“How is Vincent Robinson here in the Arctic?”
“I don’t know, Sash.” There was something in his voice again. Something he wasn’t telling her. She wondered about the Marina that Vincent had referenced, who she was, who she had been to Soren. Or if Marina was just a fragment of Vincent’s obviously somewhat addled mind.
“If you know him, and you believe he was actually there, why did we leave him behind then? Why didn’t we look for him? He was hurt.”
“Because I don’t think he was actually there anymore. He didn’t answer our calls.”
“So he just disappeared? Into thin air?” Sasha’s own voice sounded rather papery and thin. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“When I was down in that stinking pit, and after I had hauled myself out, when I couldn’t hear you, I didn’t hear the planes, I heard something else.”
“What?”
“Penguins. I heard Adelie penguins.”
Chapter 5 – Back Into the Light
“So…we’re at the South Pole now?” If Sasha thought her voice sounded thin and papery before, it was nothing compared to how it sounded now.
“No, I don’t think so. Obviously we’re still in the Arctic Polar Station, which is in the Arctic, I think. But I think the two regions are connected somehow.”
“Like what, through a wormhole? A crater? Vincent and the penguins came through the crater?” Sasha’s voice bubbled with borderline hysterical laughter. Being completely blind seemed like the least of their problems now. “Is that why the GPS was all screwed up? Vincent said his was too.”
She heard Soren’s exhale of breath over the wind outside. He must be leaning closer to her. She wished that he would just extend his hand and touch her—somewhere, anywhere. In the absence of the comforting connections associated with sight—Soren’s little smiles, the crinkling of the skin around his eyes, the intensity of his gaze—her yearning for touch as an anchor had escalated.
As if sensing her need, or responding to needs of his own, Soren inched forward until their kneecaps were grazing.
“I don’t know. You know Edie and Cal were up here investigating the auroras and changes in magnetic north. Earth’s magnetic field has been weakening for centuries. Some scientists believe that indicates we are heading into a period of geomagnetic reversal, where the poles will flip and the South Pole becomes the magnetic north. The poles have flipped in the past, and it’s believed that when they do, it occurs quickly. Not this quickly though, and there was expected to be a period of instability in which the earth’s magnetism would be all over the place. Anyway, that wouldn’t explain the GPS problems, unless changes in magnetism were also affecting satellite orbits, which is possible if the field weakened dramatically. It’s believed that during a period of geomagnetic reversal in which the magnetism of the earth is at its weakest, Earth could be vulnerable to solar flares and solar wind. That might explain our blindness and the GPS. Nothing explains Vincent, the crater, and the penguins, though.”
“Maybe Vincent was part of a rescue mission. He was on one of the military jets and he jumped with a parachute and hit his head, and that’s why he’s confused,” Sasha said.
Soren’s exhale came in the form of a chuckle this time. “Vincent is almost eighty, so I doubt he’d be their first choice for a rescue party. I hope he’s okay, but it’s all too inexplicable. I don’t think he could really have been here. I believe you heard him, and smelled him. But maybe it was just a projection of him. I can’t explain any of this right now. We should probably have dinner and check on Amber. Then I’m going to get back on the radio. It’s our only hope.”
“What do you think that smell is? In the east sleeping wing?” She did not really need to ask this. After smelling death in the storage bay last night, she was well aware that it was the same smell emanating from the sleeping wing. The more important question she supposed, was what, or who was dead in the sleeping wing? But in the absence of sight, short of feeling the dead body, how would they figure it out?
Soren’s hands gently touched her kneecaps. “I don’t know.”
“Maybe we could tune in a radio station on the shortwave. See what, if anything, is happening in the rest of the world,” she suggested.
Something in Soren’s knees made a popping noise as he rose. “Good idea. I tried once and got only other languages. We’re pretty far north. But why don’t you try again? I’ll get something started for dinner.”
