by Jeff Hirsch
Amy pulled the door closed behind her, filling the gloom with the fog of her breath. She was out of the wind, but it was no warmer inside the facility. Luckily, she wouldn’t have to be there long. The seed vaults were about three hundred feet dead ahead, sealed off behind blast doors. Just to the right of the vaults was a small office for the staff. That’s where she was going.
Amy crept down the hallway with her nerves on high alert. She was painfully aware that she was in the perfect place to be ambushed. If Pierce’s men hit her now, there would be no escape and no witnesses.
The office was nothing more than a few desks and chairs with computers. A thermostat sat on one wall but there was no point turning the heat on. She’d be in and out before it even kicked in. Amy stripped off her gloves and hit the power button on the nearest terminal. The computer screen filled with unfamiliar icons and text in Norwegian. Not that it mattered. All she had to do was get online and download a program from a site Pony set up back in Attleboro. Once she did, the screen pulsed green three times and then a glowing green skull appeared along with the words YOU. HAVE. BEEN. PWNED!!!
Amy rolled her eyes and waited until the skull vanished, replaced by a green cursor.
Connected. Amy typed and hit SEND.
Minutes ticked by as she waited for a response. Amy cupped her bare fingers over her mouth and blew, eager for any bit of warmth. Come on, Pony. Where are you?
She glanced out into the hallway. It was empty but her pulse began to thump anyway. The quiet was intense, like being at the bottom of the sea. She could feel the entire mountain pressing down on her shoulders. Amy almost jumped when the computer pinged.
What’s up?
“He may be a genius,” Amy said out loud. “But his memory could clearly use a little work.”
The vault doors, she typed, with fingers already going stiff from the cold. Remember? You need to hack the system and find out where the silphium is, then open the vault door so I can get to it?
Right! Of course! I’m on it.
Pony returned a moment later. Vault #1-Row #8-Bin #63. There was a metallic ka-chunk out in the hallway. Amy peeked outside as one of the blast doors swung open.
You’re the best, Pony! Amy typed, but there was no response. That boy seriously needed to work on his social skills.
A blast of cold air hit Amy as soon as she stepped into vault number one. It was like standing in the middle of a supercharged freezer. Her breath rose in billows of white and the skin on her hands and face burned with the cold. Amy pulled her gloves back on and tightened the insulated hood across her face. I just have to get in and out, she thought.
The vault itself was as big as a football field, with thirty-foot ceilings. Blue shelving units ran the length of the floor and all the way up to the ceiling. Each one was packed with row after row of gray plastic bins.
Amy found her way to row eight and then ran its length until she came to bin sixty-three. Inside there were scores of aluminum packets, each one marked with the name of the seeds inside. Her cold fingers fumbled with the slick envelopes until she found what she was looking for. Amy pulled out the packet and held it up to read the label: Silphium. Five (5) seeds.
Gotcha, Amy thought.
“That was quite a stunt you pulled with those reporters.”
Amy whipped around to find a man standing at the end of the aisle, leaning casually against the shelves. He was tall and broad and dressed all in black gear, which made his shockingly blue eyes stand out all the more. Amy hid the silphium packet behind her. Her muscles tensed, ready to run.
“Luckily, we’re pretty adaptable,” he said with a shrug. “Traveling lighter now so we don’t raise any media eyebrows. Adapt or die. That’s the rule, right?”
The refrigeration units kicked on again with a loud blast of air, and the man turned. Amy exploded off the floor, swinging her backpack hard as she ran straight at him. It struck the man on his shoulder, taking him by surprise and knocking him back long enough for Amy to speed past him, arms pumping. The door was in sight. She’d be out in seconds and then she’d —
Amy hit what felt like a brick wall and went flying backward. She slammed into the floor and the package of silphium shot across the concrete. Another one of Pierce’s men stepped through the door, crossing his arms over his enormous chest.
