Going Back Cold

by Kelley Rose Waller

  “I want to get it authorized,” Trevor hissed. “That’s my point. He lived down here for four months, come on, what is the difference now? Bonnie, if you wanted to get this done, you could.”

  Jane finally spoke up. “Let’s think about this, Bon,” she said. “A few calls might not be so hard to work out. We’re not talking some controversial superpower, Bon. Rich is doing his work for Australia.”

  After a long pause, Bonnie sighed. “Fine. Thank you for the idea, Trevor. It’s nice when people can admit their personal shortcomings and ask for help. I will see if Rich is available to bail you out.”

  Trevor’s silent snarl was as cold as the South Pole as he kicked the door shut behind his exit.

  Chapter 28

  A month later, they were halfway through their season. Ana whistled as she left her office. Skyping with her husband Ian always filled her with pride and hope. Dámaris was having some private time to talk with her dad now.

  Probably bragging about school and tattling on any bad language she’s overheard, Ana chuckled to herself. She thought of her own stack of school books sitting back home, unneeded. She’d completed her thesis, based on some wild ideas for the future of the Split Horizon technology. Defending it between this year and next was all she needed to add those coveted three letters after her name.

  By this time next year, she thought, I'd better be the other “Doctor McDell.”

  “Ready to get suited up, Ana?” Hal asked as he approached her from down the curved hallway.

  “Is it that time already?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied.

  “Onward, then, Hal,” Ana said. She tapped on the door’s small window and blew a goodbye kiss to Dám, who waved in reply.

  Ana layered clothes and secured her beacon for the meteorological adventure ahead. Her request for an additional team member at The Dome had been denied, but four cutting-edge meteorological robots on loan from MacTown certainly wasn’t no response.

  Maybe we'll end this next flight with less of a bang, yeesh, she thought. Everyone was itching to get two more tests in before the winter closed in and sent them home.

  “Who else is coming?” Ana asked Hal as they stepped out of The Dome.

  “Just Peter and Sim,” he replied. “No fun this time, just business.”

  “Right, it’s all ‘business’ for three young men to ride around on snowmobiles on the sunniest day of the week.”

  “Young?” Hal said. “Woo, I’ll leave you a tip for that one, missy.”

  Ana laughed and waved to their companions as she entered the hanger.

  “I’ve got the gear loaded,” Sim said. “Here’s your headset.”

  “Thanks,” Ana said, sliding it on and fitting her helmet over the slim piece of technology. She pulled out her tablet, verifying by checklist that everything in the crates was in order. When she was satisfied that Sim had, of course, packed everything correctly on the trailers that would be pulled behind himself and Peter, she gave a thumbs up.

  “Good to go!”

  She climbed up behind Hal. All three engines started in unison and the group rode out in a line. Ana knew Hal was being cautious for her sake, so she tapped the button on her forearm.

  “Hey, Hal?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What do you think’s heavier, me or the gear that Peter and Sim are hauling?”

  “What? Heavier? The gear for sure,” he replied.

  “Then let’s make ‘em eat dust!”

  Hal gave a happy hoot and opened the throttle. Ana grinned as the landscape flew by. She heard Peter quip in her ear, “Yeah, yeah, very nice, they say we’re hauling cargo worth $20 million, and off she flies!”

  Their snowmobile was at the destination several minutes before Peter and Sim crested the final hill, so Hal let Ana enjoy some solo hopping around. She asked him to take pictures so she could prove to Ian later how brave she was, down here on the bottom of the world.

  If it wasn’t so cold, I would take my helmet off so my hair could blow in the wind, she thought, smiling.

  When Sim and Peter arrived with their still-safe cargo, Ana reluctantly went back to business, methodically unloading the meteorological equipment, item by item.

  “I asked for a meteorologist, and I got a robot squadron,” she said inside her helmet where no one could hear her. “I feel a Hoth reference coming on... What's that? A droid of some kind. I didn't hit it that hard. It must've had a self-destruct.”

