Charlie sat across the table from his date as she talked about her life. Complained about her life actually. Her family, her job, her boss, especially her boss. Apparently he was some form of facist overlord who took credit for her every idea and accomplishment. She wasn't some supermodel, not like the women his friend who set this up dated, but she was pretty. She dressed conservatively, arriving to a blind date in a pantsuit. This spoke to how Todd viewed Charlie when he said he had a girl who was perfect for him. She was obviously smart by the way she spoke and she was a business professional. Charlie liked smart, but she was a lot more serious than he liked. Not that he had the right to be choosy. But he couldn't help but notice how her face changed when she saw him. She was in a hurry from that moment on. To get to the car, to get through dinner, even the pace at which she made small talk. If you could call it small talk. She talked at him, rather than to him. She didn't ask many questions, she didn't look at him. She wanted this over. She didn't ask anything about him, but she asked at least six questions about Todd. They always did.

"...and heaven forbid a woman want to be considered equal to a man in the same field." She continued her tirade. Charlie didn't disagree, if you do the same job with the same amount of skill you should get the same amount of pay, get the same respect. But she didn't really want his opinion, she just wanted to vent. Charlie wasn't really there to her. "...but you don't care. You aren't hearing me either." She said with a wave of her hand.

"Your boss is a misogynist troll, your parents don't respect your choice of career, your best friend is marrying the man you wanted, and based on what questions you actually have asked me tonight you would rather be on this date with Todd." Charlie put his fork down and looked at her as she stared for over a minute, stunned by his reply.

"Whatever," she said, putting down her own fork and standing up, signaling this date was apparently over.

He drove her home in a silent car and had barely gotten the vehicle in park when she hopped out and ran to her apartment building.

"Well," Charlie sighed, "it was nice meeting you."

"Did you seal the deal?" Asked todd, between grunts on the bench of his home gym.

"No T," Charlie moaned. "She really wasn't interested." Charlie sat on the other bench, he didn't work out like Todd. Todd still thought an Alpha male was a thing.

"I'm telling you, you have to make them interested." Todd stopped his work out and sat up facing his friend. "Charlie, you are an engineer, you make good money, and you're an effing genius. Women want to be taken. They're waiting for you to tell them they want you."

"That works for you. It doesn't work for me." Charlie tipped back the bottle of artisan rootbeer. Todd kept them at his place for Charlie because he knew his friend wasn't fond of drinking and he liked these. Todd, Derek, Mike, all the guys in their social group woke up after a night drinking next to some hot girl in her bed. Charlie always woke up in his own bed alone. Todd and Charlie were roommates in Uni, Todd would have passed without Charlie, but barely. Charlie tutored Todd well enough to get him a prized internship that led to a high paying career. Charlie ended up making bridges and overpasses, well, and designing the new headquarters for Todd's company. Getting him that job was Todd's thank you for getting him through college. Charlie's 401k got a big boost for that one. Todd suggested putting the whole shebang into his retirement fund for tax reasons. Charlie was practically a millionaire, once he retired.

"Anyway, once we get to Amsterdam Tomorrow night the babes will be all over us." Smiled Todd. He noticed Charlie's bewildered face and his smile fell.

"What's this about Amsterdam?" Asked Charlie.

"The trip?" Stammered Todd. "Me, you and the rest of the guys…"

"Todd, this is the first you've said anything about a trip."

"We all discussed it at Derek and Madison's party." Countered his friend.

"You mean the engagement party I wasn't invited to because Madison doesn't like me?"

"Oh yeah." Said Todd putting his fingers to his forehead. "What IS her problem with you anyway?"

Charlie closed his eyes and sighed loudly, "unlike you and the rest of the guys, I don't appeal to her friends."

"Well, you know now." Said Todd as he stood up. "I'll buy your ticket, to make up for.."

"It takes a week to get vacation time at my office T." Interrupting his friend. "Besides, I can sit around and be ignored at home, for free." Charlie stood up, setting the empty bottle on the bench and walked out of the gym. "I hope you guys have a blast. I really do."

