Children of the Cryozoic

Short story based on the short film "Aletsch Negative" by Laurence Bonvin

.incipit: "The woman is silent at the other end of the room. She sits on a worn leather sofa. She keeps her distance. But she's watching you handle the camera she's just lent you. Her eyes shine above her protective mask. A few blonde strands escape from her woolly cap. She adjusts the sides of her coat around her torso to keep it warm. Someone has fixed a turquoise crystal chandelier to the room's ceiling; set up a few sofas, a steel coffee table, a gas stove, two cans of water, a box of preserves, otherwise nothing: no glass on the windows, no doors, a cement floor, rough concrete walls. Through the window frames, the night blows its unfinished thoughts. Light shines through the crystals, drawing hundreds of criss-crossing, blurred patterns on the walls. An orange cable feeds the chandelier; it runs across the ceiling, hanging from hooks, under the door lintel and into the corridor. There must be a generator somewhere on the roof of this building under construction. You don't know that. You just got here. We told you she was here; the programmer, the drone pilot..."