[ WP ] By the time I had finished , there was no blood left . Only ice .

I close my eyes. The nurse had marked the time of death as 15:07, but the patient on the table was not yet gone, as far as both the patient and I were concerned. A sudden aortic dissection. She is 27. Her hair is brown and her skin is still warm. My number was on her necklace next to the letters ICE: in case of emergency. I arrived at 14:30 and completed my work at 3:00 the next morning. By the time I had finished, there was no blood left. Only ice. 
 
 I had met her once when she came to sign her contract for preservation. She liked to mountain bike. She told me about how she used to hit the trails her father when she was a teenager every weekend. He had died from lung cancer. She had gotten used to biking alone. 
 
 An antifreeze cocktail flowed in as her blood flowed out. I always asked new members why they chose to be preserved. She told me more about her father. He'd arrived in this country from the former Second World. He had read about the far future and computers and robots in Asimov and Heinlein as a child in translation. When his polytechnic bought an old Russian computer, he applied to use it, and kept the first card he punched for it in his wallet until he died. He moved to his new home and worked on a computer every day. She said that he came home each day with a smile on his face. It was the look of a man who was living in a future that had once seemed centuries away. She wanted to travel through time too. 
 
 I adjusted the packs of ice next to her head. The nurse began removing her jewelry. She removed a necklace from the patient, and flipped open the pendant. It was a photo of father and daughter at Cape Canaveral. Engraved on the back were a few lines in a language I could not read. I imagine that it is a promise they have made to each other. The nurse places it in a bag that will go to the mother. I hope the patient gets it back. 
 
 With the nurse's help, I placed her on a gurney and move her to the van. Her core temperature was then just above freezing. She is pale. I noticed a tattoo that had been hidden beneath her watch. It is of a spiral galaxy, as though its rotation was how she truly wanted to measure time. 
 
 She was placed in a precooling chamber. She was slowly brought down to temperature before being placed in one of the larger tanks. She will be upside down so that if there is a systems failure, the head will thaw last when the liquid nitrogen boils away. 
 
 Is she already with her father? As a spirit or soul? Has she joined him in the universe's entropy? She might soon have a million stories she would want to share with him. I said a quiet goodbye and closed my eyes as I shut the chamber. 
 
 I open my eyes. She is standing over me. She is eight. She kisses me on the forehead and I pull her towards me. I rub the sleep from my eyes. I feel sharp pains emanating from within my chest. I cough for a moment, and then pull her back towards me. 
 
 `` What will we do today, Daddy? ``, she asks, smile gleaming. 
 
 I stifle another cough. `` Plan for the future.'' 
 
 