Despite bumped shins, generally stilted movement and falters, they were navigating blind in the station common room reasonably well. It was familiar and enclosed. If they were forced out onto the wide snowy plains and sharp mountains of Ellesmere for any length of time, they would not fare so well. However, Sasha could not shake the creepy feeling that someone could be watching them without their knowledge. But surely the dogs would warn them if someone else was in the station.
Sasha felt about for the small portable radio that she knew occupied the desk in the lab. She turned and pressed knobs until static emerged and then she twisted the dial on the side. Station after station, it was the same panoply of foreign languages that she had never before heard. These, even more than Vincent’s unexplained presence, the crater, the GPS, the blindness, the crazy dragon lady, the dead dogs, the thing that had called her perfect, the disappearance of all the other researchers, and Amber’s breakdown, were what scared her.
It was one thing for there to suddenly be a wormhole from the North to the South Pole, but it was quite another for there to be a wormhole between planets or worlds.
She continued fiddling with the dial. Surely there was one English-speaking station broadcasting somewhere. Or French. She could speak some French.
She leaned over the desk pressing the radio speakers to her ears, listening for even the faintest catch on a station. Then she felt it—the slight puff of warm air on the back of her neck, followed by the scent of cigarettes.
“Soren,” she said sharply.
“Yes?” Soren’s voice came from the kitchen area. He had not breathed on her neck. She had not mistaken the scent of wood smoke for the stench of cigarettes.
The dogs would warn them if someone else was in the station unless it was Kyle—Kyle, with whom they were familiar, even if they did not like him. The dogs, after several stern scoldings from Soren when they initially greeted Kyle with low growls and bared teeth, had lapsed into skirting him with a wary fury in their eyes.
“Timber,” she called.
Timber’s response was a deep threatening snarl.
Sasha leapt up from the desk and turned around. She did not want her back to Kyle. Not that it would do much good. Had he been here all along? Was he brandishing a knife or a gun?
“Soren,” she said again. “I don’t think we’re alone.”
Timber’s growl had intensified and Tundra, who had been lying over beside Soren, came to join him. Sasha heard Soren’s slow movements in her direction.
“Kyle, is that you?” she asked.
There was no response. She could hear the click of Timber’s nails on the floor, and then felt his rump hit her knees as he growled. Timber was shaking. Shivers vibrated through his hindquarters as he pressed his body against hers and continued to emit warning sounds.
What would make a husky shake like that?
The station temperature had dropped precipitously, and a frigid breeze blew over Sasha, like there was a window or a door open.
“Who’s there?” Soren said. “Answer.”
“Soren Anderson, always so authoritative,” a chilling, raspy voice said. The same voice the thing had used in the bay, the thing that had called her perfect. “I’m just paying a little house call to see how things are going on this fine evening.” Sasha’s body started to shake like Timber’s. Whatever this thing was, it was not human.
“Who are you?” Soren demanded.
“Some call me Ice,” the cold voice announced.
“What are you?”
“Well, that
’s complicated and unimportant right now. I’ve come to talk strategy. Well, that and to feast my eyes on the lovely Sasha Wood.” If Sasha was cold before, these words sent an even deeper surge of ice into her veins.
“What?” Soren said.
“You are fond of the cold, no, Soren Anderson? I am only making that assumption based on your lifestyle choices. There are worse outcomes that we could have than a land of ice and snow. There are those who would take the ice and snow away from us forever. Remember that, when your time comes.”
“What are you talking about?” Soren snapped.
But there was no further response, and the cold wind in the station vanished. Timber lunged away from Sasha in a clatter of toenails, barking. Tundra and Cedar followed, and the three dogs whipped themselves into a frenzy howling and baying into every corner of the common room, but whatever had been there, whatever had spoken to them, had vanished. Sasha sniffed. It smelled faintly like ocean or fish.
“I’m scared,” Sasha said.
“We need to start carrying our guns at all times,” Soren replied.
