The Icarus Project

by Laura Quimby

  My hair flowed around my shoulders and billowed down my back like a silky white cape. Mom had read me fairy tales where the witch would grow her hair really long because it gave her power. I could use a little power.

  I entered the lab to face my opponent, Dr. Victory. In my possession were a handful of weapons—a few tiny plastic mammoths, a stuffed polar bear, and a feather. I didn’t believe in curses, but I did believe in dreams. Dad had a dream of unearthing a frozen mammoth, Katsu had a dream of duplicating DNA and making an exact replica, and Jake had a dream of telling stories with a lens. Dreams gave a person purpose and drive.

  My goal was to get Charlie out of this cold, sterile lab. Get him back outside and set him free. I knew what I was digging for. I didn’t care about the dead. I was looking for living people. Maybe that was why I knew that Charlie had been alive under the ice all along. My dream now was to save my friend.

  Dr. Victory was in my way.

  “What are you doing here?” Katsu stood motionless behind his computer as I entered the lab. “This area is off limits.” He glided toward me like a crocodile on the Nile.

  “I want to see Charlie.” I strode purposefully toward the door to the observation room where Charlie was being kept.

  Katsu blocked my way. “No.”

  I clutched the stuffed polar bear to my chest. “I just want to say good-bye and give him a present.” I motioned to the bear. I was hoping that the ploy would soften Katsu’s clinical heart.

  But Dr. Victory’s cool demeanor never wavered. “No. No one goes in to see the specimen.”

  “Come on, Katsu.” Jake, my unlikely ally, walked behind me with his camera in hand. “Give the kid a break. She just wants to say good-bye to her friend. I don’t think my uncle would object to that.”

  “She is tricky.” Katsu pointed his finger at me. “No tricks,” he warned as he grudgingly stepped aside.

  “No tricks. Just good-bye,” I said.

  Hurdle number one had just been jumped.

  Katsu unlocked the door, and I hurried into the cool observation room. He glided back to the computer but watched me from the corner of his eye. I plopped down on the bed next to Charlie.

  “Here, I brought this for you. I thought you might like it.” I passed the stuffed toy to him.

  “Strength,” he said, smiling. “Polar bears are stronger than people.” He was wearing a pair of Kyle’s pants and a sweatshirt, Karen’s hat, and my scarf. The room was freezing. I was surprised that Katsu hadn’t tried to freeze Charlie solid again in a block of ice.

  Through the glass, I saw that the outside door to the lab was open, and, as I watched, Kyle wandered in. My reinforcement had arrived. He carried two huge plastic cups, each filled to the brim with root beer, and there was a bag of cheese puffs clenched in his teeth. Our eyes met, and he smiled, as much as a person with a plastic bag in his mouth could smile. Katsu moved to intercept Kyle and forgot about me. He did not shut and lock the door to the observation room. Hurdle number two, jumped.

  “No, no, no.” Katsu held his arms up, blocking Kyle from entering the lab. “You can’t come in here with snacks. No snacks! I forbid sticky, cheesy snacks in the lab.”

  Kyle kept walking to a desk at the back of the lab, diverting Katsu’s attention from me.

  I took a deep breath and faced Charlie and hurdle number three. This was the crazy part of my plan. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small herd of plastic mammoths. Kyle and I had confiscated them from Randal’s mammoth park diorama. We didn’t think the billionaire would need the plastic toys anymore. I lined the mammoths up in a row on the comforter.

  “Mammoths,” I said. I held up the first animal and showed it to Charlie. “This one is you.”

  “Me.” Charlie looked startled. “No, I’m Charlie. I’m not a mammoth.” Charlie’s English skills were getting much better.

  I continued. “Right—you are Charlie. This mammoth just represents you.” I sighed. This was going to be harder to explain than I thought. “This one is you.” Charlie opened his mouth to speak, and I held up my hand. “Just wait.”

  I put the mammoth back in line with the others. “See, this one is you. It is real. The real one. The real you.” I held up the second mammoth. “This is another mammoth. It isn’t real. It is a copy of the first one.” I watched his expression, hoping he understood.

  “Copy,” he said. He leaned over and studied the row of tiny models. He fingered each one.

