Zero State

by Jameson Kowalczyk

  "We're friends," he said. "Before anything else we're friends. I want what's good for you. And I can't be too mad at Holden, I like the guy."

  She smiled. "I'm cutting that bun off the top of your head the moment you get back," she said.

  "I miss you."

  "I miss you too."

  CHAPTER 40

  Logan stepped out of the tunnel and into the midnight sunshine of the white continent. The digital readout on the inside of his goggles told him it was twenty-nine below zero. Wind chill would have taken off another fifteen degrees, but that wasn't a factor at the moment. The air was calm, not even a breeze.

  Practically warm out, he thought.

  He waved a gloved hand across a reader embedded on one of the massive doors. Sewn into the palm of the glove was a radio frequency identification chip—or RFID chip—a tiny electronic capsule no bigger than an aspirin that was programmed as a key. One pass of the chip would open or close the door. This was a better solution than fumbling with zippers and pockets trying to remove an actual key, or trying to punch in a passcode while wearing thick gloves and possibly shaking from the cold.

  The massive doors folded closed. Logan clipped in to his snowshoes and moved up the ramp, onto the ice-covered flat of the valley. The mountains at the edges looked distant and cold. The frozen bodies scattered across the battlefield were now mostly ice-covered lumps after two storms that had rolled through in the previous weeks. Logan was grateful for this.

  He stopped at the armory shed and chose a rifle from the rack, tucking three spare ammo mags into the pockets on his outer layer. He was traveling light. Four weeks ago he'd have taken four times as much ammo, but back then he'd been living on that razor's edge between paranoid and prepared. A firearm always within reach, and a blade in case an attack came from real up close. Never going outside without a breaching kit and two backups ready if the staff decided to lock the place down while he was outside.

  Now he was a lot less paranoid and a lot more prepared.

  Years ago, he'd had a martial arts instructor who'd described training for hand-to-hand combat as "preparing for a test you hope to never take." Logan had been doing a lot of that over the past month.

  He'd programmed his own security system, similar to the one at his apartment.

  He'd spent hours familiarizing himself with the terrain surrounding the facility and planned a dozen different escape routes that he'd stocked with enough clothing, food, and gear for every member of the staff.

  He'd been keeping up a punishing strength training routine at the facility's gym.

  He'd been spending an hour a day beating on a heavy bag and another hour practicing with a knife on a dummy he'd made out of foam mattresses and duct tape.

  Healing accelerants had helped his bruises fade and his strained tendons heal and his fractures knit. His muscles had grown thick and so had the layer of fat covering them. He'd trained himself to move quickly and easily across the snow and ice and hills that surrounded the facility.

  He moved quickly and easily now. Away from the shed. Away from the vents and the prefabricated buildings that reminded him of shipping containers. Not pushing his pace, keeping his heart rate and breathing well below threshold.

  He clicked a button on the small remote control stuffed inside his left mitten. A new piece of data appeared inside his goggles. A red pin marking a location he'd input into the goggle's GPS app before coming outside. The pin had a number next to it, showing the distance. One kilometer.

  He began to move.

  ***

  Fifteen minutes later, the kilometer had zeroed out and Logan stood above the torpedo-shaped body of a crashed swarm drone.

  The drones were programmed to descend and land when fuel ran out, but this one had hit the ground harder than its designers had intended, and one of the wings had been torn off and was jutting from the snow a few meters away.

  Logan lit a chemtorch and cut off the remaining wing, the task routine at this point, his hand practiced. During his first days here, as he took inventory of the weapons at his disposal, as he tried to come up with plan of how he would defend himself and the facility and the CDC staff if they were attacked, his mind had turned to the swarm drones. To the guns and heavy caliber rounds and high-explosive rounds that were still out there in the snow. He'd asked Zoe for a list of the last known locations of all fifty drones, the last burst of GPS data the drones had coughed out before dropping from the sky and going dark. Zoe had provided.

