Wared couldn't believe his eyes. He stepped up to the windows and looked up and down the massive vault that spread out in front of them. As lights flickered on further and further down the vault, they revealed column after column of compartments, each occupied by what appeared to be rectangular pods.

"Is this what I think it is?" Wared said. "Are these the Departure Candidates?"

Randee joined Wared by the window. "I think so. It matches what I read upstairs. This is the storage facility."

"These are all of them? All of the departed?" Shea said. "They're actually here, alive?"

Wared sensed emotion in Shea's voice and as he glanced in her direction, he noticed watery eyes.

"Are you ok?"

Shea blinked and quickly wiped her eyes, then nodded. "Yes, of course, I'm fine. I just can't believe that they're all...here."

Wared couldn't help but feel similar emotions. He thought of all the loved ones and friends that had departed over the years, their eyes set on a mission far beyond their planet. They had departed believing they would be joining all of those that had gone before them. Instead, they would fall asleep and never wake up.

"Randee," Shea said with urgency in her voice and put her hand on his arm. "Are they alive?"

"They should be, yes. They're in some sort of cryogenic sleep that preserves them at extremely low temperatures. Which means they're not alive in the sense that we are, breathing and everything. Their lives have been suspended, paused."

"And stuck," Wared added.

Randee nodded. "That's also correct. With no orbital launches, they are all stuck here forever," Randee said and made a sweeping gesture. "They might as well be dead."

"Do you think this is really all of them? I mean, Departures aren't exactly rare. This facility would have to be massive to store all of them indefinitely."

"Honestly, who knows," Randee said. "Personally, I don't see how it's possible to keep so many Candidates in storage for this long and not run out of space. But, I can't say for sure. The protocols don't mention an expiration date, nor is there any mention of overall capacity. I'm sure the information is out there, we just haven't found it yet."

Shea sat down on one of the chairs next to the control panel and sighed. "So now what? What do we do with them? Wake them all up?"

"I wouldn't recommend that," Randee said and shook his head. "If the document is correct, the Departure Protocol was put into place to ensure the survival of this colony, a way to conserve resources. If we wake them all up, what do you think will happen?"

Wared hesitated a moment before he spoke. "The colony wouldn't make it."

"Exactly," Randee said. "Waking them up would kill all of us. We would use up all available resources."

"But we can't leave them like this, can we?" Shea said. "I mean, all these people, stuck here. We have an obligation to them, don't we?"

Randee sighed. "I understand what you're saying, but we have an obligation to those alive as well. Right now, all of these people here are not using the resources we need to survive. Yes, they're not alive in the sense that we are, but by using less resources we still have the option of waking them up in the future while saving ourselves."

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Shea looked up at Randee. "What about the orbital launches?"

"What about them?"

"Can they be restarted?"

"Shea, I have no idea," Randee said. "There's a lot we don't know about this facility. For example, we don't know why they stopped the launches in the first place. Was there some sort of problem in orbit? Maybe there's some sort of problem at our final destination? I just don't know. Maybe it's possible, but it's not something that could happen immediately."

"In the meantime, the Departures continue and the Candidates are basically sentenced to death," Wared said.

Randee nodded and shrugged. "Correct."

They stood in silence for a few minutes, just taking in the enormity of what they were seeing. Wared had mixed feelings about what they had discovered. They had been right and wrong at the same time. Right, in the sense that Candidates that depart are essentially dead. Wrong, in the sense that they are not technically dead. In reality, it made little difference. If they were not alive and breathing, what difference did it really make? They weren't there with them and they weren't at their destination either.

Suddenly, red lights throughout the camber came alive, pulsating at a steady rhythm while a klaxon alarm sounded faintly throughout the chamber. They all jumped to their feet.

"What is happening?" Shea said, her eyes wide.

"Let me see if I can find out," Randee said and stepped over to the control panels. Wared watched over his shoulder as he turned on screens and clicked different options that showed up on the screen.

"I think it's another departure," Randee said after working through the various screen options for a few minutes.

"Another departure?" Shea said.

Wared was speechless. Thousands of Departure Candidates were stored just within eyesight of where he stood and he was just about to witness the addition of another.

"Can we stop it?" he finally said and stepped up to the window.

"I don't think so," Randee said. "Once the process has begun back at the outpost, it has to continue to the end."

"How long?" Shea whispered.

"How long what?"

"Before they arrive."

"Should be any moment."

As if on cue, a platform on their right that hadn't been illuminated previously came alive. Several large robotic arms unfolded while a pod was raised up from somewhere below the platform. The robotic arms went into action, opening the top of the pod and moving around it in a preset pattern.

"The Candidate must be incoming shortly," Randee said.

They watched in silence as a section of the wall extended across the pod lengthwise. What appeared to be a rectangular package was lowered into the pod. The robotic arms once again went into action, prepping the pod for storage. When the cover was finally closed, Shea gasped.

The pod was moved to another section of the platform once it had been closed. From somewhere above them, a long crane-like mechanism lowered down, attached to the pod and lifted it off the platform. Then it moved towards the storage area. They lost sight of it as it disappeared in the distance to be deposited with the others.

Once out of sight, they all seemed to sigh in unison. Randee tapped away at the controls for a few moments. An audible beep followed a few moments later.

"She's been deposited into storage," he said.

Wared turned towards Randee. "What do you mean, she? Does it tell you who the Candidate is?"

Randee nodded. "It sure does. Come take a look."

Shea and Wared gathered around Randee. He pointed to the screen that showed not just the name of the Candidate, but a head shot and other vital statistics.

"I know her!" Wared said as his eyes grew large.

"You do?" Shea said, her eyebrows raised.

"Well, I knew of her. I'm pretty sure she was in Tarun's class throughout school. I saw them in the same circles now and then."

"Can we look up other Candidates?" Shea said.

Randee tapped a few buttons and nodded. "Yes, we sure can. I just need to figure out how."

"What are you thinking, Shea? It sounds like you have an idea."

Shea looked at Wared and smirked. "Maybe. Randee, can you look up my grandmother?"

Randee glanced at Shea, his eyebrows raised. "Your grandmother? Why her?"

"Just do it, please."

Shea gave him the name and he spent a few minutes digging through the various screens.

"Is she the one?" Randee said and pointed to the screen.

Shea leaned closer and gasped as her hand came up to her mouth. Wared noted a tear falling across her cheek as she nodded.

"That's her."

Shea sat down on a chair and took several deep breaths.

"Are you all right?" Wared asked.

Shea nodded. "Yeah, I just didn't expect to see here again. Even if the Departure worked as it should, she would likely have been dead by the time I made it through."

"What's the plan, Shea?" Randee asked as he continued to scroll through the list of Candidates. "I see many Candidates that I know, many that those still here will know."

"Let's wake her up and bring her home," Shea said and stood up.

~~~