Stasis

By 2479, more than ten thousand people lie cold in their pods, four hundred meters down, fifty years into a sleep meant to end in 2729. Twelve of them are already awake.

Daniel Cole woke first. His pod failed years before anyone was meant to stir, and he came up alone into near-freezing dark and recycled air that tasted of metal. He stayed that way for almost four years. Then he started waking others, ten he had chosen, one at a time, until he faked his own thaw so the rest would believe a broken machine had picked them, not him.

Mara Quinn reads people for a living, and Cole comes back wrong, his calm running half a second behind where a frightened man's should. He walks the sealed corridors like he has lived there for years, not the few months he claims.

The reserve meant to carry the sleepers safely to 2729 only stretches so far. Twelve sets of lungs are spending it now.