  So far, Logan had located eighteen.

  This one was number nineteen.

  He tossed the wing aside and went to work with something called an Arctic Entrenchment Tool, a variation of the short-handled shovels that had been issued to soldiers since the days of the Roman legions. This one had several modifications that made it suited for used in the extreme cold. Most entrenchment tools Logan had seen during his career had a hinge at the top of the handle, so the shovel blade could be folded down to make the tool easier to stow. But this entrenchment tool had no hinge, no moving parts that could freeze in place or break from the subzero cold. It was two pieces that fit together in a T. The top part was a shovel blade and pickaxe connected by a ring that the handle fit into. The result looked like a hybrid of a shovel and a hatchet.

  It was another ten minutes of work to free the drone from the ice and snow that had frozen it in place. Logan fired up the chemtorch again and made more cuts, removing whole sections from the body of the aircraft. He was careful to keep the flame away from the magazine where the high-explosive rounds were stored. He was also careful to keep the flame away from the guns and targeting system, which was the whole reason he was out here.

  Logan moved the truncated body of the drone onto a sled. The sled was a thin sheet of material with a web of straps to hold cargo in place, and another strap that went around Logan's waist so the sled could be dragged behind him. It was basically the same as a piece of exercise equipment Logan had used from time to time, and it felt the same. The muscles of his quads and glutes burned as he dragged the drone forward, toward the next red pin on the inside of his goggles.

  ***

  The added weight meant that the trip back took longer than the trip out. Logan crossed the frozen battlefield and threaded between the facility's aboveground buildings and vents and comm towers. Then, into the open valley on the other side. Sign posts with orange blazes led away from the facility. There was still no wind and visibility was good. He could clearly discern the dome-shaped huts of an abandoned campsite in the distance.

  ***

  It was a different campsite than the one he'd woken up in a month ago, after he'd been pulled from the crevasse by his still-unknown rescuer. From what he could tell, that campsite had been used as living quarters and this one had been used for storage. The huts here were bigger and colder, with less insulation lining the walls.

  Logan pulled the door shut. He unbuckled his snowshoes and went around the dome, turning on heat lamps. When he was warm enough, he removed his hood, goggles, and mask. He removed his mittens, but did not remove the gloves he wore underneath—the metal body of the drone would be cold enough to burn his skin if he touched it barehanded.

  He opened a toolbox. The pneumatic wrench he needed was on top. He felt like he was on the verge of sweating, so he pulled off his parka and hung it on a peg. He knelt beside the drone and began to disassemble it. The first half-dozen times he'd done this he'd had to consult a diagram, but by now he had the process memorized.

  He removed a plate, exposing the guts of the weapon. He placed the pneumatic wrench aside and picked up a screwdriver. A few turns and the torpedo-shaped body of the drone opened like a clamshell.

  A quick glance told Logan there were between seventy-five and a hundred rounds of ammunition left in the magazine, along with two high-explosive rounds.

  He continued to work, stripping off layers as he began to sweat under the heat lamps, his knees going numb fro
m kneeling on the ground.

  ***

  The wind had picked up in the hours he'd been away. Logan found fresh footprints in the snow around the armory shed and tracks from cross-country skis leading off into the valley. He followed the tracks to the facility's unofficial property line. In the near distance, he saw two figures gliding across the snow. They were dressed the same as he was—bulky parkas with hoods, insulated overalls, masks and goggles covering their faces, thick mittens over their hands, packs and rifles on their backs.

  They saw him too, and waved. He waved back. They were too far away for him to recognize by sight, but he knew it was Felix and Jackie, both taking a well-earned day off, heading off to explore a landscape only a few hundred people had ever seen. They'd discussed this plan yesterday, at breakfast.

  Logan watched them a moment longer. Then he turned and walked to the ramp and down. The massive doors groaned and parted after he waved his mittened palm in front of the chip reader. He stepped inside, his mind on a hot cup of coffee.