  “A copy looks like the real one,” I said. “Like in dreams. Remember the dream visions you made? My dad saw a snowy world filled with mammoths. Kyle flew with wings like the ones you once had. And I saw you alive in the ice. You made us see and feel all those things like they were real.”

  Charlie nodded. I wasn’t sure what he could do—I wasn’t sure if he knew his full potential—but the one thing I knew he could do was build dreamscapes. If I was right about his abilities, Charlie could make Katsu believe he was still in the lab, and make him believe he would get on a plane with Katsu.

  “I need you to make a dreamscape of yourself sitting here in the lab.”

  “A vision.” He said the word so clearly that I smiled. I knew it was a long shot. But if he could sprout wings and change into a polar bear at will, maybe he could create a dreamscape for Katsu.

  “Yes! A vision of you here in the lab.” My heart raced. Charlie understood. Maybe this would work out after all.

  “A dream of me for pretend.” He tilted his head.

  “You get it. I need you to make a dreamscape of you to stay here in the lab, while the real you leaves with me. Can you do that?” I searched his face, not sure if he was following. “We want to make Katsu believe you are in the lab and then traveling home with him.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “No more.”

  Great. My big plan was a wash. Stupid idea. “Are you sure?” I held up the stuffed polar bear. “Remember on the ice when you changed into the bear, so that you could be strong?” I just wanted to protect him. I wanted him to understand.

  “You need me to be strong. Why?” Charlie asked.

  Why? He needed a reason to be strong. So I answered, “Because Katsu wants to take you away, to Japan. Far away.” And experiment on you. But I kept that part to myself, not wanting to complicate the matter further. “I want you to be free.”

  “Free?” He sat cross-legged on the bed and wove his fingers in the strands of my hair that stretched across a pillow.

  “Yes. And the vision will help you to escape.”

  “No. I don’t want to escape.” He twisted my hair around the tiny stumps on his left hand, the one that looked like Kyle’s hand.

  I considered my options. Maybe Charlie needed a better reason.

  “Don’t you want to go home?” I asked. “Your home. Where you’re from.” He wasn’t Kyle, but he was trying his hardest to fit in here. Didn’t he want to be somewhere where he could be himself?

  “Home.”

  “Please, Charlie. For home. Do it to go home.” I held his hand.

  “I don’t know where home is. Where is my home? I don’t remember.” He looked at me like I had an answer, but I didn’t know what to say. Because I didn’t know. All I knew was that a freezing cold lab with a metal bed wasn’t it.

  “We will find out together, but I can’t do it alone. Don’t you see? Katsu is going to take you far away. And then I won’t be able to help you.”

  “I can’t. I don’t want to go without you and Kyle. My new friends.”

  My heart ached. I didn’t want to lose my friend, either.

  “Katsu and Randal aren’t your friends.”

  Charlie fingered the tag on his ear, but he said nothing. I had only one more idea left. I dug another mammoth out of my pocket and placed it on the bed. This one was larger than the other ones. “Mother,” I said.

  Charlie’s eyes went wide.

  “It’s the mama mammoth. And these are her babies. Like you. You are the young mammoth. T
his one is the mother.”

  “Mother,” Charlie said. His face went pale, sad. “Mother.”

  “We all have a mother, even if she is far away. She misses you.”

  “Miss me?” he asked.

  “Look.” I touched his sleeve. “I need you to create a vision of yourself right now to distract Katsu, and then I need you to follow me out of the room. Whatever happens, keep walking, so that the real you can escape.”

  Charlie stared at the mom mammoth. He didn’t say anything, and I wasn’t sure if he understood what I was trying to explain. I pulled the feather out of my pocket and handed it to him. “When we found you, you had wings. This was one of yours. You could fly once.”

  “Fly.” He took the feather.

  “I want to help you get your wings back.”

  Charlie smiled.

  Suddenly, I heard yelling from the lab. Kyle had implemented the next phase of our plan. But when I turned and looked at Charlie, he was still sitting quietly on the bed, holding the feather. I didn’t see any change in his appearance, any sign of a dreamscape. Our one chance was slipping away.

