Methuselah Sleeps 

Part One

“Good morning Ronwell.” 

The incessant alarm chimed over and over, urging the sleeper to open her eyes. 

“Good morning.”

“What would you like first, breakfast or shower?”

They young woman lying in the silk hammock rolled to her right, her small feet hitting the cool floor with a light pat.  “Shower.  I want to wash my hair today.”

She carefully folded her blanket into a neat square and laid it on the center of her hammock and laid her pillow over the top of it. 

“Today is an exercise day.”

“Every day is an exercise day.”  The woman leaned towards the mirror and ran her hand through her short blond hair.  “I need a haircut after breakfast.  It’s down over my ears again.”

“Please surrender a sample.”

“Thank you for reminding me.”  She placed her left hand palm-down onto a small disc next to the wash basin.  Every three days she surrendered blood and skin samples that were quickly withdrawn into the little cubicle.

As the disc slid into the wall she pressed down on her finger to suppress the brief flow of blood.  In her years of fulfilling the obligation she never got used to it.  But something was different this morning.  “What’s that sound.  Aren’t you going to turn on the shower?”

“No shower today.  Today is Emergence.”

“Identify Emergence.”

“Emergence – The day a Subject fulfills their Quota and is released into the world outside.”

“Extend definition.”

“Emergence – Extended Definition One – The day the Creators open the pod and release the Subject back into the world outside.”

“Identify world outside.”

“World Outside – Methuselah Twelve - The scientific program from which you enrolled for pod seclusion.”

“Extend definition.”

“World Outside – Extended Definition – The Methuselah Project.  Started in 3700 Universal to isolate and harvest DNA from genetically pure or ideal subjects.”

“Isolate from what?  Define.”

“Subject is isolated for a five year period from all other sources of DNA for purposes of reproduction and harvesting.”

“What other sources of DNA?  Define.”

“World population at time of Commencement: 1.2 billion.  Expected population at scheduled time of Emergence: 700 million humanoid life forms that share the subject’s basic DNA structure, not counting Off-World Groups and Higher Animal Species.”

The woman began to feel dizzy.  She leaned over the sink and opened her mouth, releasing a rush of stomach acid that burned her throat.  There was a loud pounding in her ears and she started to sink towards the floor. 

“Emergence will commence in ten seconds.”

The pounding grew louder.  The woman didn’t know what to do.  She was frightened because something completely unknown was about to happen, something completely outside of her daily routine with the computer, and she didn’t even know why it brought her so much terror.

“…three, two, one.  Emergence.  Congratulations!”

She put her arms over her head and pulled it down between her knees as a profoundly loud sound of air releasing came from the other room.  Then she screamed.

“Dr. Wraight, may I have you for a moment?”

Dr. Jeremy Wraight ignored the lapel clip he had tossed on his overcrowded worktable.  He was a well-proportioned man in his middle-life who wore many years of study upon his forehead. 

“Dr. Wraight,” his friend’s voice overrode the electronic summons.  “There’s something I think you should see.”

Jeremy turned around.  “Is this worth heads rolling for, Alex?”  Everyone knew how he felt about interruptions while he was on a project. 

“I think you’ll find this very worth it.”

Alex’s vagueness about stating the nature of this exciting thing over an electronic channel made Jeremy walk out of his laboratory and down the hall.  Alex came rolling up to meet him, motors whining softly.  He had that look on his face that said he was hiding something exciting, something they didn’t want their colleagues to know about. 

Jeremy leaned over to face him.  “What?”

Alex released his mouthpiece and whispered, “Methuselah.”

Part Two

“They brought her here because they didn’t know what else to do with her.”  Alex swiveled his monitor towards Jeremy and played the record of the recovery.  The young woman being carried from the open pod in a fetal position, emitting a high-pitched sound of distress.  “This was an archeological dig.  They never expected to find anything alive.”

The subject of their whispered discussion was curled up on a bed in a medic pod, tightly clutching a towel over her face.  Jeremy called up the brief medical history.  “Haven’t they given her a sedative?  She must think she’s in Hell!”

He switched on his clip.  “Wraight to Johansen.”

The crackling voice of the supervising field scientist broke back over the channel.  “What makes the good doctor break his silence?  I’ve been leaving you messages for two days, Jeremy.”

“I’d like to discuss the handling of your latest recovery.”

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence.  “We are unsure of appropriate preservation techniques.” 