The blue-eyed man laughed as he walked up behind Amy. “I said we were traveling lighter. You didn’t think that meant I was dumb enough to come all the way out here alone, did you?”
The mercenary by the door reached for the gun on his hip, but the blue-eyed man waved him away.
“Go get the truck.”
The massive man faded back into the corridor. Wind howled as the outer door opened and closed. The blue-eyed man took the package of silphium off the ground as he approached her.
“Why would you come all the way out here for a package of seeds?”
His eyes bored into Amy, but she said nothing. The man shrugged and tore the package open, upending it so the seeds fell out onto the concrete floor. He lifted his boot over the pile.
“No!” Amy rushed to stop him but it was too late. His boot heel fell. When he lifted it again, the seeds had been ground to dust.
Amy stared at the powder, a dark chasm yawning open inside of her. The next thing she knew the man grabbed her by the ankles and pulled her toward him. Amy struggled, but he was too strong. He held her down with one hand while he systematically stripped off her cold weather gear with the other.
“Now, let’s try and think of a good headline,” the blue-eyed man said as he gathered her gear into a ball and stuffed it into her backpack along with her phone and the rest of her supplies. “How about, Internationally Known Troublemaker Vandalizes Famed Landmark Only to Get Trapped and Freeze to Death.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Amy said as the man slung her pack over his shoulder and headed toward the door. “Please, listen to me. You can’t —”
The door slammed shut behind him. Amy leaped up and threw herself at it, pounding on the steel as the locks fell into place. “Wait! Please!”
The outer door closed with a deep boom and then there was silence. Amy slid down the length of steel door and hit the ground. The refrigeration system kicked on again, sending fingers of icy wind in all directions. The man had left her in a thin sweater and thermals. No coat. No hood. No gloves. No snow pants. She could feel her skin freezing and then the cold sinking deeper, reaching out for bone. Amy wrapped her arms around herself as she looked across the concrete-and-steel vault that would be her tomb.
Amy got to her feet and walked the perimeter of the vault, shivering as she examined every corner of her prison. She felt a moment of excitement when she found a refrigeration duct within reach. Maybe she could crawl through it and out into the main office, where she could crank up the heat. But that dream was dashed. The slotted steel cover on the vent was bolted down, and her freezing fingers couldn’t so much as budge it.
Another burst of hope came when she discovered a computer terminal fixed to a back wall, but all it seemed to do was search the seed database. It had no control over the doors and wasn’t connected to the Internet.
Amy fumbled with the mouse next to the terminal and started clicking through menus in Norwegian, her hands so cold she could barely control them. She stumbled upon a map of all the computers inside the facility. There were notations for three computers sitting in a row, which must have been three terminals inside the vaults, and then four together in a separate location. Those must be the office! Amy had to use her palm to move the mouse. Her hands were growing more and more numb, making her fingers thick and heavy. She rubbed her hands together and tried again, clicking on each computer in turn until her screen went black and a small green cursor appeared at the bottom. Got it!
Pony! she typed. 911. Emergency. Trapped in the vault. Need help!
Amy hit SEND, then stood back from the computer, hugging herself and stamping her feet to fight the cold. Come on
, Pony. Come on. The refrigeration cycled on again, sending a cruel blast of freezing air over her body. Tremors shook her arms and shoulders.
Amy knew she couldn’t stay still any longer, she had to get her body temperature up. She moved away from the terminal and started jogging around the shelves, her white breath trailing behind her. As she ran, Amy worked through every escape she had made over the last few years. How many hopeless situations had she found her way out of at the last second? A hundred? More? One of them had to have something in common with where she found herself now, one of them would offer her a solution, an escape. But every scenario she came up with hit a wall. Why? What was the difference between now and then? In answer, a single word dropped into her mind.
Dan, she thought. He was the difference. Dan and Jake and Atticus and Ian and Hamilton. I wasn’t alone then.
