some pretty fit girls here too. Dont wait up babe, c u tmz xxx”

“Sounds gd. Hv a gr8 nite xxx”

“Did u tell ne one about my results babe? Its all this one guy wants to talk about and he seems pretty pissed off. Hope u havent. Trying to fob him off and say it was inconclusive but he wont take no for an answer. Wish G was here now. He would look out for me at least xxx”

“I told no1. Too big 4 that. G is an asshole and ur better off without him. Ur probly just being paranoid. Spk with Jez at the bar. Hes always fancied u, and he'll mk sure u r safe xxx”

“Well, it seems that this guy has some sort of connection with some company and really wants to know what ive found out about them. He seems ok, so I may tag along. Can u bail me out if I need it? If u do, ill mk it up to u nxt rent day xxx”

“Soz. Soil mechanics assignment needs to be in tmz. Jst stay safe and tell Jez where ur going and mk sure the guy hears he knows. Stay safe. Luv u xxx”

That was the last text Saskia remembered sending before becoming engrossed in her soil mechanics assignment. Jack had always been a bit of a drama queen and she was pretty certain that he was either attention seeking or just being paranoid. He was pretty protective of her research, which he claimed would change the world and hence make him the target of international terrorism, but Saskia had never done much more than play along with his delusions of grandeur, offering advice when it seemed important.

At Albermarle Terrace, Booth was padding around the in the hall in a short, silky kimono, deliberately avoiding the box, which was obviously far too large to contain his make up kit. He yelled up to Tom, who was picking out some chords on his guitar and wrestling with lyrics which seemed to be about a “Wee lassie fra' Invernessie”.

“This box isn't mine Tom – you want to come check it out? It seems a bit suspicious to me.”

“Na, I'm good thanks. Is Jack in yet? Sas has text to say she's a bit worried 'bout him. Apparently some guy was on her case her last night and he seemed a bit cut up.”

“Cut up? As in chopped to bits? I can't face that, first thing in the morning, specially in this heat. If bits of him are in this box, there's no way I'm going anywhere near it. Come down here and check it out will you?”

“Ya big Jessie. I mean 'cut up' as in worried. Nae-one's gonna get anywhere near Jack. His head's pretty well screwed on.”

“You say that, but we all know his research was pretty hush hush and he always said that people would kill for the results. I've got a pretty bad feeling about this. What if his head is no longer screwed on, and the bad boys have posted it back to us as a warning? The box looks about the right size, and it seems to be leaking or something. Come down here will you? I can't face it any more.”

“You've got such an overactive imagination, Booth. Nae one's put Jack's heed anywhere. It's too far up hi sown arse, for a start.”

“I like him”, countered Booth, as Tom hopped down the stairs, two at a time, chugging milk straight from the carton. “He's a laugh.”

“A laff? Always on aboot his 'research' like it's the most important thing in the his'try of the universe?”

“Yeah, tha' can be annoying, I admit, but it does sound kinda interesting, the whole 'cryogenic suspension' thing. Apparently, last term they managed to freeze a whole pig for a month, at 77K – that's minus 196 degrees, and when they defrosted it a week later, it...”

“Gave birth to a litter of 6. Yeah, I heard. We all heard pretty much nothing else fra' him for aboot a week.”

“Maybe that's what's in the box. His latest test vic... er.. subject. It could be a frozen animal or something.”

“In this weather? It would've defrosted by noo. I'm a Scotsman, and I wasnae built for this kinda heat, we just melt intae a puddle.”

“Well, that would explain why it's leaking, anyway.”

Booth was right, a thick oozy liquid appeared to be seeping out of one of the corners of the package and forming a stain on the linoleum floor. Tom took a look at the stain and tentatively rubbed his index finger in it. Tom winced. “If that's blood, I'm going back to my room until my dance class at midday”, he exclaimed.