“I’m instituting a protocol as of now.  Why wasn’t I informed immediately?”

“You haven’t been out of your workroom in months…”

“I expect to see you as soon as you can desuit, Doctor!”

“Yes Sir.”  Johansen clicked off, knowing better than to argue.

“Has anyone attempted contact?”

Alex swiveled his ears towards the glass viewing wall.  “If you don’t mind my saying so, the subject has been in isolation for just over a thousand years.  Contact might do more harm than good.”

“I’m going to try a sedative patch.  Perhaps if she sleeps through the worst of it we can get her through this.  Tell me more about her history.”

“I am still processing her personal information.  Fortunately, the original makers set the monitoring units to automatically report on her condition after they were gone.”

Jeremy slid his hands into the remote gloves.  “You mean they abandoned this project intentionally?”  Inside the medic pod two slender, flesh-colored robotic arms reached out and placed a white patch over the woman’s temple.  In a few moments her posture relaxed noticeably.

“From all indications these pods were meant for long-term containment, Jeremy.  There was no five-year set release date programmed into them.  The attending scientists died of fade while their subjects were still living.”

“That would explain all the deaths.”  He thought of all the bodies they had found.  Not laid out in eternal repose by loving hands, but tortured victims of system failure who died of thirst or starvation.  It appeared that some had gone mad, some took their own lives.

“The pods each had their own separate support system.  Most lasted well beyond the original one hundred years.  It seems as if this one never stopped working.”

“Until we arrived.”

“That’s right.”

Jeremy looked at the woman’s face.  She was sleeping peacefully now, her relaxed features appearing young, no more than twenty.  “Can you replicate some of the conditions in her pod here?”

“It will require further interaction with the support program.  How long do you intend to keep her sedated?”

Jeremy reached over and scratched the top of Alex’s head.  “As long as she’s out of that pod.”

The Methuselah One team clustered together in a conference room that was really too small to hold everyone comfortably.  Dr. Jeremy Wraight fingered the little wooden Airedebe’  figure in his pocket thoughtfully.  They had come searching for Tut’s tomb.  Instead they had found Tut herself, peacefully living out her afterlife, totally unaware of the world outside. 

“At 2214 we breached the seal of Pod Sixteen and found the subject in Area E.  She was aware of us before we were aware of her.”  Dr. Johansen rattled off a detached narrative.  He looked uncomfortable in front of the other scientists, most of which he had kept the recovery a secret from in hopes of moving the woman before anyone could protest.  Jeremy watched the tape as the woman was found sitting on the floor, knees up, arms over her head.

“Our shock at finding the life support systems operating was surpassed by our discovery that the occupant was still alive.  Before we could make the decision to withdraw the support systems began an automatic shutdown procedure.  We had to remove the occupant to an isolation medic pod.  Fortunately we were all suited, so her exposure to biological elements was kept to a minimum.  Dr. Lefky will take it from here.”

Alex rolled up to the front of the table and inserted his interface arm into the access socket.  “As we now know the Methuselah Project was a last-ditch attempt to isolate and harvest clean and viable human genetic material.  The subjects were granted lifetime privilege from the Pre-Universal Government in trade for five years of isolation and donation.”

The large screen at the end of the room showed a twenty-two year old Private Adele Ronwell shaking hands with men in bio-isolation suits, preparing to enter her pod.

“World population was failing rapidly due to disease-induced genetic fade.  These subjects were still genetically viable and their DNA was kept in storage until a workable solution was found.  If you ever wondered where you came from, she is it.  Grandmother to you all.”

Alex swiveled his head towards the screen and adjusted his voice from the commanding voice of the lecturer to a warmer, more sympathetic tone.  “She had all the comforts of the outside world.  Weather that changed with the seasons, books, music, they even built a primitive holography room to provide her with companionship.” 

They watched as Adele romped through fields of green grass and flowers with a child she one day hoped to have, danced in candlelight with a man she one day hoped to meet.  Alex was humanizing her for them, turning her from subject into Madonna.  “The makers of the program never intended for their subjects to emerge.  The five-year release date was a lie fabricated to get these people to cooperate.  They were too valuable to the world.  The scientists running the program expected all the subjects to die within their normal life span, but they didn't.  Methuselah was a highly classified project, no one on the outside knew that those people were still alive until it was too late.  Removal from the pods resulted in death within 72 hours for all of the subjects retrieved here and in other parts of the world.”