Amy pushed the thought out of her head. Having other people here wouldn’t make the vault any less escape-proof, all it would do was get the people she loved killed alongside her. Amy forced herself to take another lap around the vault. She could feel how much slower she was already. Her legs felt thick and numb, and the cold seared her lungs with every breath.
As Amy came back around toward the computer terminal, she stumbled and went crashing into the concrete. She got her hands under her and pushed, but the cold was creeping into her arms. Come on, Cahill, she insisted. Push yourself up. You can do it. Amy strained, but her arms were shaking so badly now that the best she could do was throw herself onto her side and then slowly curl up to a seated position, with her back against an icy wall. The terminal was just a few yards away. The screen was black, nothing but her own words mocking her on the screen.
Amy pulled her knees up to her chest, hugging them close to her chest, trying to trap every degree of heat. The shivering was growing more intense, almost like convulsions now. She tried to still it, but it was no use. She felt as if she were trapped within a fist of ice. The tips of her ears stung badly, as if a small creature were gnawing at them with needle teeth. Most alarming were the itchy spots of red growing along her fingertips. It was the beginning of frostbite. In a short time, her skin would harden and blister. Then the red would turn to black, and her fingers would be gone.
Amy tucked her hands in her armpits and dropped her forehead to her knees. She wondered where Dan and the others were right then. Maybe swimming in the Mediterranean? She could almost feel the warmth of the water and the weightless feeling of floating in it, under that intense blue sky. Amy’s eyelids began to droop and she felt a strange sensation in the back of her mind, like the approach of a dark storm front. It wasn’t frightening, though. In fact, Amy could tell that when the mass of roiling black clouds finally overtook her, she would feel calm and at peace. She would simply drift away.
A voice in the back of her head urged her up, reminding her that Pierce was still out there, that she had to stop him, but that voice seemed to grow fainter and fainter. Soon it was little more than a whisper.
Amy’s hand slipped and hit the concrete with a bony crack. She hissed in pain, then tried to lift it again, but it was so heavy. Her whole body was. She had never felt so sleepy. Maybe if she rested for a little while . . .
There was a metallic ping somewhere far away. It was muffled, like a bell wrapped in layers of cotton, but it persisted. At first the sound was only a tiny prick against Amy’s skin, but it sank in like a hook, dragging Amy up through layers of darkness. The ping grew louder. Something in the refrigeration ducts? Amy gritted her teeth. One ping every few seconds. Amy got her eyes open a slit and searched the vault. The ping sounded again and this time she saw the computer screen brighten as it did.
A flare lit inside Amy and she seized it before it went out. She began to move, slow and dumb, each turn of her joints a rusty torment, but she was moving. She dug her spine into the wall behind her and flexed her legs until she began to rise. She made it up, trembling, and planted a palm flat on the wall. She staggered forward, the whole time feeling like there was an anchor attached to her chest, trying to pull her down. Amy kept her eyes locked on the computer, and her brother’s image fixed in her mind.
The computer pinged again.
“Coming,” Amy said, her voice slurry and indistinct. “I’m coming. . . .”
Amy collapsed into the wall beside the computer. A message flashed on the screen. What’s going on? Where are you?
Amy lifted her hands to the keyboard. The red splotches covered her fingers now and were creeping up to her knuckles. Her hands were as numb as lumps of clay. She lifted one hand with the other and set a finger down on key after key.
Valt 1. dor lcked. Need u to opn
Amy mashed ENTER, then slumped against the wall beside the terminal, staring at the blinking cursor until her eyes closed again and the dark pulled at her. The refrigeration system roared again, sending icy needles into the air. Hurry, Pony, Amy thought as her eyes drooped. Hurry.
There was a click across the room. Amy’s eyes snapped open and she turned toward it. The door was open. Amy pushed off from the wall, reeled across the space, and threw herself into the hallway.
The office. Pierce’s men had smashed the computer monitors before they left, but she didn’t care about them. Amy crashed through the desks until she got to the far wall and reached for the thermostat. Her fingers hit shards of glass and broken plastic. Wires hung uselessly from the wall.