Charlie collapsed face first into his couch when he got home. He knew Todd truly thought he had been there. He assumed Charlie was in on everything. In college they would all go to parties or clubs and the others would break off to conquer, leaving Charlie alone. After and hour or two of being brushed off or ignored Charlie would leave. Everyone assumed he was there when they recounted the crazy things that would go down some nights. That he should remember things he wasn't present for. He was never on their minds enough for them to realize he was gone.

The girls that did flirt with him on rare occasions were never interested in him. They wanted to use him to get close to one of his friends. Eventually Charlie stopped going and even then they didn't really notice.

'Hey Charlie, remember that party?'

Hey Charlie, remember that night at that club?'

Nope. They thought about him enough to think he'd been there, but not enough to realize he wasn't.

Charlie's phone rang just as his brain was about to give up and send him to a depressed sleep. The woman on the other end was apparently from a company Charlie had done work for recently. And wanted to meet with him tomorrow about some of the details of his design. He agreed, especially since he obviously didn't have the same plans as his friends. Charlie hung up and dragged himself to the bathroom to shower before going to bed. As he stepped out of the steaming shower he was overcome by a bout of macabre humor, tracing "goodbye cruel world" across the fogged up mirror. Charlie slumped into his bed and screamed into his pillow before sleep took him.

The woman he was taken to see was named Tessa Malone. She worked for a company that did research into cryogenics. Four years ago Charlie had designed a chamber to contain the pressure of their prototype cryogenic fluid and a hermetically sealed chamber to house the test specimens.

"Ms. Malone," Charlie interrupted her frantic spiel about their research. She talked like she drank nothing but coffee and Charlie, although no dummy, could barely follow all she was saying. "I have already completed the job. I don't understand what you need from me. If the designs aren't working anymore I am not a repair man, you need a contractor."

"No, Mr. Ellis," she said, slowing down and taking a deep breath, "your designs are perfect, in fact they impress me everyday. But our system is working and our last four live subjects not only survived the last test, we were able to revive them up to three days later. We need to redesign the hyperbaric chamber to accommodate human test subjects."

Charlie stared at her for a moment. Partially wowed by what she was revealing to him but he had also noticed for the first time a female human being looked him in the eye and still smiled. She was engaged in a conversation with him, she complimented him and his work and she didn't seem to want to run away. What had changed in the cosmos that this was happening?

"Ms. Malone," he began.

"Tessa," she said, "please."

Charlie smiled. She didn't look away and she was asking for a more familial address. "The thing is Tessa, the chamber is already human sized. And on top of that the inner sections are modular. I could pull out the sectional chambers and make it fit for people in an hour or two." He looked at her smile widening as he finished. She was cute. Her head was a mass of kinky curly blonde hair and behind the thick lenses of her glasses she had sparkling blue eyes. Average height and slim inside an old-fashioned type floral dress. Not a model by any stretch but at that moment, to Charlie, she was beautiful.

"Oh," she squealed, placing her hands over her mouth, "I've been interviewing sick people. People with terminal outlooks that might not make it. Oh, we could help so many people."

And then he saw it. As the tears of joy threatened to run down her cheeks Charlie saw the ring. It was a gold band on her left ring finger. Inset into it was a light blue gemstone.

"Nice ring." Said Charlie, crestfallen but putting on a brave face.

"Oh, yes," she beamed, "my boyfriend proposed this weekend. Isn't it wonderful? Everything is just turning out beautifully lately."

Charlie followed Tessa to the lab. He had told her he could modify the chamber in an hour. It wasn't her fault Charlie had foolishly promised to do it in a pathetic hope of getting to know her. It took an hour for Tessa to get him through security. They had to dig through his background, but it wasn't like Charlie had ever done anything for them to find. The whole time this smiling, happy, engaged girl gushed over how great Charlie was and the sour pit in his stomach grew. The cosmos had not changed after all, it had just gotten more cruel. The lab was four floors below ground and the size of his apartment. There against the back wall was the chamber he designed. Tess helped him open it and Charlie set to work. He unlocked sections of the chamber and removed panel after panel. Hose blocks and hoses were removed and the pod was slowly emptied out.

