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"The world is really so surreal these days that it's necessary for us to blunt it somehow in order to stay sane. The artist functions to short-circuit the buffering mechanism, so that people can occasionally perceive the weirdness of things as they are."
- William Gibson

Cold-Pack  
  Technology for indefinite cold storage of human beings.  

Parsons said, "How long has this man been in the cube?"

"He has been dead for thirty-five years," Loris said matter-of-factly.

Parson's said, "...Can he be brought out of the cold-pack?"

"Yes," Helmar said. "For no more than half an hour at a time, however..."

Now the cube had been opened by Lodge technicians. The cold-pack was being sucked out greedily by plastic suction tendrils. In a moment the body would be exposed...

"He will warm rapidly," Helmar grated. "It's no form of refrigeration you're familiar with. Molecular velocity has not been reduced. It has been differently phased."

Technovelgy from Dr. Futurity, by Philip K. Dick.
Published by Ace Books in 1960
Additional resources -

Compare with cold-sleep from Heinlein's 1951 novel Between Planets as well as bibs, from Dick's 1964 story Cantata 140.

Compare to the space capsule from E.R. James' 1954 story of the same name and to the escape pod from George Lucas' 1976 story Star Wars.

Compare to the frigorific process from The Senator's Daughter (1879) by Edward Page Mitchell, cold-sleep from Robert Heinlein's Methuselah's Children (1941), stasis from Heinlein's Door Into Summer (1951), the adiabatic pods from The Lady Who Sailed The Soul (1960) by Cordwainer Smith, corpsicle from Pohl's The Age of the Pussyfoot (1965), the hibernaculum from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) by Arthur C. Clarke, cryosleep from Flight of Exiles (1972) by Ben Bova and the EverRest Cryotorium from Roger Zelazny's Flare (1992).

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Dr. Futurity
  More Ideas and Technology by Philip K. Dick
  Tech news articles related to Dr. Futurity
  Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick

Cold-Pack-related news articles:
  - Injectable Ice Slurry To Cool Organs
  - Neither Dead Nor Alive - But Not In Suspended Animation
  - EPR Is Quick, Temporary Biostasis

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