. . . troublemaker vandalizes famed landmark . . .
Amy turned away, a sound bubbling up inside her, something between laughter and a sob. The animal strangeness of the sound terrified her. She lurched away from the wall, trying to get her thoughts in order. They needed to make it look like an accident, she thought. Like I came here and got careless. Maybe that means they left behind . . .
Her backpack sat on one of the tables and her coat hung from the back of the chair. She fumbled with the coat, able to summon enough strength to get her arms through it and lift the hood, but not enough to work the zipper. The two sides of the coat hung limp, away from her body, nearly useless. She jammed her frozen hands into the gloves, expecting a surge of warmth now that she was dressed, but none came. Her body was so cold that the coat and gloves had no heat to trap.
Amy went for her backpack next but wasn’t surprised to find that her phone was gone, along with all of her other supplies. Her frozen hand hit a padded envelope, and it was like a tuning fork was struck inside her. She pulled it out and opened it. Sammy’s vial of serum was tucked inside. Amy stared at it as she shivered. One drink and she could probably sprint back to the airport but she knew the serum wouldn’t just save her. It would make her into a monster, too. A monster like Pierce.
Amy thrust the serum into the pack and made it back out into the corridor, pulling herself toward the outer door. The hallway offered shelter, but it was still so cold inside that all it would do was kill her marginally more slowly. If she wanted to live, she needed to find help. Fast.
Amy threw her shoulder into the door, digging her feet into the concrete until the door gave and she fell out onto the roadway. She hit the ground hard and rolled, tipping over the edge of a hill and tumbling down an embankment. Outcroppings of stone struck her back and arms as she fell, but with the numbness she barely felt them.
Amy hit bottom and lay puffing on her back, the wind blowing across her body, carrying away any scrap of heat she had left. Have to keep going. Keep moving. She made herself roll over and climb onto her feet. It was night now and the snow was swirling around her, a white fog in the blackness. When Amy turned around, she couldn’t even see the vault entrance or the aqua glow of its marker.
The wind howled in her ears and bit at her body. Though most of the landscape had been wiped away, Amy could make out a flat depression in the white, like a ribbon that ran down and around the mountain. A road? But to where? Amy felt sure she knew, but her brain was running as thick as sludge and no answer came.
Amy turned south toward an outcropping of dark st
ructures down the hill. They appeared and disappeared in the drifting snow but she was sure she made out walls and roofs. Surely she could reach them and then someone would help her. Take her in. Just like Bhaile Anois. Everything became perfectly clear in an instant. And now that she looked at the buildings more closely, the buildings weren’t dark at all, were they? There were lights on, warm amber lamps glowing in the windows and the doorways. And couldn’t she smell the woodsy plume of chimney smoke and cooking fires? She could hear the warm din of voices, all talking excitedly over one another.
The sounds reached into Amy and pulled. She yanked her foot up out of a shin-deep drift and got moving. Her pace was agonizingly slow as she fought the snow and the darkness and the wind striking her with all its force.
Amy pulled a last bit of strength from the wispy images of all her friends waiting for her down below. Dan. Atticus. Jake. Ian.
Evan.
Amy’s mind hitched at the name, struck by the strangeness of it. A nagging voice in the back of her mind told her that Evan couldn’t be there, but she didn’t know why. How could Evan be gone when his face was so clear in her mind? When she could hear his voice, as clear as if he was standing right beside her? Amy lowered her head into the wind and marched through the snow, the promise of seeing Evan like a fire, urging her onward.
Time passed strangely, stretching and contracting, speeding up and then slowing to a numbing crawl. Amy barely even felt the cold anymore. Her body didn’t shake. In fact, a strange warmth was growing in her. Her gloves fell off her hands and her coat slipped from her shoulders and dropped into the snow. She left it behind and continued on. She didn’t need it anymore. She would be home soon.