The Icarus Project

by Laura Quimby

  “We know about the Icarus Project,” I blurted out, playing my last card.

  Randal shot me a stern look. “Your daughter is resourceful.”

  “What’s the Icarus Project?” Dad asked.

  “It’s nothing, just a name that Jake came up with for his film of the mission expedition,” Randal said quickly. He was sneaky, pinning the name on Jake. He shot me a devious glance. “Let’s not jeopardize all that we’ve worked for. This is an important opportunity for your father, Maya. You don’t want to ruin this for him, do you?”

  The conversation was over. Charlie was taken away.

  My stomach ached. Technically, my brilliant plan had backfired.

  Within an hour of Karen and Dad discovering what Kyle and I had done, Charlie was back in the lab behind a pane of glass. Only this time, the room was heated, and he had a cot to sit on. He was being observed. Jake, who was no help at all once the adults showed up, had set up a camera on a tripod and was recording Charlie’s every move.

  The next day, Karen reassembled the pair of wings. All the feathers had been gathered up and spread out on one of the metal tables. Dad photographed them from every possible angle. Next, wearing gloves and using tweezers, the two of them examined the feathers one by one and clump by clump, cataloging the spectacular wings. Even in pieces, they were magnificent. They weren’t the wings of an exotic bird but of a boy. I thought about telling Dad about Charlie’s mimicking behavior, but I decided not to, especially with Katsu around.

  I approached the table, but Dad was giving me the silent treatment. Actually, he was pretending to be hard at work, but he wouldn’t look at me, and when I asked how it was going, I got no response. Karen gave me a weak smile.

  “I’m really sorry, Dad.”

  No response.

  I walked over to the window that looked into Charlie’s room. In it, Katsu was pacing. They were watching each other closely. Katsu adjusted his glasses. He was cautious, his movements calculated. He wandered the room in slow loops, the way a shark would circle its prey. Charlie had a bright-eyed look on his face. The scientist wore a self-satisfied smirk, like he knew I was watching him. He put his silver case on the table and lifted the lid. The implements gleamed.

  I had walked right into Dr. Victory’s trap. He wanted his samples and now he was going to get them, thanks to me and my brilliant plan to free Charlie. I thawed out his specimen for him. I had made it easier. Now Katsu didn’t even need to drill down into the ice.

  He had won. Victory.

  Katsu took a strange-looking piece of equipment out of his silver case. It looked like the kind of metal guns that the earring store had used when I got my ears pierced. I pulled on my earlobe, remembering the sharp pain as the gun shot the metal stud into my lobe. Was he going to pierce Charlie’s ear?

  “What is that thing?” I asked. My hands were pressed to the glass. Katsu took a small piece of plastic and loaded it into the gun. “Is it a tranquilizer?” I asked.

  Karen looked up and then went back to her work. “No. That’s a tagging gun.”

  “What’s Katsu going to do with a tagging gun?” I asked, but knew the answer as soon as I said it.

  “It has a GPS system in it. From what Katsu tells me,” Karen said.

  “Dad! He can’t tag Charlie. Tagging is done to animals out in the wild, not to people,” I said, my fists clenched.

  Dad sighed. He probably sensed I wasn’t going to accept silence anymore. “I know. But try telling that to Katsu and Randal.”

  “You can’t let them do it.”

  “I can’t stop them, either.” Dad continued to pull the feathers apart with the thin metal tweezers.

  Katsu held the gun in one hand and slowly, gingerly approached Charlie. Almost as if he heard my thoughts, his glance turned my way and a satisfied smile filled his face. I had given him Charlie on a platter.

  Katsu took Charlie’s head in his hand. Poor kid didn’t even flinch. He let Katsu walk right up to him and touch his face. I hated Katsu. I hated science, and the cold metal table and the ugly cement floor. The computers and machines buzzed in the background, and I hated them, too. Katsu turned Charlie’s head to the side and tagged him on his ear. I winced when the gun snapped and the tag went on. Charlie didn’t seem to feel the pain of the metal point that drove through his flesh. But I felt it. I knew what it meant. It meant that Charlie was being claimed, tagged like an animal to probe and study.

