Lady Luck

The first light that entered his eyes were a dull orange, DO NOT PANIC written in large letters but the lighting not quite right. Like the lit up letters were at the bottom of a swimming pool instead of in air.

Then he released they looked that way because that's exactly where the letters were- and where he was. Suspending in some sort of fluid that felt like a slightly thicker take on water, he panics- completely ignoring the sign. He looks around- but the fluid seems to fill the little room entirely. Bare except for himself and the sign, the room appeared off-white and not adequately lit while being completely in cased. No exit! No air! He was going to drown! He was going to die!

"Do not panic" says a female voice, broad-casted into the room and sounding like it's under water, "It's a smart fluid, even if it wasn't purposely formulated to give your lungs oxygen to breathe the nanites in it would take oxygen there. Just relax, and breathe."

Is she insane? You can't breathe liquids that's just. . .oh! You can breath this. He relaxes and breathes the fluid deeply and slowly. Now that she mentioned it, it feels nice and warm too.

"That's it, good- now. What is your name?"

He considers it for a moment, and the fear raises back up as he responds, "I remember it started with a J- but beyond that, nothing."

"We were afraid of that, but not all that surprised. Anything you can tell us?"

He looks around- eventually leading to downward to which he responds with a bit of a chuckle, "Nothing really, just that I'm pretty sure that last time I looked down I didn't have washboard abs and this monster of a dick."

"Yeah, that kind of just happened. You don't remember anything else?" the female voice asks.

"Not a thing. I remember how to speak this language, what it's called, my vocabulary. . .but nothing else."

"Damn, better explain then. We're thinking that about 80 years ago there was. . .a war, if you can call it that. As far as we can tell it only lasted a couple hours, but in those couple hours we say the nations of the world unleash nuclear, biological, chemical, mimetic, and quantum weapons. The human race went from about 10 billion to about 1.5 billion in one year. And the survivors were damaged- there hasn't been a year of positive population growth sense."

"Damn, how many of us are left?"

"About 2 million, almost all of them women- a couple of the biological weapons targeted the y-gene. Enough men survived that the species is still going on- but the population is going to get a lot smaller before it levels out."

He's silent as he takes it in, the female voice deciding to lighten the conversation a bit.

"Hey, it could be worse. Welcome to the Lady Luck. We're a scavenger ship, we look for things that have survived the war and take them back to Utopia. A crew of 4, well 5 now including you, we can be pretty much anywhere on the planet in an hour and can hold enough fuel to make it to Mars if we don't mind not being able to make the return trip. A couple days ago we found a mother lode- an old cryogenics lab. Lots of viable DNA that we can use, and in one case we found a head that was actually in good enough condition that with a couple days in a protein and nanite bath. . ."

"And that was me."

"Grown from scratch, based on your own DNA- and grown very well I may add. The nanites are at a point where they are just error checking, a hatch should open in a couple hours when they give the all clear."

"Thank you," is all he can really say in response. Brought back to life in a perfect body was great, fantastic even. Still, if this is the state of the world. . .