47-O is a sci-fi tale about the male humanoid in tank number 47-O at an Ohio cryogenic facility who is suddenly needed back home to avert a planet-wide crisis. His emergency thaw is activated.
But while he struggles to regain his strength, forces are gathering against him.
Meanwhile, 47-O feels a strong attraction to Dr. Olivia Bellamy, granddaughter of the man who put him in the cryogenic tube long ago to save his life. Granddaughter Olivia bears a strong resemblance to her grandmother.
This story began its life on Vella, Amazon's episodic reading platform that has yet to open up worldwide. It is still on Vella, in the event of worldwide publication. But in the meantime, it is also available in kindle and paperback format.
Amazon Link: http://tinyurl.com/ms68nn5t
Vella Link: https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/episode/B094K1JW1Q
Excerpt:
Chapter One
Frozen
“Liv!” shouted Dr. Travis Jefferson. “Liv, we’ve got a problem.”
“What is it, Travis?” asked Dr. Olivia Bellamy, granddaughter of William Bellamy, as she looked up from her computer screen in the lab.
“Emergency tube alarm. Somebody’s thawing out.”
“That can’t be right. We have no tube extractions scheduled for today, tomorrow, or the rest of this week,” she said. “That’s odd. It must be a malfunction.”
“Worse than that. I can’t find our noisy little trouble-maker anywhere.”
“That’s not only odd, Travis, that’s impossible. All our tubes are digitally numbered and coded. I did it all myself. I double checked everything a number of times. The tubes are constantly monitored since our last technological update in 2017.”
“Well…not this one.”
“Let me see.” Olivia walked over to scan his computer monitor. “No. This can’t be right. Look. All our numbers are all three-digits, starting with 100, right?”
“Yes,” nodded Travis.
“Well, this one says… seven. Seven out of forty-seven, capital O.”
“And where do you think lucky Number Seven could be lurking?” asked Travis.
“I’ll start in the lower level,” said Liv. “You start on the top floor. If Number Seven is in here, we’ll find him.”
With flashlight in hand, Liv took the freight elevator down to the basement and slowly walked up and down the dank aisles rarely used anymore for anything except storage, looking for a puddle of liquid seeping from a tube, a bad connection, or evidence of wire damage.
No tubes. No puddles. Nothing. Nothing seemed disturbed or out of place. As she approached the back wall, she heard the faint beeping of the emergency tube alarm. She followed it to a dead end. Pressing her ear up to the back wall, she found a spot where the alarm sounded a bit louder. However, there was no doorway.
Moving to the end of the wall, Liv noticed a large empty bookcase propped up and shimmed tightly against the wall. She tugged at it. Though large and clumsy, it was not heavy. It fell away easily. She discovered a small doorway. The alarm was definitely emitting from inside this tiny space.
She shined her flashlight around the small room. It appeared to be completely empty. Liv found the light switch. The walls were empty except for the left-hand corner closest to the doorway, where everything was conspicuously piled high in an otherwise empty room.
Liv pulled away tarps and layers of insulating blankets. Another old bookcase or two and some old 2x4s needed a push to fall away from an old model cryopreservation tank attached to the wall.
Resembling an old-fashioned hot water tank, but with a glass section, the beeping tank was still full of greenish liquid. A body hung suspended in the solution. She groped around the bottom of the side of the tank to feel for leaks. No leaks. She turned off the alarm.
Hanging from the side of the tank, hidden from sight, she felt a makeshift tag. It appeared to be made from a piece of an old manila folder with a note scrawled in her grandfather’s handwriting. Liv shoved it in her pocket and turned her attention back to the form in the tank.
“Well, what do we have here? So here you are, noisy Mr. Seven, hiding in the corner, in the dark, in the back, behind some old bookcases, under layers of tarps. My, you are one tall, skinny, good-looking dude, aren’t you? Where did you come from? And why are you in hiding in the basement? Come on, let’s get you to the lab,” Liv whispered to the body in the tube.
She pulled the wheeled tube forward and disconnected it from the wall. She carefully wheeled the tube through the low, narrow doorway to the elevator.
Soon she had him in the lab, connected to the wall panel monitoring his vital signs, among other things. She stood there staring at the oddly handsome fellow.
Nurse Bethany Jensen approached.
“Nothing was malfunctioning. There was no reason for the alarm,” said Liv.
“That’s strange. I never remember that happening before,” said Bethany.
“Neither do I. But now that the thawing process has begun, we have no choice but to pull him out. I’ve got to get back to work. I have operating expense records to get ready for a midnight deadline for the peering eyes of the finance committee.”
“We’re not in financial trouble, are we?”
“Hell, no. We’re in great shape. But the board is becoming more and more obsessed with the idea of putting someone in charge of overseeing all our daily expenditures. They want someone to approve or deny every single bandage, syringe, and gallon of liquid vitamin base I purchase.
“I know they miss having my grandfather at the helm of day-to-day operations. He’s considered a miracle man by their standards. He started out with only five hundred dollars and an out of this world idea and he built this multi-billion-dollar facility single-handedly.
“And some are still old-fashioned enough to believe his granddaughter can handle the science part of this place with no problem, but not the money part without the help of a man.”
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