“Do we know what killed them?” asked Dr. Takata, a dark-skinned man with hair like snow.

“It seems to be the shock of exposure to other people.  As time passed the subjects seemed to forget their past lives.  After the first century or so they even stopped using the holography rooms.  They seemed to go through a period of acute psychological depression around the time natural death should have occurred.  Then they picked up and went on with their lives.”

Alex darkened the presentation screen.  “It is ironic that this geographical area was deserted in the last years of the fade.  Genetic samples were being shipped to the Tutoric Islands for processing.  This area became deserted, as it is now, and the pods were left unmonitored for centuries.”  Island was a convenient metaphor.  The Tutoric labs were undersea biodomes where the first of the new humans were produced free of the genetic contamination of their ancestors.  A scientific Eden.

“That’s all well and good,” interjected Dr. Johansen.  He was still smarting from the professional beating Jeremy had dolled out.  “But what do we do with the subject now that it’s out?”

Jeremy stood up and pushed his way to the front of the room.  “We reactivate pod sixteen and put her back.”

“What?!”  Barked Johansen.  “Just how do you intend to do that?”

Alex answered for Jeremy.  “The pods were programmed to shut down if the seal was breached from the outside.  However, pod sixteen’s support systems are still fully intact and can be switched back on.  We can keep Adele Ronwell sedated until the pod is fully functional and induce a short-term memory loss that will block out her discovery and removal.  Otherwise, left outside in a world she cannot recognize, she will not survive.”

Dr. Takata looked disappointed.  “Is there no chance to rehabilitate her?”

“None.  All previous attempts failed.  To our knowledge she is the last of her kind."  Alex rotated fully around to face the assembly.  “Gentlemen, I do not need to remind you that, as a consequence of this discovery, all further pod breeches are off until the full status of the occupant is determined.  There can be no more presumptions on our part here.”

Part Three

“Dr. Wraight.  Dr. Johansen.”

Jeremy stood next to Alex as they faced the camera.  To their left were two small monitors, one with an image of Dr. Johansen, another bearing the very concerned image of President Jowatu.  It was the President who was speaking now.  “I don’t believe you understand what an international uproar this discovery of yours has caused.”

Dr. Johansen stepped in quickly.  “I have seen the demonstrators outside of my University, Madam president.  Doctors Wraight and Lefky wouldn’t have any way of knowing what’s been going on outside of the excavation site.”

Johansen had left the excavation site almost immediately after the conference and had spent the last few weeks lecturing and holding press conferences.  There had been a huge public uproar of the possible fate of the occupant of pod sixteen. 

“Many people are calling for the Universal Government to fulfill the original Methuselah contract,” continued President Jowatu.  “Certainly we are all in Private Ronwell’s debt.  The sacrifices she has made are unthinkable.”

“It is only right that Adele Ronwell have an opportunity to live out her life span as normally as possible.”  Alex intoned softly.  “But there is great certainty that she will not survive outside of the only habitat she can remember.”

“She can be rehabilitated!”  Johansen was insistent.  He was a very famous man now, and determined to get his way.  “She deserves to be brought out into the outside world.”

“Jeremy, we’ve known each other for a long time, and I trust your opinion.”  President Jowatu looked as if she hadn’t slept in days.  “Would this woman survive if we brought her into the our world?”

“Madam President, I don’t believe that this woman has any working memory of her life before she was interred.  When we broke the seal on pod sixteen we inadvertently violated her entire existence.  From the records we’ve been studying we know that she lived a good life.  She was happy and secure, her life had a routine that she controlled, in an environment that was made for her.”

“But without other people.”

“We’re not other people to her.  We’re monsters, and this is Hell.”

Johansen became more agitated.  “People are demanding that she be rehabilitated.  The Methuselah project guaranteed her a lifetime of care, not lifetime imprisonment!  We should live up to that!”

“If I may interject,” Alex was a good interrupter.  “The records show there were attempts made to bring the subjects out of seclusion by the third generation of Methuselah technicians.  All of those subjects died.”

“Who would be there to care for her?” Johansen shot back.  “Methuselah Twelve is in a totally unpopulated part of the world.  If anything happened to that pod her life support systems would fail.”

“We could man the facility with a team of scientists to monitor the pod and Private Ronwell,” answered Alex.