  The plastic dangled from the cartilage on the edge of Charlie’s ear. It looked ridiculous. To Katsu, Charlie was just another specimen. Katsu didn’t see a boy; he saw walking, talking DNA.

  “I thought scientists were supposed to be good,” I said.

  “Not all of them,” Dad said. “Scientists are people. Sometimes people do bad things or things that look bad from the outside.”

  “Is Katsu bad?”

  “Yes,” Karen whispered. My dad sighed in agreement.

  “What about Randal?” I asked.

  “Randal’s not a bad man. He just lets his ambitions get the better of him. He made a bad deal, and now he has to honor it.”

  The truth began to sink in. Thawing Charlie out hadn’t changed anything. I thought that if he was real and living, they would treat him differently, but instead they were treating him like an animal. But he was more than that. I thought about the Icarus Project. Randal had named his expedition after a boy from mythology, one who had escaped captivity by wearing a pair of wings made by his father. Charlie was Randal’s mythical boy, and he wasn’t about to let him go free.

  I turned my back to the glass, unable to watch any more tests. “Dad. What is Charlie?”

  “I don’t know.” He didn’t look up.

  “You must have some idea. I think he’s special. He’s a person.”

  “A person doesn’t wake up from being frozen in the ice.” Dad set down his tweezers and waved me over.

  “Has Randal told you what his plans are? Is Katsu going to take Charlie away?”

  “No, I think Katsu just wants to take some tissue samples—blood samples, hair samples. Things like that. He’ll take the samples back to his lab and study them.”

  “You mean clone him.” I sat on the stool next to him.

  “No, Charlie won’t be cloned. It’s illegal to clone human beings.” He rubbed my back, but it was little comfort.

  “You just said that Charlie isn’t human.”

  To that, Dad didn’t have a response.

  I woke early the next morning, hoping for a chance to see Charlie before more testing began. The hallway was deserted. The doorknob to the lab twisted easily in my hand. The room was eerily quiet. No one was inside yet. The fluorescent light buzzed overhead. As I crept into the room, I saw that a stool was overturned. A trash can had spilled its wadded-up paper guts all over the floor.

  The glass of the observation room reflected my face back at me. Charlie’s room was dark. My throat felt dry.

  “Charlie!” I darted to his room and flicked on the light. The door had been left wide open. Blankets were bunched up on the bed, leaving an empty white dent in the sheets where he had slept. One of Kyle’s comic books was splayed out on the floor. I lifted it up, noticing a torn page. My heart pounded.

  Charlie was gone.

  I ran out of the lab and down the hall. My mind raced. I had to find him. I grabbed my coat, hat, and gloves and dressed as quickly as I could.

  As I was putting on my coat, Kyle walked up behind me. I turned and saw him just as he was shoving a piece of toast in his mouth. “What’s going on?” he mumbled.

  “He’s gone, that’s what.”

  He stopped chewing. “Who?”

  “Charlie, of course! The lab’s deserted!” I was so frantic that I could barely zip my coat.

  “How do you know?”

  “His room is empty and I found this on the floor.” I handed Kyle the torn comic book.

  “I gave him this.” There were toast crumbs on Kyle’s chin that he didn’t bo
ther brushing off. “I said he could have it because he liked it so much.”

  “That was the only thing left in his room,” I said. The torn edge hung by a thread.

  “He wouldn’t have left it.” Kyle gritted his teeth.

  “I know. I think they took him away.”

  “They can’t do that!” Kyle grabbed his coat and followed me out the door. “Where are we going?”

  “The comm!” I yelled over my shoulder as the cold air hit me in the face.

  The comm room was crowded and noisy. West and Randal were there, hunched over a map that had been spread out on the table. Katsu and Jake stood nearby. My eyes locked with Dad’s and he rushed over to me. “I’m sorry.” He pulled me in for a hug. “I know Charlie was your friend.”

  Was? There was no was about it.

  “Charlie is our friend,” I corrected him.

  The room went silent.

  “What have you guys done with him?” Kyle’s voice cracked.

  “We didn’t do anything. At least not all of us.” Karen brushed Kyle’s hair out of his face.