  I looked through the observation window. Katsu was frantically unrolling paper towels, trying to contain pools of sticky liquid. Kyle had spilled both cups of root beer all over the table, his laptop, and the evil silver case. The bag of cheese puffs had exploded. Kyle was clearly a pro at orchestrated chaos.

  Jake was staring into Charlie’s room. “What?” he mouthed.

  I shrugged and shook my head. “No go,” I said. “He won’t do it.”

  Jake’s mouth hung open and he pointed at Charlie.

  I glanced over at the bed … and sitting there were two Charlies. The Charlie closer to me pointed to the other one and said, “Vision.”

  It had worked! Charlie had done it! He had understood what I meant about creating a vision.

  Jake was pressed against the window, trying to block Katsu’s view, which for the moment wasn’t hard since Katsu was kneeling on the floor, mopping up the root beer. Kyle had grabbed the roll of paper towels and unrolled practically a mile of paper.

  Now we had to get out of the lab without Katsu turning around. I led the real Charlie from the observation room and guided him toward the door. On cue, Jake got down on the floor and started helping to mop up the spill, and distracting Katsu. Luckily, Kyle had covered the scientist with paper towels.

  “Stop unrolling! Enough—we have enough!” shouted Katsu. He swatted Kyle away and got to his feet.

  I made it across the room, pulling Charlie along. I shoved him out the door, just in time. Katsu looked up. “What’s going on?” He glared at me. “What kind of trick is this? You are behind this mess!”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said stiffly.

  Dr. Victory walked over to me. “What have you done?”

  “Nothing,” I said. Guilt oozed over me. I was a terrible liar. My pulse raced.

  “Where’s the specimen?” he yelled.

  I pointed to the observation room. Behind the glass, sitting on his bed, was Charlie. Or at least it looked like Charlie. Katsu glared at him. “What just happened in here? What were you two up to?”

  I backed out of the lab. “We were just playing.” I nodded toward Charlie’s bed and the tiny herd of mammoths. “I just wanted to say good-bye,” I said. Then I waved to the vision Charlie, turned, and hurried out of the lab. Kyle tossed a huge wad of soggy paper towels into the garbage can and followed me out.

  We found Charlie sprawled on my bed, waiting for us. We had done the impossible. Now all we had to do was get Charlie home.

  We waited until everyone had fallen asleep before sneaking out into the compound. Jake had created a mini fortress of crates, all hidden under the tarp. His camera had the prime spot. Kyle and Charlie were on one side, and Jake was wedged in next to me on the other. Jake and Kyle had created a nest made of neoprene ground cover and sleeping bags. A small solar-generated heater took the bite out of the icy temperature. I would have thought all the body warmth would have helped, but I was still freezing. Kyle wore his headlamp and had a string of glow sticks around his neck. It was Jake’s idea to wait it out under the tarp, reenacting the other night when I saw the snow ghost, hoping that she would return and that we could reunite her with Charlie.

  “What do we do now?” Kyle mumbled through his face mask.

  “We’re on a stakeout,” Jake said. “We wait and we watch. Stay alert.”

  “Cool,” Kyle said.

  “Stay alert,” Charlie said. “What are we looking for?”

  “We’re looking for someone,” I said. “Someone I saw the other night who reminded me of you.”

  “The snow ghost?” Charlie asked. “Is she coming back for me?”

  “Of course she is,” I said. I hoped this wasn’t all for nothing. I didn’t want Charlie to get his heart broken. She had to come back.

  A few minutes passed in silence.

  “Stakeouts are boring,” Kyle said.

  I hated to admit it, but he was right. I shifted my weight. My legs were stiff from sitting in the cold, cramped den, and I was sick of waiting.

  “OK, who’s going to take first watch?” Jake asked. “We might as well get some shut-eye. It’s going to be a long night.”

  “I’ll do it,” I volunteered.

  “Good. Wake me up in an hour and I’ll take the second shift. If you hear or see anything—anything at all—wake me up.” He pulled a sleeping bag around his shoulders.

  I rolled my eyes. “I get it. I’ll wake you.”

  Kyle disappeared under his hood, while Charlie listened to an iPod Kyle let him borrow. Jake leaned his head back and pulled up his face mask.