  CHAPTER 41

  Felix watched Jackie glide across the snow ahead of him. Her body was shapeless, buried under three layers of clothing, but he could picture every curve, every contour, every inch of toned muscle and soft skin that he'd gotten to know over the past nine months. He had few illusions that this would be a lasting relationship, and she had even fewer. He was twice her age and she was far too logical, far too left-brained for those kinds of romantic imaginings. That may have been one of the reasons she'd paired off with him in the first place. They could enjoy one another—physically, emotionally, intellectually—but the age gap gave the whole thing a built-in breakage point, a limitation on how serious things could get. Right now, it worked because they were living in isolation at the end of the earth, cut off from the practicalities of real life, including the future.

  That would change the day they left this place.

  She sometimes teased that he was her teddy bear, here to keep her warm during the long bright winter, and in the end that was probably all he would be. Felix was okay with that. He expected his heart would ache when it ended—unlike Jackie, he wasn't too logical or left brained for romantic imaginings—but he was okay with that too. At his age, that kind of heartache was something to be cherished.

  Jackie had been good for him. He'd gone through a divorce the year before and a serious bout with depression in the months that followed. During that time he'd packed on weight. He'd stopped sleeping. He'd been consumed with anxiety over the past and fear about the future. The sum total of what he'd accomplished with his forty-seven years of life seemed so much less than all the things he had failed to do, and the things it was too late to do. The thirty or so years of life that remained seemed pointless, promising more of the same, only now he was older and in terrible shape and he'd lost the ability to convince himself that the future held anything good.

  But then there was Jackie, with her young body and brilliant mind. The fact that she found value in his company, that she went to bed with him again and again, had proved false every dismal thought that had haunted his mind. Even if his future would be shorter than his past, whatever years he had left were filled with possibilities. Amazing possibilities.

  Jackie had been good for him, and Antarctica had been good for him too. He'd been fascinated by science fiction as far back as he could remember. He'd spent his boyhood and adolescence immersed in endless novels, TV shows, movies, and comic books. Stories about scientists and astronauts and explorers. These stories had motivated him to study hard for his chemistry and biology and physics exams in high school, which had directed the path of his secondary education and then his career.

  In the midst of his post-divorce depression, Felix had come across a book he'd read a dozen times as a teenager, but hadn't looked at in twenty years and hadn't thought about in at least ten. It was a cheap paperback about a team of scientists stranded on an ice-covered planet. He'd sat on the floor of the furniture-less townhouse his ex-wife had moved out of and read the book cover to cover. Then he'd searched job listings. Ten days later he had his first interview with the CDC. Four months after that he was boarding a plane, the cheap paperback novel packed in his carry-on bag. It was strange, how the answers you sought in the present were so often found in the past.

  He'd spent the first half of his life dreaming of adventure on alien landscapes. Now, approaching fifty, he was here. Antarctica was as alien a landscape as you could find without leaving the planet. It hadn't been too late for this dream. He still had lots of living to do.

  He followed Jackie, their skis gliding over the frozen surface of the earth. They were ten kilometers away from the facility, in the foothills of the valley's surrounding mountains, moving toward a mountain passage that would take them into the next valley. Their destination was a dormant volcano, roughly another five kilometers away. When they reached the base of the volcano, they would swap the skis and ski poles for crampons and ice axes.

  Felix looked to his right and saw the area of the valley floor that was rough with the bodies of the people Logan had killed on his way in. He and Jackie had given that section of ground a wide berth on their way out. He'd been down there two weeks earlier, lured by morbid curiosity, and it was a horror show. Passing through would have been no way to start a romantic adventure.

  He turned away and focused on his form, marveling at how strong his legs felt. The nine months he'd spent here had transformed his body from dough into granite. Disconnected from the obligations of everyday life and confined to the underground facility, exercise became a priority, an escape, a necessity. He spent hours lifting weights and punching a heavy bag. He practiced yoga with his coworkers. He learned how to cross country ski. He learned basic mountaineering. The training turned his body hard and the calorie-dense foods kept his muscles thick and the person he'd been before coming here became a distant memory.

