The Forsaken

the pod. I was hoping that the process of thawing people out would be more intuitive. But most of these knobs might as well be labeled with hieroglyphics.
    I flick the manual switch up and down again, but there’s still no response.
    Suddenly the static in my ears gets louder, and I hear an electronic squalling noise that makes me wince. It’s followed by a faint voice:
    “Alenna?”
    “Gadya!” I reply. There must be some kind of speaker system in the helmet.
    “I can hear you,” she says through the static. “I just found a microphone up here.”
    “And I found Liam—he’s alive! But we don’t have long. Fifteen minutes.”
    “I can see you down there. I’m watching you right now.”
    “I don’t know what to do! I can’t figure out how to rescue him. This was a crazy idea.” Hot tears of frustration well up in my eyes, and I fight them back down. One escapes and rolls down my cheek. “Can you help me?”
    “I don’t know what to do either—” A burst of static cuts her off.
    I’m looking all over Liam’s pod for a way to thaw him. If there is one, I don’t see it. I can’t believe the manual override switch didn’t work. The clock on his pod now tells me I have only twelve minutes left.
    “We have to put Clara back online,” I say finally, still furious at myself for thinking there would just be a button I could push that would solve everything. My luck has finally run out.
    “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Gadya’s voice drifts back to me. I can hear the pain and fear in it.
    “I know. But can you try? Or we’re going to lose him.”
    After a pause: “Okay.”
    I’m still staring at Liam’s face on the monitor. He looks ghostly. Otherworldly.
    “I’ll do it right now,” Gadya says. “I found some instructions on the wall. It’s a sequence of buttons.”
    A moment later, I hear a high-pitched electronic squeal. It’s definitely not coming from Gadya this time. I crouch down on the metal grid by the pod.
    “Activating localized neural network,” the computer’s bland voice says in my ear. Then, a beat later, “Hello. I am Clara, your electronic tour guide to the Silver Shore facility. We are sorry for the interruption in service. How may I assist you?” The voice trails away. Almost like it’s trying to remember what happened.
    “We need your help!” I blurt out.
    “You are in a restricted area,” the voice volleys back. But there’s no edge to it now, just manufactured concern. “You must have become lost. A security team will escort you to safety. You are in danger.”
    “Tell me something I don’t know!” I interrupt. “Look, how do I unthaw this pod? Give me instructions.”
    I only have ten minutes left.
    The voice ignores my request. “Please wait for the security team.”
    “Maybe next time,” I snap, still looking over the buttons and dials. So far Clara hasn’t been very helpful. I’m about to ask Gadya to shut her back down, when something occurs to me.
    I have to do something drastic.
    In a burst of deranged inspiration, I decide that maybe if I act like there’s something terribly wrong with the pod, I can get Clara’s attention off me and onto Liam. “Hey—wait!” I yell, as I rake my hands up and down over the pod’s buttons and levers. “There’s a problem down here! Emergency! Emergency!”
    “Running diagnostic check now,” the voice replies smoothly. “Please step away from the pod.”
    So I was right in guessing the computer would prioritize the contents of the pods above everything else. The voice probably thinks that its long-defunct security teams will handle any other problem that comes up.
    “Diagnostics complete,” it continues. “No anomalies detected. Please state the nature of the emergency.”
    I am the problem, of course, but the voice doesn’t seem to know that. My hands are busily fiddling with all the dials, trying to wreak temporary havoc on Liam’s pod, despite the risk to him.
    I know I’m gambling with his life, but that might be the only way to save him. He’s going to die anyway unless I take action.
    “Check the pod again!” I yell. I have eight minutes left. “How do I manually thaw this thing out?” I slam my hands on the knobs one last time. I toggle the manual override switch up and down, over and over, like a crazy person.
    I’m watching the pod’s video screen. Liam is still completely frozen, and so far nothing I’ve done has affected him in the slightest. But apparently it