“What if we shoot each other?”
“We just have to make sure we’re touching each other when we start shooting. I did not like the sound of that thing, but I don’t think we should assume that a bullet can’t take it out.”
“We shouldn’t assume that it doesn’t have its own gun.”
“Maybe. If it does, and it wants to kill us, we’re dead, but I don’t plan on inviting it to take the first shot.”
With a handgun stuffed uncomfortably into her belt and Timber once again huddled against her side, Sasha returned to playing with the radio. With her gun skills, she’d probably shoot herself in the leg.
It sounded like Soren was dishing up plates. She gave the dial one last twist and the station was suddenly filled with a new voice.
“I want to give you every assurance that our scientists are working on the situation. If there is anyone in the world who is not currently blind, they will find them, and they will figure out what has taken away our sight and how it can be restored.”
“It’s President Kent,” Sasha said. She could hear Soren approaching.
“For those of you who lost loved ones today on airplanes and in motor vehicle accidents and other unavoidable tragedies, we are all very sorry for your loss. To those of you in emergency situations, please be patient, firefighters, policemen, and paramedics are trying to get to you. The military has been mobilized. If you are not in an emergency situation, we ask that you sit tight, and help your neighbors.”
Everyone in the world was blind. Sasha had not even considered this shocking enormity. If everyone in the world was blind, there would be no rescue. No hope of getting out of the Arctic.
“We know you are worried about loved ones, but our communications networks are damaged and overloaded and struggling to keep up. We ask that you stay off the phone and the Internet as much as possible while we try to restore basic services. Thank you and God Bless.”
Static overtook the radio again, and no matter how much she twisted the dial, she could not find another station.
She heard the sound of wine being poured into glasses, and then they both sat at the table and ate the cheese and bean burritos that Soren had prepared. They each had a second glass of wine.
They left a plate for Amber who threatened to shoot them once again, despite their pleas for her to calm down. The smell in the sleeping wing had gotten worse.
“We’ll have to try to deal with it in the morning,” Soren murmured. The storm continued to rage unabated, and after they had done the dishes as best they could, they made their way back to the couches in the common room.
“I’m not going back to my room alone,” Sasha said.
“I thought maybe we could sleep on the couches again,” Soren replied.
Sasha nodded. She felt the tears well and gather in her eyes. She loved the Arctic. She just didn’t want to spend the rest of what seemed likely to be her very short life here. Her mother was supposed to be on a cruise in the Caribbean this week, and her brother was a firefighter in SoCal. Were they both now dead?
“Do you think they’ll find a solution?” she asked. “I mean we’re all blind. How are they going to fix that? And if we’re all blind, aren’t we all going to just die? Who’s going to grow food and drive buses, and perform surgeries and build houses and all those kinds of things? We’ll all end up starving, and well, dead.”
“It’ll be the lack of bus drivers that kills us for sure,” Soren said.
She leaned over to punch his arm, but missed entirely, and almost fell off the couch. “You know what I mean,” she replied. “Do you think it’s aliens? Aliens have made us blind, and screwed up the magnetic fields, and who knows what else.” She didn’t want to mention the thing that had talked to them. Ice. Who or what had a name like Ice? “What else could it be?”
“I don’t know, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to go down that path. That thing in here could easily have been a human with a bad case of laryngitis. Maybe the U.S. just thinks everyone else in the world is blind. Maybe this is an invasion of sorts.”
“But the people in the invading country wouldn’t have been able to keep this secret. They’d be outing themselves on Twitter or Facebook immediately.”
“Unless it’s just their military running the mission, and they’ve made the rest of their population blind as a cover.”
Sasha pulled one of the blankets that they had retrieved from their own sleeping wing over herself. If Soren was determined to believe it was a military invasion, she would go along with it. It seemed better somehow than the prospect of aliens. But only marginally.