Charlie just wanted to finish so he could sulk off and forget how he almost made a fool of himself for this girl. However, someone else entered the lab.

"Tessa, what's going on?" The new person asked. It was a tall girl with dreadlocks sprouting out of her headband.

"This is Charlie." Tessa was still all smiles but the new lady's dour expression gave Charlie the impression things were not as Tess thought. "He's the engineer who designed our chamber and he can convert it for human trials in no time."

"Tess," she said with significantly less zeel than Tessa, "did you not read the latest report? C41C0 died this morning. Human trials are off the board until the forensic team figures out why." The woman handed Tess a tablet.

"But," squeaked the blonde, trying to keep her optimistic attitude as she read, "he's a guinea pig. They die, for like a lot of reasons. We revived him. It's been days. I've been interviewing people." Tess trailed off, disappointment beginning to dominate her tone. "My process works…"

The woman wrapped her arms around Tessa, "I know baby, but this is just a setback. We'll be moving forward in no time." She looked over at Charlie, "I'm sorry Mr…"

"Ellis, Charlie Ellis."

"We'll need to go back to smaller subjects before we move forward again Mr. Ellis. I'm sorry we wasted your time."

Tessa was still looking at the information on the tablet as the woman left. Charlie was unsure if he needed to just leave or if he should put the chamber back together.

Tessa was beginning to quietly sob. "But the others are still alive. It's not fair they dropped my survival percentages down this far. No one is going to want to volunteer with numbers like this."

"I'm sorry," said Charlie ineffectualy.

"We were going to celebrate. The engagement, my project moving forward…" She began to cry again.

"How far did your rate fall?" Charlie quietly asked, feeling more uncomfortable.

"It's only forty one point seven percent now." She replied with the snort of snot back up her nose. "No one is going to volunteer for a test procedure with survival numbers this low. Not even the terminally ill."

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

"I would," the words were out of Charlie's mouth before he was able to bite his tongue off to stop them. Once again Charlie saw a girl crying and was driven to do something. Once again his heart was way ahead of his brain. Now he just admitted to being willing to risk his life for this girl. This, practically married to another guy, girl. It's ok he thought, she wouldn't let him, he was sure.

"You would?" she said. The smile was slowly returning and the pit in Charlie's stomach was slowly sinking again. "I could put you under for twenty four hours. Not dangerous, not even a full freeze. Just to prove the process is viable. Just the early stages could save trauma victims. Buy them time to get to the hospital for treatment…"

She talked on and on about how important this was as she readied equipment, Charlie finished the pod, and she brought Charlie a body suit that looked like something from a space opera. The whole while thinking he should say something, stop her. But that infuriating hope burned in the back of his mind of being her hero. Of her saying 'screw my fiancée, it's you I want Charlie' that never came. And deeper in his mind, that dark hope that he actually wouldn't wake up from this. Then he'd never have to worry again about being unwanted, undesirable, easily forgotten.

He lay in the pod, tubes connected to the vacuum packed bodysuit. An IV ran onto the suit and an automated bracer shot a needle into him.

"The formula will keep your cells oxygenated and prevent ice crystals from forming in your cells." She whispered to him as she made the last adjustments. Her tone was sweet, almost loving. Charlie could feel a cold sensation creeping up his arm from the IV and he was beginning to feel drowsy.

"You'll be out for twenty-four hours, Charlie." Tessa whispered into his ear. "Your girlfriend isn't going to miss you in that time, is she?"

Charlie closed his eyes and mumbled, "no girlfriend. No girl is ever interested in me. Not if I was the last man on Earth…"

Charlie floated in darkness. Time was incomprehensible, it didn't seem to pass and yet it seemed forever. Everything seemed static until he became aware of his head aching. The pain ramped up quickly until it seemed his skull was splitting open. Snippets of conversations drifted into his ears.