“It's nae blood”, said Booth with an air of authority he wasn't quite feeling. “It more like oil or summit.” He hoped he was right. Booth may be a big Jessie, but he had pretty good gut instincts. Tom, an astrophysicist, had heard enough of Jack's ramblings to appreciate that the cryo technology he was working on had some pretty serious potential consequences and he knew plenty of unscrupulous organizations would stop at little to get their hands on it. He blasted off a quick text to Saskia, with Booth hovering nervously by the door to the sitting room.

“U hrd from J yet?”

Waiting for a reply, he crouched down at the box and began carefully removing the khaki wrapping.

“Don't destroy the label”, urged Booth, “It might be important evidence...Does it feel cold?”

Saskia was certainly not feeling cold in the cramped and stuffy theatre where Professor Cheng had insisted on hold her lecture despite numerous entreaties for it to be held outside. She'd long ago given up any pretense of listening to the intricacies of laminar flow and turbulence and was trying to ignore the sweat forming in the pits above her clavicles by considering the missing Margot.

“Honestly Sas, you mustn't tell anyone”, a drunken Jack had said over a tequila sunrise on the terrace of the Students' Union, “But when we thawed him out, he said that he hadn't felt a thing. He reported entering some sort of dream state where everything seemed completely normal. It was quite a shock when he woke up in a tank of liquid nitrogen at the lab.” Saskia had sworn to keep the secret, but, as a civil engineer she was the first to admit that a lot of Jack's technobabble was over her head. She'd have killed for a tank of liquid nitrogen at -196 degrees right now, and was only dimly aware that the lecture had finished and that the other students were packing up their things and leaving. She did the same and loped off to the bus stop, where she waited a record-breaking 3 minutes for the number 73 bus back to the Terrace. On her way, she replied to Tom's text and passed the time by trying to guess what the other passengers were doing on the bus.

She'd labelled a couple of old ladies as “probable Russian gangsters” as the bus pulled up at the corner of Albermarle Terrace. She hopped off and slogged through the oppressive heat to number 13, where she found Tom sweating in the hallway surrounded by shreds of brown paper. The box was making a strange rumbling sound and Tom was pushing it away with a broom handle.

“What's going on and where's Booth?” asked Saskia.

“This box just started vibratin' and Booth's gone aff to his room, convinced it's a bomb.”

“Oh for heaven's sake”, said Saskia. “Who'd send 4 students a bomb?”

“Someone who doesnae want us revealing anything about Jack's project”, yelled Booth down the stairs. Just chuck it in the bath or something.”

“It'll be some prank”, said Saskia, edging the box away from Tom's broom handle and peering at the card attached to the top face. “Something cool for you all. NAN”.

“What's 'NAN'?” asked Tom nervously. “Some sort of top secret agency? I got as far as 'National Association of' and had to give up. Why's it making that noise?”

“It probably got turned on when you were mucking about with the wrapping. Stop your panicking. 'NAN' doesn't stand for anything. It's from my Nan, - my grandmother. I 'phoned her last week and moaned about the heat. She said she had something to help out, that's all.”

Tom looked bemused.

“It's a fan, Tom. Tell Booth everything's absolutely fine”, said Saskia, pulling a whirring disc from the box. “It's got a battery, that seems to have leaked a bit in the heat, but other than that, it works great.”

As she put the fan down, the door burst open and Jack stood leading on the door frame, panting.

“They're on to us guys, we've got to pack up an go!”

“What are you talking about, J-Man? Who's on to us? And where have you been?”

“Too much to explain now. I've been at the lab, putting things in storage before they come for us They've heard about us sending people to cryogenic sleep and the dream state they enter. They'll want everyone who knows about it under their control. They'll probably freeze us and keep us locked up somewhere, give us our own cryodreams so we'd never know any different. Don't dawdle, we've all got to get away.”

“But Jack... you went out to a party last night. We were worried about you”, began Saskia, a sinking feeling in her stomach.

“No Sas, I didn't go to a party – I went to the lab, just like I said.”

“You know what?” said Tom, “Suddenly I don't feel hot any more. It fact, it seems decidedly chilly... Maybe even...”

“Minus one ninety six?”