I'm so cold, I think, finally waking up after being out for who knows how long. My body feels stiff and heavy, almost like plastic. I try to open my eyes, but they feel as if they had been glued shut. I attempt to open my mouth to call for help, but that refuses to open as well, along with what seems to be the rest of my body.

I can barely feel anything with my plastic-y body, but I can tell that I am covered in a thin sheet or blanket up to my shoulders, and that I'm positioned so that I look like a corpse in a coffin, all while lying on cold metal. Wait. I think. Am I... DEAD? My heart begins to beat fast as my brain tries to put all of the pieces together. Blacking out while walking with Alex, waking up in a strange world, feeling like a bunch of preservation stuff has coated my body. Yup, I feel pretty dead. The one thing that doesn't line up is...

"...the freelancer. We picked her up from the Deadlands a few miles from the city." I hold my breath as this masculine voice and what sounds like two pairs of feet click across a hard floor before stopping at my side, radiating heat. "It was found about six hours ago, and we just went through with the normal procedure for them and put it into a suspended animation state," the same voice said, sounding very stiff and professional. The other person walked over to the other side of me, and ran their fingers over my cheek. I would have flinched if I wasn't frozen in place.

"Yes, yes", the person - man - touching my cheek said, removing his hand from my face. "This one seems like it may go quickly. It doesn't look like the other Freelancers. It could almost pass as normal if it weren't for that skin tone. Much too dark." He taps my face as he says this last part, sighing as if he was disappointed in me.

At this point, I feel like screaming; I've been referred to as an "it" with skin that is "much too dark". I almost expect them to begin calling me three-fifths of a person. But even as I rage on the inside, angered at being frozen, kidnapped, and offended, the men standing above me continue to talk.

"Ah, well my job is done here," the first man says. "Although, I would very much enjoy being employed here." I can practically feel his eyes burning into my body as he leans in very close to my face. He then takes a deep inhale through his nose, sniffing me like an animal. I wish that I wasn't in "suspended animation" so that I could give this man a nice punch in the face.

"That will be all, colonel," the second man states matter-of-factly. I internally heave a sigh of relief as the creepy colonel leans up from my body, and walks away. " Well then, it's time to get you into your display. There are a lot of young men coming in for their Choosings tomorrow, and we need to have as many females out there as possible." As the second man is saying this, I can hear him move around, gathering a few things, and then setting them beneath me with a metallic clang. Then, he stands right behind my head, and begins to roll me forward.

We take a left turn out of wherever I was being held, and I see flashes of white, industrial light through my eyelids. The wheels of the cart that I was on squeaked on the floor, and cold air periodically washed over me and made me internally shiver under my thin sheet. Then, I was pushed into a room that was much darker and warmer, and the squeaking of the wheels became louder with the echoes that the room produced.

We continued to move forward until the man stopped the cart. He took a few steps away from me, and I heard some electronic, beeping sounds, and then I hear the sound of an air-lock door opening, followed by a gush of cool air and soft, white light. The man then comes back to the cart, and lifts me up under my knees and back. The sheet is bunched up around me, barely covering up my body. I'm walked up to the light, and the man leans down, and lays me down onto a very soft bed that was previously closed behind the door.

He gently lifts my arms, and adjusts the sheet over my chest up to my shoulders, and lays my arms on top. I feel him move a lock of hair off of my face before standing up. "Goodbye, strange Freelancer," he whispers, before I hear the squeak of hinges, and the loud and sudden slam of the door to my left. The soft light dimmed, and I was left alone, frozen in place like a Sleeping Beauty.