"...e's waking u…"

"...an't shut it dow…"

"...shouldn't have cut the power yet."

The world re-coelessed as a bright blur. Charlie felt as if all heat had been sucked out of him. He was soaked, he was stiff and he was confused. His confusion didn't abate when the blur in front of him cleared into a face that wasn't Tessa. Stark white hair flowed out of a chrome face with no nose and solid black eyes. Instead of a mouth it had two canisters jutting out at angles from each other. Charlie was also suddenly aware that his chest felt like an anvil had been set on top of it and he wasn't breathing at the moment.

Charlie hauled himself upright as fast as he could. The pod was thankfully laying on its back which allowed him to hang over its edge and exhale what seemed to him to amount to ten gallons of fluid.

"Shit, is it barfing?" Exclaimed a feminine voice from somewhere.

Charlie heaved several times trying to expel all the fluid from his lungs. When he finally could choke an inhale past the viscous liquid the air was hot and thin. He felt as if he survived drowning just to suffocate.

As Charlie began to thrash, another feminine voice emanated from the chrome face that had woken him. "It can't breathe, we need to mask it."

Something was forced over Charlie's face and a sudden hiss marked the flow of air to his lungs.

As he coughed through his burning throat taking in air and still expunging fluid, Charlie managed to ask, "Tessa… where's Tessa?"

"There is no Tessa, mailman. No one you know is here." The chrome face said as she drug him up out of the pod.

She was a female form shaped out of pale yellow plastic plates. A nice female form Charlie couldn't stop himself from noticing.

"Not…not a mailman, I'm an engineer." He sputtered through his mask. "Tessa Malone, where is she? She put me in there."

"Again, mailman. There is no one here you know." When she spoke again Charlie could swear her tone was softer. Almost sorry, "it has been longer than you think."

Charlie looked around. The lab was dark, but even so he could make out cracks in the concrete walls. Cracks roots and plants grew through like the kind that invade a house's foundation. Cables and pipes hung down like jungle vines. The pod had been torn from the wall and laid on its back and none of the panels in the room glowed. The only light came from orbs that seemed to hover over their shoulders. The they he noticed were about three. All female forms in form fitting plastic armor. Very form fitting.

A blood curdling howl snapped him out of his appreciation. "What was that?"

"We have to move now!" She snapped as she dragged him once again, this time to a corner where a hole had been bored through the ceiling and the apparently collapsed floors above. The other two shimmied quickly up one of the three ropes dangling out of the hole. His awakener tied one around Charlie and two tugs later slithered up the last one as he was being hoisted up the hole. A wench, smaller than Charlie expected, dumped him out on top of the hole. Charlie was surrounded by darkness pierced only by the orbs of light that followed his rescuers. No street lights, no lights from buildings, but so many stars. More stars than Charlie had seen even when he went out to the desert with his astronomy club. The lab had been in an industrial complex just outside of the city, and they never turned off the lights. Also the starlit sky showed no outlines of buildings. The stellar patches were only broken up by what was either hills or distant mountains on the horizon. Two more lights approached out of the night trailing two more armored and masked ladies. One of them wielded an overly complex looking handgun. When she fired there was no muzzle flash and what punctuated the pull of the trigger was something Charlie could only compare to the sound of a pneumatic nail gun.

"Where is everyone?" Asked Charlie's escort.

"Gone!" The gun holder replied. "It got everyone else and Discorda led it away from the dig site and we haven't heard from her! And now it's back so it had to have gotten her too!" The screaming woman turned her head toward Charlie. "Is this it? Is this the thing we're after?" She leveled the gun at Charlie. "Call it off! Call off your guardian beast!"

"What beast?" Screamed Charlie. "I just woke up and don't know what the fuck is going on!"