  “Are you talking to yourself?” Peter asked. “Because we can all hear you.”

  “Oh really? Sorry!” Ana said, laughing. “The nerd strikes out. Lucas and Jane would have laughed.”

  “It's a good bet the Empire knows we're here,” Hal said, finishing the quote to Ana's surprise and delight.

  “Imperial probe droids aside, we’ve got three more stations to go, Ana,” Peter said. “Anything we can do to help?”

  “Sure, there’s actually a breakdown of the assembly for a team of four, aren’t we lucky?” she said, sending a duty list to each man. “Have at it, boys.”

  “Ah, I wondered why you asked me to drive you,” Hal said. “Hand me a wrench.”

  “Why did these have to be assembled out here? Can’t they move?” Peter asked as he opened the first crate.

  “Yes,” Ana explained, “but so slowly it would have been a huge waste of time and energy to make ‘em walk out.”

  “Gotcha.”

  After a half hour, Sim announced his task was complete by walking the heavy base of the first robot over to Ana and hefting it at her feet.

  “Great work, thanks, Sim. Want to hand me item 443-F? Then I’m good, too. Who has the mid-section?”

  “Almost ready,” Hal replied.

  The attachment of the four parts was complicated and Ana wished they’d been able to do it in the warm base. Finally, she stood back.

  “Well, light it up,” she said, directing Sim to activate the power source.

  Obediently, the robot blinked to life, making a soft hum as things inside its heavily insulated body woke up. Lights illuminated on Ana’s control panel as she reached for the radio.

  “Cheyenne, can you hear me?” Ana asked. “The first weatherbot's online.”

  “Everything looks good. Receiving on all counts,” Cheyenne replied a moment later.

  “Good work team! All systems go, and on the first try!” Ana said.

  “Three more, right?” Peter asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good, then when we’re done, we’ll race you back to The Dome and see who can keep up with who!”

  Chapter 29

  Lucas watched Jane work. He’d always enjoyed her concentration.

  That evening, he was watching her lips move as she partially mouthed whatever she was typing. He saw her jaw muscles tighten when she was frustrated by the results on the screen. He smiled when she re-tied her ponytail for the hundredth time. When they started working together, he’d teased her that she was trying to squeeze more ideas out of her brain with each tightening of her hair.

  She stood up and flexed her back, leaning side to side. Last season, he’d watched her prance in place dozens of times as she tried to stretch work sessions between bathroom breaks. The memory made him sigh.

  “Jane?”

  “Mmhmm?” his wife replied without looking over at him.

  “Jane?”

  “What? Yes?” she asked, actually changing her focus to him this time.

  “I love you.”

  She cocked her head to the side and walked over to him.

  “How are you doing?” he asked.

  “Good,” she said. “I have an idea I want to run by Trevor.”

  “You’ve solved it?”

  “Solved it? I don’t know about that. But at least I have an idea.” She pointed to her ponytail, and he laughed, knowing what she meant. “Anything on your end?”

  Lucas squished up his face and tugged his hair back animatedly, then dropped his hands
to his side and said, “It just won’t work for me.”

  Jane smiled and sat down in his lap, reaching down to gently pull his arms around her.

  “So, how are you doing?” he repeated his question again, hoping that since he was holding her, she would respond as his wife and not a research partner.

  Jane was silent for a long minute.

  “Babe?”

  “Yes, I know, I heard you,” she said, pressing the back of her head against his shoulder. ”I was fine a minute ago but now I’m thinking about everything, so it sucks again.”

  “Honey, I’m sorry, I just wanted to—”

  “No, don’t apologize,” she interrupted, waving her hand gently. “I just don’t like being surprised by this weird flood. When everything sad comes to my mind on its own, it sort of forms slowly, and I can ease into it.”

  “Into what?”

  “These feelings,” she replied. “Like fading the lights out. I just feel… dark. When someone else brings it up, it kind of takes my breath away. I’m never expecting someone else to be thinking about her when I’m not.”

  “You don’t have to think about her every second.”

