My alarm clock bleeped at me like a siren, and my hand reacted subconsciously when it hit the sleep button. Normally, I would have stayed in bed for at least a few more minutes before getting dressed, eating breakfast, then taking the bullet train to university, but that day demanded my full attention, and with little time.

I turned over in bed, groaning, and forced my eyes apart to stare at the bright blue numbers displayed on the hologram.

05:30

"Good morning, Ricky," a familiar voice greeted me.

I waited for my yawn to pass before answering him. "Good morning, M.I.K.E..."

The artificial intelligence would have probably been smiling if he could, but his synthesised voice remained in the same calm tone as he reminded me, "Today is the day."

I had both dreaded and impatiently awaited those words for a long time. Today was the day I would say goodbye to this polluted world and fall into a cryogenic sleep. As I got dressed in the outfit I would like to keep, I couldn't help but repeatedly glance at the photo displayed above the kitchen dining table in my small bunker. It showed me, my late mother, and my disappeared father. I couldn't remember her, but Dad had raised me on his own despite his demanding station as a leading researcher of the Yggdrasil Project.

Gungnir was not the definite solution to the calamity the human race would face in an estimated thousand years. He made sure I knew it was only a last minute solution if all else were to fail. Those of the future, with their far more advanced technology, would surely be able to figure out a better way. But until then, this plan would have to do.

"Ricky?" M.I.K.E. broke me out of my reverie. "You've been standing idly for a full minute now. Are you having second thoughts?"

I shook my head, moving to the bathroom to brush my teeth-the last time in a thousand years. "No, it's nothing, M.I.K.E."

As I brushed my teeth, I looked at the orange triangular rucksack leaned against the wall beside my front door. It carried all the things I would take with me to the future; guns, ammo, a first aid kit and a few changes of clothes.

I grabbed it as I opened the door. Outside, I hesitated. I pushed it open a little, taking one last look at the place that had been my home since my father died.

"Hey, M.I.K.E.?" I called.

"What is it, Ricky?"

"When I'm...asleep...could you please make sure nobody takes anything? I tidied this place up, and I'd like it to stay that way," I said, thumb running along the metal of the door pensively.

"Of course. I, too, will be put into sleep status before long, but until then, I will watch over your things," responded the artificial intelligence. Nodding, I shut the door, and walked down the corridor, the cold metal lit only by the neon lights running through it, to the lab.

I halted when I was about to pass a window, and looked outside at the Shinjuku district in Tokyo. The black rectangles of varying sizes which formed the skyline were lined with white and blue lights, flickering lightly, like tombstones with Christmas lights. The roads created a glowing grid throughout the technologically advanced capital. It almost appeared beautiful, if not for the dark clouds of pollution that were spraying acidic rain across the city, and across the deadened, infertile fields out of my view.

The seven Yggdrasil trees had been planted for this very reason-to cleanse the world's pollution and make it habitable once again. However, the pollution would not be lost, only concentrated in the roots of the trees. An estimated thousand years into the future, that high concentration of pollution would become a sentient being, with near infinite regenerative abilities. With no place in the food chain, it would try to find it, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.

Gungnir units were now stationed at as many Yggdrasil trees as possible, to destroy each Yggdrasil Core. However, tests have shown that destroying only the Yggdrasil Core is impossible without destroying a large scale of land with it, obliterating millions. My dad had sworn to find a solution to that dilemma, one that provided true justice for all, and I have sworn to carry out his will.

"Miss Irving, is it?"

I turned to the female voice, seeing a woman, a researcher, judging by her lab coat. Her right arm was in a thick cast, and the other held a messy clipboard tightly against her chest.

"Yes, that's me," I answered her, eyeing the cast. There wasn't a single signature on it, nor could I identify the material.

"It's time. You should hurry to Area I," she stated, giving me a tight smile.

We turned when we heard hurried footsteps echoing down the hallway. The researcher cursed, before she briskly walked away, still clutching the documents with a white-knuckled grip. I watched her disappear around a corner, but was then grabbed and forced to face a male researcher.

"WHERE IS SHE?!" he yelled at me.

"I-I dunno!" I squeaked. He growled in frustration, but let go of me and continued away in a hurry.

"M.I.K.E., who are they?" I whispered, walking away from the scene.

"They're researchers of the Eurasian Yggdrasil station, which does not have a Gungnir unit," M.I.K.E. answered into my earpiece. "They both have high degrees in genomics, but I believe it is more noteworthy that my sensors detected an abnormality in the woman's bandaged arm."

I hummed in thought, but could not debate any further, as I had reached Area I.

The steel doors opened, revealing the cold, silent chamber that would be my home for the next thousand years.

"Visil was supposed to be here," M.I.K.E. stated, but then focused on instructing me on how to put on my suit and connect all the correct valves to the capsule. I watched with bated breath as the lid closed on top of me, and listened carefully to the artificial intelligence's explanations.

"Are you ready, Ricky? Start counting up in intervals of seven. "

I nodded, shuffling to make myself a little more comfortable, and started counting out loud.

"Seven, fourteen, twenty-one, twenty-eight..."

"Commencing gas flow."

The sound of the soporific gas flowing into the capsule startled me a little, but I continued the numbers even as my eyelids started to grow heavy.

"Thirty-five, forty...three? No-two... Forty-nine..."

"Lowering temperature."

I felt goosebumps ride up and down my arms, making me shudder, but my eyes continued to close, my breathing becoming shallow, and I felt my heart slowing to a halt.

"Fifty-six... Fifty...no, sixty...sixty..."

"Sleep well, Ricky. I will be waiting for you to wake in a thousand years time."

I barely heard M.I.K.E.'s words, my eyes closed, my body frozen, and my heart motionless.

For a thousand years to come.

A/N: I imagined Ricky's era to be kinda Psycho-Pass level in technology.