The white haired warrior took Charlie's arms and slapped a band of metal over his wrists that instantly wrapped around them just to become inflexible a second later. "We move now." She said in a commanding tone that let Charlie know she was in charge. "Get to the transport."

One of her delvers stepped toward the wench when she snapped, "leave it." At that they all rushed into the night dragging him along.

The lights of the warriors illuminated a vehicle that resembled to Charlie a sleek delivery van. In place of wheels four multi-bladed prop pods jutted out from about where the wheel wells would be. And each topped with a vertical guidance type fin. While Charlie was trying to get a look at the turboprops the unseen beast howled once more and he was shoved into the van. The pistol wielding warrior fired off two more shots into the night while the engines got up to speed. She dove into the doorway as the vehicle drifted off the ground and shot forward.

The transport sped through the dark while one of his rescuers from the lab drove, which one he was unsure as the armors and masks were identical. Only the hair that flowed out around the masks differentiated them. The driver and her friend in the lab with them were both light brunettes, the pistoleer a dark haired brunette and the one that had arrived with her a blonde. Their commander, who had said the most to him so far, was white blonde. This ensured she stood out from the others, Charlie could quickly single her out even in the darkened confines of the transport. Before Charlie could get the commander's attention and get some answers the armed woman turned her attention to him once again.

She shoved the pistol-thing against his head, "my sisters died retrieving you. You had better be worth it." She sneered, "your beast tore them apart."

"What beast? I don't have a beast. "I don't even know what is happening here!"

"Tulip," the leader said calmly, placing her fingers on the Pistol and pushing it down. "This is not helping." The pistol wielding woman sat down, but by her posture Charlie knew she was still angry. Their commander on the other hand sat down and put her fingers in on the side of her mask. He could hear her quietly asking, "Discorda? Discorda, can you read me? Discorda, please respond."

Charlie sat in the dim transport, surrounded by these strange warrior women, and tried to be invisible. Whoever they were, whatever was going on he felt he was a hair's breadth from being killed. Had his pod been moved while he was out? Stolen? It could have been industrial espionage. But who were these people? The transport was highly advanced. Their attire was definitely unusual. And why was it so hard to breathe?

While Charlie pondered his situation, the vehicle suddenly pitched violently. The passengers were all thrown head over hind end inside. The transport was in a free tumble, alarms blared and he could hear the structure crumple and bend before everything went black.

Charlie faded in and out of consciousness; he could feel he was being dragged along once again while shots were being fired, the women yelled things he couldn't follow and the howls of the mysterious beast could be heard once again.

Charlie sat up with a jolt as he snapped back to the waking world. His head hurt and it was pitch black.

A hand was placed over the part of the mask his mouth was behind. "Shhh," he was told.

Charlie touched his head and felt the stickiness of dried blood.

"It's still out there, hunting us." Whispered the voice of the woman he labeled the commander. "Keep quiet."

Charlie sat in silence, in the dark for a while until a lack of answers grated too much on his nerves. "What is hunting us?" He asked in as hushed a tone as he could manage.

The darkness was quiet for quite a while, then, "the wastes are full of mutants. Twisted echoes of life that came before. Generally they avoid expeditions but if they are hungry enough they will attack. This one is very hungry, obviously. Also I've never encountered anything this big."

Charlie listened to her. Her voice was nice, but it seemed sad. He would have expected scared or angry, but it just seemed sad to him.

"Who are you people?" Charlie leaned back slowly, apparently there was stone behind him and he leaned against it. Felt the coolness of it on his back. A contrast to the heat and stickiness of the air on his skin.

"Just people who had a simple job that now is a disaster." She finally replied.

"I'm guessing that job was me?" He listened for any sound from the others, but they seemed to be the only ones here.

"You were supposed to be our salvation, mailman." She said it with a hint of a chuckle that told him that she was unsure of what she was doing now.

"Again, not a mailman." He replied, trying to avoid an exasperated tone that might anger her. "I don't deliver letters or packages. I design things. I'm an engineer."

"This whole mission was for you." She sighed, "The fate of all womankind depends on you."