  “I know,” Jane agreed. “But knowing something doesn’t change how I feel. I feel guilty. I know I shouldn’t. I know I should expect to grieve but to continue living, working. I know it’s ok to still be a regular parent to Sebbie, and put him to bed early when he needs it, discipline him normally, and make him eat his vegetables… Doesn’t mean I feel like doing any of it.”

  “I know what you mean,” Lucas said, softly rubbing her back.

  “Are you sad we came back to Semotus, Lu?”

  He shrugged. “I feel guilty about it. Are you?”

  “Yes. No. Sometimes, but I don’t know what I think about anything anymore,” she said, standing up and making circles with her shoulders to work out tension. “I love you, I love Sebbie, and I have a problem to solve. That’s my world right now.”

  “It’s a little bit nice to be hiding out at world’s end, huh?” he offered.

  She paused, then came back to sit by his side. “Yes,” she finally said. “Everyone here got their ‘awkward’ out in the first few weeks and now they leave me alone. I don’t run into someone at the grocery store who asks how I’m doing. I hate that conversation so much. I hate the shock and pity and empty condolences.”

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I want to forget, and I never want to forget.”

  “Sometimes I wanted to just lie and tell people ‘Emily’s at home’,” Jane confessed. “Just to live that lie for one second and not see their awkward faces and hear the platitudes again. I'm stuck in a time loop, living Groundhog Day. 'Jane, we're so sorry,' 'Jane that's so sad,' 'Anything I can do?' No, NO, there's nothing anyone can do.”

  Lucas’ heart ached, understanding so much and so little at the same time. Jane muttered a word under her breath, and he wasn’t sure if it was a curse or a cry for Help.

  “Jane,” he started delicately. “Are you able to pray about this at all?”

  “Oh, Lu,” she sighed, turning away.

  “Jane, I’m just asking. No pressure,” he said, reaching out to put his hand on her arm. “I want to know where you are. I want to be with you wherever you are.”

  “Praying…” she said. “No, but sort of.”

  Lucas closed his eyes, silently asked the Lord for wisdom, and pressed his forehead against her shoulder. “How does that work?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I know He’s listening to my heart, so I can’t really give God the silent treatment, can I?”

  He smiled wryly.

  “I guess I still pray about regular stuff out of habit,” Jane continued. “I haven’t stopped believing; it’s just different now.”

  Lucas said nothing, hoping she would continue.

  “I pray for you, for Sebbie, for the project. I thank him for our safety and food and everything, and I mean it. I just haven’t really talked to Him about taking my baby.”

  “She’s with Him.”

  “I know,” she said. “But I don’t like the sentimental nonsense related to that thought. Of course she’s in heaven, of course she’s infinitely happier there than she could be here. I mean, in my head, I can logic how silly my grief is. My child is living and breathing in the presence of God. I mean, that is my desired end game, too, right?”

  “Jane, you know I’m grieving, too,” Lucas said. “I’m not saying anything’s silly, never. I’m just— I don’t know— trying to offer perspective or something.”

  It was quiet, so he put her arms around her.

  “I want to be in this with you,” he added, “Please let me be in this with you.”

  “I know, Lucas,” she said. “It’s just so hard. I hurt. I hurt. I just hurt so much. I’m a scientist and my head has all this knowledge, all this God-knowledge about the ‘Author of Creation’ and the ‘Master of the Universe’ but I want to feel it. I want to feel it so bad. And all I feel is… I feel sad. And really, really, really, pissed off.”

  Jane heaved a huge sigh which turned into weeping.

  Lucas turned her around so she could cry on his shoulder. He actually relaxed at their shared desperation. He was so weary of carrying this burden.

  Lord, why?

  He’d asked the question a thousand times.

  When the tears subsided, Jane stayed in his lap, breathing heavily into his shoulder. He ached deeply for his wife, for himself, for his lost child. And for the relationship with God that he’d taken for granted all his life and now felt shaky.

  Why?