  Dad put his hand on my arm. His fingernails had been bitten down to the quick. “Charlie’s disappeared.”

  “What do you mean he’s disappeared?” My anger rose.

  The room was too quiet. Everyone stared at us. I wished someone would just say something.

  Kyle stared holes into his mother. “Charlie didn’t just disappear,” he said.

  Karen’s eyes were filled with worry. “When I went into the lab this morning to take over for the night shift, Charlie wasn’t in his room. I thought that he might be in the bathroom, but he wasn’t. I looked everywhere. But I couldn’t find him.”

  “Karen came and got me, and we notified Randal,” Dad said.

  “You guys had him locked up,” Kyle said. “That means someone had to let him out of the cell.”

  Karen frowned. “It wasn’t a cell. It was for his own protection.”

  “Good job protecting him,” I snapped.

  “That’s enough. It’s not our fault that Ivan took him,” Dad said.

  “Ivan took Charlie?” I yelled. I looked around the room. With all the excitement, I hadn’t realized that everyone was there except for two people: Ivan and Charlie. I would have expected it from Katsu, but not Ivan.

  Dad ran his hands through his hair and sighed. Obviously, they knew more than they were telling us, and once Dad slipped, they had to tell us everything.

  “Ivan’s gone, too,” Karen said. “We aren’t sure exactly what happened, but we suspect that Ivan is behind it all.”

  Randal stepped forward. “I believe that Ivan has taken Charlie with him to Russia.”

  “He was pretty desperate to get off the station the past few days,” Justice said.

  I remembered the scene Ivan made in the hangar. The Arctic had not agreed with him.

  Katsu cleared his throat. “Ivan has broken his word to all of us. He has no honor. I want to assure you all that I had nothing to do with his deception.”

  “He’s gone rogue,” Jake said, shifting his camera to his shoulder.

  “How did Ivan get off the station without anyone knowing?” I asked.

  “Ivan was on the night watch,” Katsu said. “He could have easily woken the boy and departed while the rest of us were asleep.”

  “What about the tag and the GPS?” I asked. “Isn’t that why you tagged Charlie—so you could keep track of him?”

  “It has been disabled,” Katsu said. “My Russian colleague is smart. Misguided but very smart.”

  “Rest assured we will do everything to apprehend Ivan and secure the specimen,” Randal said. “West will instruct us on the course of action.”

  West squared his shoulders and directed our attention to the map of the surrounding area on the table in front of him. A grid had been drawn on the map. “I’m organizing a search of the area. No dome, igloo, icehouse, or doghouse will be left unexamined. I’m going to divide up the jobs, and we need volunteers.”

  “Ivan couldn’t have gone too far without the chopper,” Kyle said.

  “That’s what we’re hoping,” West said. “Justice is going to take the chopper up to get an aerial view and see if he can locate the two of them. We need people to observe what is happening on the ground to go with him.”

  “I’ll go,” Kyle sprang forward. Karen nodded.

  “Do we know how Ivan and Charlie are traveling?” Dad asked.

  “A snowmobile is missing from the shed. We think Ivan took it and went to town.” West pointed out a route on the map. “I think Ivan was hoping to catch a ride to the airport from there.”

  “Then we need a ground search, too,” Dad said.

  West nodded. “We have two sleds.”

  Hands shot up in the air. West pointed, delegating jobs. “Jake will take one sled. And Katsu and I will take the other.”

  “What about us?” I said. “Dad and I want to help, too.”

  West nodded at us. “We need a team to secure the dig site. You two can take the snowmobile out. I doubt they went there, but we need to cover all the bases.”

  “We’ll do it,” I said, relieved to help in any way I could.

  Randal patted me on the shoulder. “See, dear, nothing to worry about.” He cleared his throat and addressed the rest of the group. “I will be staying at the station to monitor the progress from here.”

  West handed out two-way radios. “Keep in radio contact, people. We don’t want any surprises out there,” he said.

  Jake bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. “Let’s get our Charlie back.”

  “What’s next?” Kyle asked.

  “We can start by helping round up the dogs. Justice needs all the help he can get right now.” West shook his head.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. Justice took pride in caring for his dogs. I couldn’t imagine him needing our help.