  They moved deeper into the foothills, walls of ice and rock crowding in around them. The wind rose up and died down.

  He followed Jackie, matching her form, thinking about her naked skin and the smell of her sweat. She was a meter ahead of him.

  What happened next felt like a steel fist driving through his guts. The force of the impact was a heavy whump that he felt in his heart and the base of his skull. Red sprayed across the back of Jackie's parka. Some of the red stained her back and hood. Some of it froze in midair and bounced off like hail.

  Felix felt the cold reaching inside him, felt warmth bubbling out through his shredded parka. His knees bent and he slid backward, still balanced on his skis, before twisting and falling onto his side. The snow was red with blood turning to ice, and littered with pale pink chunks of tissue that were shrinking and hardening as they froze. He hugged his arms over his lower abdomen, trying to hold in the pieces of himself that were still inside.

  All of this in the span of two or three seconds.

  Jackie turned and saw him and screamed.

  Another two or three seconds while she processed what was happening, while her mind moved past the shock and confusion of the sudden appearance of so much blood.

  She kicked free of her skis, knelt next to him.

  Behind her, two figures emerged from the surrounding landscape, rising up from the space where two hills folded into one another. The figures were dressed head-to-toe in white, their faces hidden behind goggles and masks. They carried white rifles. White wraiths on a white landscape.

  They've been waiting out here, watching us approach, waiting for us to get close, Felix thought, and he felt the cold reach deeper.

  He tried to shout a warning, to tell Jackie to turn, to draw her rifle, to fight, to run, to leave him here and save herself. But all he managed was a wheezing breath flavored with the coppery taste of blood. He could feel bullet fragments embedded in his lungs turning to ice-metal.

  The wraiths moved closer.

  Jackie had her hands on him, trying to get a look at the wound. He grunte
d, still urging her to turn and look.

  One of the wraiths grabbed a fistful of Jackie's hood. Jackie was yanked back, thrown to the ground, kicked hard in the guts. A knife appeared in the wraith's white-gloved hand. Jackie remained curled around her crushed abdomen as the straps of her pack and rifle were cut.

  Felix tried to stand, but there was no sensation below his chest. It was like he'd been sawn in half. He lay in the snow, unable to move, forced to watch what happened next.

  Jackie was forced up onto her knees. Her wrists were bound behind her back using one of the straps that had been cut from her pack.

  The wraith asked Jackie a question.

  Felix's hearing was muffled by his hood and the mask he wore underneath and the low howl of the wind.

  Whatever the question was, Jackie gave no response, not even a shake of her head.

  The wraith went to work with the knife, cutting into Jackie's parka and tearing it away in fistfuls of polyester and insulation. Underneath, Jackie wore a thin fleece.

  A gust of wind tore through the foothills. Jackie shivered as the temperature plummeted with wind chill.

  The wind died down. The wraith asked another question. This time, Felix could make out some of what was being said.

  The wraith's voice sounded female. She asked Jackie a question about a door. How to open a door. Felix understood what they wanted—to get inside the facility.

  Jackie shook her head.

  Tell them, Felix thought.

  He grunted.

  Pried a hand away from the frosty gash on his stomach.

  Held up the mitten with the RFID chip sewn into the lining.

  Beckoned the wraiths' attention.

  The wraiths watched him. Ignored him.

  The female cut away Jackie's fleece and pulled off Jackie's mask, exposing bare skin to the heinous temperature. Jackie's lips and face were pale blue, her blood retreating inward in a desperate attempt to keep the heart alive. Her shoulders shook uncontrollably. He knew the initial stages of frostbite were spreading across her bare skin. Within minutes, her nose and ears would be dead tissue. He imagined what she would look like without a nose and ears. He screamed, coughing blood into his mask.