  In a few minutes, Jane began tugging at her hair. Lucas briefly wondered if she was back to thinking about physics when she cleared her throat and said, “I guess it was easy to trust God when nothing bad ever happened. Charmed life, happy family, you know.”

  “It hasn’t been that easy, has it?”

  “No,” she said, wiping her eyes with her shirt sleeves. “But no loss, no defeat, nothing has taken my breath away like that doctor telling me Emily didn’t have a heartbeat. I’m shattered that she’s not here, but I guess I’m also in shock over realizing how my faith was tied to circumstances.”

  “You just said you still believed,” Lucas pointed out.

  “Yes, I do… but it’s not like I could possibly face the universe now thinking no one was in charge and that nothing happened for a reason,” she said sadly. “I understand too much real science to possibly shake the idea that there’s a Creator. His fingerprints are everywhere I look.”

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “A terrible beauty, that He’s so great and so powerful and somehow this is what’s best for me?” she said, her tone turning black. “I mean, how? Really? Really? What glory for Him is there in this?”

  We don’t know how to help ourselves, Lucas thought, vacant. I feel so raw. Lord, please. This place has brought everything back up so intensely.

  Jane blew her nose and stared at the floor. ”I like to think, maybe I would have lived a happy little sheltered life, believing that I was safe from the big stuff. But it wasn’t enough. I shouldn’t have been happy. I shouldn’t have been complacent.”

  She didn’t say anything else, but she silently wondered, How can I keep going like this?

  Chapter 30

  MILO Personal Dictation: Jane Whyse

  Lucas sleeps, and I work. Sleep is so dark.

  I might have an idea.

  No, I have an idea.

  It seems that we’ve checked and re-checked every variable. Trevor, Riddhi, Lucas, and I have all had multiple experts review our work and no one has found an anomaly. But isn’t there a Sherlock Holmes quote about the improbable if the impossible is eliminated? Let’s be honest here, we are working on FTL travel so I’m pretty sure we’re allowed to discuss ‘impossible.’

  Where’d I put the little green—oh, here it is.

  Ok, if I’m right, and there’s no way to tell, we’ll have to make adjustment
s to the catch and possibly the capsule. But maybe we can still find two weather windows before the end of the season and get Split Horizon back on schedule.

  See, I can fix this without You.

  Lucas is worried about me. After our conversation, he called Pastor Michael. It was a good talk, I think, but now he’s worried that he shouldn’t have brought me down here into isolation. He doesn’t know I’d still feel isolated in a crowd of my closest friends.

  Because You left me alone!

  Whatever. Sebbie’s thrilled, and Lu and I are doing what we’re good at.

  Just keep working.

  I wonder what I’d be doing right now. With a six month old. Nursing her, maybe? It is the middle of the night. I wonder if she would have been a good sleeper? But, no. Because… impossible and improbable. That dream feels old now. I don’t know, like part of me is gone with her.

  I’ve never been good at acceptance. That’s why I’m a scientist, right? It isn’t enough for me to just know without knowing why. And yet, none of the other why’s I’ve ever discovered matter when the biggest why in my life is unanswered. It’s suffocating me.

  So, how about it, huh? Why? WHY? Are you even listening? How about an answer, would Ya? I’m so sick of living like this! I hate this. I hate Your decision. It’s stupid, and You’re wrong. You were wrong! There’s no glory in this! You betrayed me!

  Ehhh

  Don’t you owe me better than this? I graduated summa cum laude with a physics doctorate, and I’m a Christian! Surrounded by evolution as the ‘real’ science and getting laughed at for Intelligent Design and a higher power, papers rejected, funding cut off a dozen times, and this is how You repay me? Really? Is that how things work?

  WHY ARE YOU SO BIG? Are You so big that You can’t hear me? Doesn’t Emily matter? Did You forget us? Because if this was Your plan IT SUCKS!

  GOD will I ever ahhh uh uh it’s jisssss so THANKS for all you’ve done, Jane, but here’s a curve you never saw coming, how do you like that? Bet you never really believed, so let’s just CHECK, shall we?