  “You’ll see.” West strode out of the room.

  The dogs were everywhere, running loose around the compound. Ivan had let all of them out of their enclosure. When Justice finally managed to get most of them rounded up, he prepared the two sleds to head out. Meanwhile Dad, Kyle, and I helped corral the rest of the dogs. Even my new pup, Cinnamon, had managed to escape her pen. After getting a leash on her, I slumped down on the ground next to the hut and stared out over the compound.

  “Better get inside.” Dad knelt down next to me.

  I leaned back, too tired to get up right away. I scratched Cinnamon’s head. “Why do you think Ivan let all the dogs out? That seems strange.”

  “I don’t think Ivan knew what he was doing. Maybe he planned on taking a dogsled into town but found he couldn’t handle the animals and decided to steal a snowmobile instead.”

  “Maybe.”

  The trampled snow of the compound was covered in boot and paw prints.

  “Ivan was desperate to get out,” Dad went on. “He wasn’t thinking straight. Probably panicked and lost control of the dogs.” He patted Cinnamon.

  “Or maybe he let them out on purpose,” I said, getting to my feet. An idea flashed in front of me as I stared at the ground. “Where’s his trail?”

  Dad hesitated. “His trail?”

  “Ivan’s trail. The snowmobile would have left a trail, right?” I asked. Dad nodded. “So where did the trail lead to?”

  “West said that he couldn’t tell for sure. Since the dogs were out, they marked up the snow and disturbed the snowmobile tracks.”

  “Exactly! What if Ivan let the dogs out on purpose—to cover his tracks?”

  “That’s a good idea. But there’s only one real way out of here and that’s the airport. Ivan had to get to town somehow—so we know where he’s going. There’s no point in him hiding.” Dad’s conclusion was logical, but something wasn’t right about the dogs.

  “Except if he wasn’t going to town…” I said under my breath.

  Cinnamon barked.

  “Come on,” Dad said. “Let�
�s get Cinnamon in her cage. We need to head out before it gets any later.”

  Dad and I each put on another layer and suited up for the ride out to the site.

  West gave us instructions before we left. “She’s gassed up and ready to go. Take it slow and you’ll be fine. There’s a two-way radio in your pack. If you get into any trouble, just call Randal. He’s here, monitoring everyone’s progress.”

  “Sounds good,” Dad said, adjusting his goggles for at least the tenth time.

  “The site’s a skeleton, since we packed most everything yesterday. Like I said, I doubt Ivan’s there. Just ride out, take a look around, and come straight back.”

  “What do you mean, a skeleton?” I asked, sitting behind Dad on the snowmobile.

  “We’ve been dismantling the site. There’s still some stuff left, but for the most part our gear has been packed up. The site has pretty much been stripped bare—you know, like a skeleton.”

  It was sad to think we were probably not going to see much, but I was too worried about Charlie to care.

  “Enjoy the ride, and I’ll see you two later.” West’s stubbly beard, dark eyes, and broad shoulders were reassuring, as was his hard-as-nails stance. I felt better about Charlie just looking at him.

  “OK, let’s find this guy.” Dad waved to West and started the engine.

  For the entire excruciatingly slow ride all I could think about was how scared Charlie must be, wherever he was. Dad drove the snowmobile like a turtle wearing snow-shoes. The cold needled through my jacket. I held tight and kept my head down.

  Then the domes appeared on the horizon, emerging out of the landscape, silvery as lost treasure. West wasn’t kidding when he said the site was a skeleton. The main tent was still there, along with a few domes, but most of the camp had been dismantled and packed up.

  The snowmobile slowed. I saw something out of the corner of my eye. “There!” I pointed over Dad’s shoulder. In the distance, near the dig site, was a snowmobile. My heart leaped. Black smoke spiraled into the sky from that spot like a harbinger, a warning, or a signal. Ivan and Charlie weren’t supposed to be here. We had come as a precaution only. West was supposed to catch Ivan and save Charlie, not us. We weren’t the heroes. But deep down I knew when I saw the dog tracks in the compound that Ivan had been up to something. He was too smart to make a mistake with the animals. He had a plan all along, and it appeared that going to town wasn’t part of it.