  “Do you think she’ll come back?” I whispered.

  “She’d better,” Jake said through his mask.

  “Or what?”

  “Or not only have you adopted a dog, but you’ll have a new brother, too. Because he sure can’t stay here.” And with that, he rolled over.

  Great. I hadn’t thought of that. Dad would not be thrilled if I snuck Charlie home in the dog crate with Cinnamon. In fact, I wasn’t sure I’d completely convinced him that we were taking Cinnamon home.

  I focused my attention on the empty compound, willing the snow ghost to arrive. The wind blew thin drifts of snow across the hard-packed surface—it looked like a sheet being snapped. I could have sworn I saw the snow ghost a dozen times, but when I looked closer, the area was empty. The glow of the floodlight was hypnotic. My mind calmed. I waited. Time dragged.

  My body jerked. My mask had fallen down, pressing against my eyelids. My lashes were crusty with ice or sleep, I couldn’t tell which. The tarp den was filled with heavy breathing. I yanked my mask up and looked around.

  My heart jumped in my chest. I had fallen asleep, and I didn’t know what had awakened me. How pathetic. I had to stay alert for only one hour and I couldn’t do it. Jake and Kyle were in the middle of a snoring contest. The camera light blinked. The spot where Charlie had been sitting was empty. Panic crawled over my skin in a rush of goose bumps. I checked under the sleeping bags like a mad woman. Charlie was gone.

  “Wake up! Wake up!” I shook Jake and Kyle.

  “What’s happening?” Kyle jerked up in his bag.

  “I fell asleep, that’s what,” I said, totally disgusted in myself. How could I have let that happen? How could I have been so careless on the most important night of Charlie’s life?

  “Calm down,” Jake said.

  “Calm down? Charlie’s gone!”

  “No worries. We have the camera.” Jake crawled over to his camera and checked the small screen.

  I got to my knees. “That stupid camera is the only thing you care about. We need to find Charlie.”

  “We’ll find him. All we have to do is watch the playback and see what happened.” Jake focused on his camera.

  “Dude! Look out there!” Kyle pointed out of the tarp enclosure to the middle of the compound. �
�He’s back. Our boy is back!” He beamed.

  Charlie stood in the snow about twenty feet away. He was wearing the old cloth that we had found him in, wrapped around his legs and torso. From his back sprouted two enormous wings. They were outstretched, huge, and glorious. They weren’t harnessed on, glued on, or attached in any way. His wings grew right out of the skin of his shoulders. My immediate thought was, Icarus, eat your heart out. Charlie was the real deal.

  His feet were bare and his hair had grown out and so had his fingers. He no longer looked like Kyle but like his old self. He looked amazing—even better than I remembered.

  I don’t know how Charlie did it. It didn’t matter. Charlie wasn’t from around here. He wasn’t rescued from the past. He fell from the sky a long time ago, and now it was time for him to go home. He looked majestic, standing there in the snow.

  My heart ached. He was going to leave—us, the station, everything—and as much as I wanted him to be safe, I knew that I would never see him again.

  The wind blew across his face. The floodlight flickered. Static crackled around us under the tarp. The camera made a strange whining sound. A tingle rose up my spine.

  The snow ghost was coming.

  “Stay with me, girl.” Jake was talking to his camera. He rattled the equipment, trying to coax it back to life. “Don’t quit on me.”

  The snow ghost descended from the night sky like a streak of the northern lights. She was an electric pulse of winged energy. Charlie’s chest was glowing gas blue, as if a flame had been lit inside him. She circled him, forming figure eights around his body. Her long hair floated behind her, making her look as if she were swimming. Her wings arched out, suspending her in midair. Her face was beautiful but strange. She watched Charlie, taking him in. A flicker of light pulsed at the center of her being, and Charlie’s light pulsed in response. Were they communicating? Did they understand each other?

  The expression on Charlie’s face was foreign to me. It was a look of fear, a look I had not seen on his face before. He stretched his arms out and arched his back. His wings brushed at the black sky, and then he rose upward, higher and higher. I sucked in a mouthful of cold air and held it, for Charlie was a thrilling thing to watch.