They went together to the side door of the storage bay to let the dogs out to do their business. Every second they stood in the doorway facing into the pelting snowstorm, waiting for the dogs, Sasha felt exposed, her mind creating a fleet of alien ships or military encampments all around them, biding their time before attacking. But the dogs returned unscathed, and Sasha tried to push away her thoughts of imminent torture and death.
There was no need to turn out the lights in the station to go to sleep. All she saw was darkness, all around her. Every last light in the station could be blazing, although she was pretty sure Soren had said that he was turning them all off to save power for cooking and communications.
The light played at the edges of her eyes. She must be dreaming. Her mind conjuring fantasies that she could still see. That she would once again drink in the shocking color of a fall day, the sparkle of a rippling lake, the exquisite detail of a snowflake, and the deep saturated green of a rainforest. That she would be able to stare into the eyes of a lover.
Sasha opened her eyes. The dim glow of morning illuminated the station common room. Soren lay asleep on the couch opposite her, his chestnut brown hair a tumble of curls, and a line of dark stubble marking his sharp cheekbone. Tundra sprawled on the floor beneath his master, his paws twitching with sleep.
She could see. She blinked. She could still see. She sat up.
“Soren,” she called urgently. “Wake up.”
He leapt to attention, throwing off his blanket and drawing out the gun that he had clearly slept with.
His face registered shock, and he too blinked his eyes open and closed as if unable to reconcile himself to his newfound reality.
“Can you?” he asked, seemingly not trusting himself to even say the word see.
She nodded.
The storm had abated, and benevolent shafts of sunlight filtered in through the snowdrifts piled against the station window.
At this moment, sight meant everything. Sight meant they would possibly get out of here alive, that the world was not ending, especially if everyone else in the world could see again as well.
Soren’s expression reflected a similar welter of emotions.
He rose from the couch. Tundra leapt up too and head-butted Soren, howling a morning greeting. Sasha felt for Timber. Crusted blo
od marked the outlines of his wound. She had hoped to stitch it the previous day. But no matter how hard she had tried, she could not thread the needle blind, so she had plastered it with antibiotic cream and hoped for the best.
“Do you think this is just temporary—the return of our sight, I mean?” she asked.
“I don’t even want to think about it. I’ll get breakfast. You try the Internet, radio, and sat phone. Then we have some bodies to clean up, and we need to get out and look for the rest of the dogs, and the others.”
Soren rebuilt the station fire and proceeded to cook eggs. They both still moved with the slow wariness of the sightless, feeling for obstacles and carefully placing themselves at their workstations.
The Internet was, not surprisingly, down, and there was no sat phone signal. Turning the radio to the Retort Air Force Base channel yielded only static. But if everyone in the world had been blind until this morning, it might take a while for things to come back on line. There was no reason not to be optimistic. All those things—Ice, Vincent, the dead bodies, the strange languages—that had seemed insurmountable and terrifying in blindness, seemed surely to have logical explanations by the light of day. She had already peered out the station window to confirm that no military or alien encampment surrounded them. She rose and fed the dogs. Then she started to trawl through the static.
A loud thumping came from the door to the sleeping wing.
“Let me out. Let me out of here, right now,” Amber yelled.
Soren unlocked the door, and jerked back as Amber leapt out with a drawn gun pointed directly at Soren. He threw his hands into the air.
Her gun was trembling. “Was it you? Did you come into our room?” She almost sobbed the words. Then she flicked her head around to Sasha. “Where is everyone else? Are you in on this with him? Keep those infernal dogs away from me.”
“Amber,” Soren tried for a soothing voice, but it snapped with anger around the edges. “I did not come anywhere near your room. Edie, Cal, and Kyle all went missing in the storm. I don’t think it was the dogs that attacked you. We’ve all been blind for the past twenty-four hours. Everyone in the world has been blind. Please put down that gun and so we can talk about this like rational people.”
Apocalypse Weird: Reversal (Polar Wyrd Book 1) Page 6