"No woman would put their fate on me." Charlie snapped harder than he intended. But the past few hours had been stressful. After a deep breath and in a calmer tone of voice he asked, "why can't I breathe without a mask?"

He could hear her sighing in response to what she must have felt was a stupid question, "the war put a lot of toxic gasses into the atmosphere, especially when all of the carbon fuels were burned at the rate they thought the war required. And we lost so much vegetation. There is still oxygen near the citadels where the vegetation is cared for but out in the wastes it is scarce or overshadowed by toxins."

"There was a war?" He asked, feeling how needless a question it was. "I mean, who were we at war against?"

He heard her sit up in response to his question. "We? We were at war with the ones like you from your age that wanted to own us. That saw us as breeding stock, as trophies to your own egos. The ones that if we said no took what you wanted anyway. We were at war with YOU!"

She was breathing heavily behind her mask and Charlie tried to listen past it for the cries of the beast. It dawned on Charlie that she was not calling him a mailman. What she kept referring to him as was male man. A guy, a male. Males and females had gone to war while he was asleep. The battle of the sexes world war three style.

"What happened to all the men?" Charlie asked quietly, afraid he already knew the answer.

"Why do you think we took such a risk trying to find you, male man?" She asked, in a tone that sounded far more satisfying, "You are the last one in existence."

"Charlie," he said defeatedly, "my name is Charlie."

"I don't care what you are called." She didn't yell this time. But the hissing tone she said it in more than conveyed her feelings. "You better be worth the losses we've suffered. My friends, my sister are gone. You are all I have left so you better save us or I will complete the extinction of your kind myself."

The silence sealed the room and Charlie was afraid to ask anything else.

They sat there for hours. He slowly began to notice the light level creeping up slowly. He figured the sun must be rising. He could see her gradually become more visible. The fierce warrior from the night before was curled against the stone in a fetal position hugging her knees to her chest. The room they were in revealed itself as an old prefab sewer junction box. Two holes were buried in rubble and the last pointed slightly up to the brightening sky. Charlie scooted closer to the opening and looked at the landscape. What he had taken for hills and distant mountains last night turned out to be piles of rubble that had to have been buildings at one point. The ground was parched and cracked with no sign of vegetation. It was no wonder she called this the wastes.

Charlie was suddenly yanked back into the concrete box. As his butt hit the stone she yelled, "I am not letting you get away, not after what we went through to get you!"

Charlie had reached a limit. "Where am I going to go? Everything I know is gone apparently!" He looked into the unreactive eyes of her mask but they were as impassive as ever. "And according to the display on this mask I'm almost out of air. I notice my mask has one canister and yours has two." He continued to stare into the tinted eyes of her mask, hoping to reach a human being in there.

After several minutes of silence she responded, "come on. We need to get supplies from the wreck of the transport. It's a long walk back to the Citadel of Enlightenment."

She exited the block and left him to catch up. Charlie was forced to climb out of the hole with bound wrists. Although she was about the same height as him she seemed to out pace him causing him to struggle to keep up. The walk back to the crash site took twenty minutes, illustrating how hard it must have been to drag him to the cubicle last night.

The vehicle was upside down, and outside lay the body of one of her soldiers. The armor was torn apart and large chunks of her were stipped to the bone by the monster. He stood outside the wreck while she climbed inside, nervous it would return at any moment.

She re-emerged with two packs. She took a small rod out from the pouches on her armor and touched it to the band around his wrists. The band snapped straight again, freeing his wrists. She handed him one of the packs as he rubbed his sore wrists, "thank you. That's much better."

She pulled a canister off of his pack and unscrewed the one off his mask deftly swapping them out with practiced skill. Just as he settled the load on his back she grabbed his hands and slapped the band back on. "Oh, come on!"

"No, you come on." She gave a tug on the restraints. "We have two days of walking ahead of us. And the binders stay on, I don't trust you male man."

They started their trek with the angry woman dragging him along behind.