“Live in total isolation for decades?  Who would do it?  You?  Dr. Wraight?  No,” fumed Johansen. “She belongs outside.  She’s entitled to it.”

“The Universal Congress will assemble in three days,” concluded the President.  “At that time the disposition of this woman will be decided.  Until then, I will be open to ideas.”

That night Jeremy Wraight could not sleep. He lay on the cot in his workroom and stared at the ceiling, watching the image of Adele Ronwell that his brain kept imposing over the sheets of pre-form roofing.  He pictured her in her safe and familiar surroundings, going through her daily routine.  Then he thought of her pushed out onto some stage in front of cameras to be gawked at by a world she didn’t know existed.  He thought of Johansen standing next to her, the Miracle Worker. 

There was a tight knot tied in his intestines and his pulse was racing.  He got up and laid back down several times, then finally stood up and grabbed his lapel clip.

“Alex?”

“Not sleeping Jeremy?”

“Get me the President.”

"I’ve already opened the line.”

President Jowatu was appalled.  “Jeremy, do you know what you are doing?”

“A Methuselah Contract,” Jeremy answered.  “Until the end of her life or until system failure, in exchange for support of our work here.”

Tetile’ Jowatu hesitated.  She had known Jeremy Wraight for most of her adult life.  They hadn’t always been on the same side of things, but she knew him to be tenacious once he made up his mind.  “I hope you know what you are doing, Jeremy.”

After the President signed off Alex swiveled back towards his friend.  “Are you going to call your wife?”

“No.  Not until the government makes a decision.  She was never very fond of my work anyway.”

“I think you should sleep, Jeremy.”

Jeremy Wraight turned and looked at his friend.  “I’m sorry Alex, I didn’t hear you.”

Alex Lefky rolled up to the monitoring screen.  “These three day stretches are punishing on a man your age.  Scratch behind my ear.”

Jeremy reached out and rubbed his friend’s head in a familiar gesture.  Alex’s scratching hand had fallen into disrepair and he wasn’t going out for upgrades anymore.  The golden fur had turned into gray fuzz, the bright eyes a little less dim than his own.  “Has it been three days?”

“Don’t you count her sleep periods anymore?”  He knew Jeremy didn’t.  He just sat at the screen day after day, years beyond when the visitors had first come and gone away, the scientists, the government officials, his wife.  Jeremy probably didn’t even know what year it was.

“She doesn’t even know what she gave away.”  Jeremy reached out and touched the image before him with tenderness.  “We owe her so much.”

Alex looked at his own reflection in the glass and blinked.  “I think she did, back then, when she first went in.  She knew what she was giving us.”

“You won’t forget your promise, will you?”

“I’ll never forget, Jeremy.”

“I’m going to sleep now.”  On the monitor Private Adele Ronwell was climbing up into her silk hammock.  “Wake me when she does.”

Alex watched Jeremy’s transport roll slowly away from the desk and into his room, his white head nodding slightly.  It wouldn’t be long now.  Alex sensed it.

A minute or so past 0200 Universal Alex sat by his friend’s side and watched his breathing slow, then cease.  “What is the status of Doctor Jeremy Wraight?”

“All life functions have ceased.”

Alex reached out his interface and patted Jeremy gently on the arm.  “You took good care of her Jeremy.  I won’t forget.”

He buzzed up to the screen and inserted his interface.  “Initiate Wraight One.”  The woman on the screen stirred slightly in her sleep.

"Methuselah Pod Sixteen reports that internal life functions have ceased.”

Alex flipped a recorder up towards him.  “These are the final notes of Doctor Alex Lefky.”  He hesitated, not really knowing what to say.

“Doctor Wraight and I both knew that there would be no one to take up our watch on Adele…  on Methuselah Sixteen.  The other pod occupants died when their life support failed.  We felt that she deserved better than that, she sacrificed too much.  Therefore we built in a termination program that would take her life when there was no one left to care for her.  Adele Ronwell’s life functions ceased at 0217 Universal.  This will be my last message.”

Alex wondered just how long it would be before anyone discovered them.  His head itched again and he couldn’t scratch it.  “Initiate Lefky One.”

He exhaled, closed his eyes, his chin dropping gently down onto his chest.

The computer responded by chiming to no one who could hear, “Monitors report that all internal life functions have ceased.  Support Function Shut-Down Protocol initiating now.”

"Methuselah Sleeps"

by NC Anderson

© 1999

-END-

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