The smell of metal scrapes through my nostrils.
I scramble to my feet and search the cupboards. I know there’s a MedKit here. But where? The dogs look past the sled blocking the door, one protests with a bark, the others join in. ‘Quiet!’ I shout. ‘I need to think.’
They shut up and everyone plops on the ground with a huff and a sigh. That’s when memory hits.
I run to a hatch in the wall, turn the small handle and open it. MedKit, ultrasonic scanner, defibrillator, MIT FireScope, radio, SatPad. I pick up the MedKit and scanner, and place them next to Katvar’s still body.
Worry clenches my stomach. He’s too pale, his lips are blue, and his breath is so quiet, I have to put my ear close to his mouth to hear him.
I exhale and get to work.
A quick scan of the MedKit’s innards, then I snip off all hair around the bullet wound, spray disinfectant on it, and begin to clean it with gauze, forceps, and a magnifying glass attached to my forehead. The thing has a lamp and I can see the tiniest bits of dirt, dead skin and flesh, and hair. It takes a while to pick it all off. Blood keeps pooling in the wound and I constantly dab it off, pick the wound clean, dab off, disinfect.
I disinfect my hands again, wipe them on a piece of fresh gauze and disinfect the wound once more. That’s when his knees start twitching and the speaker in the room crackles.
‘Hello Mickaela. You made it. I’m proud of you.’
My heart stops. I look up. Erik’s face shows on one of the monitors. A smile twitches beneath his beard, but doesn’t reach his eyes.
‘I don’t have time for you. Call me in an hour. Or never.’ I pull a thread through the bent needle and focus on the lacerated skin. When I do the first stitch, Katvar cracks his eyes open. He blinks, trying to find something familiar, something to hold him here so he won’t drift away again.
When, finally, his gaze finds mine and he seems to remember who I am and why we’re here, his expression darkens.
He’s angry, I can see it in his clenched jaws, the way he looks at me as if he’s about to wrap his hands around my throat. ‘Don’t speak now,’ I whisper.
‘You’ve shot five Sequencers,’ Erik says. There’s triumph in his voice, but one cannot trust whatever emotion he expresses. He can switch them on and off like the safety of a gun.
‘You probably wonder how they found you so quickly.’
‘No, I don’t,’ I say aloud, then, softer, ‘I’ll numb your skin now before I continue stitching it up. It will be a bit cold.’ There’s a begging undertone to my voice. I’m begging him to trust me at a time when I won’t even trust myself.
Katvar’s eyes signal consent and I grab the bottle of lidocaine and spray it on his wound. We hold hands while I wait for the drug to take the edge off his pain.
‘You passed all my tests,’ sounds from the speaker. Katvar’s eyes settle on mine. Warm pine bark brown with grey specks. Paler than usual. Is there mistrust?
‘Michaela, you will be the first female BSA leader. It’s a great honour and you have earned it.’
That’s when Katvar’s gaze grows cold and with it, my heart. I pull myself together and finish my work. The fourth stitch is done, and Katvar’s knees are trembling again.
‘Are you hurting?’ I ask and he clenches his jaw. His expression is that of defiance.
‘You seem unusually attached to your little friend. I can make him your husband, but he’d have to go through training. You didn’t need much military training. Runner McCullough taught you well. So sad he rots in Taiwan. I’m impressed by your skills. Two of the Sequencers’ best assassins are stiff as boards now. Ha!’
His cackling echoes through the room.
‘You had little time to practice sniping, and yet, you killed them so quickly. Hm…,’
I know this “I wonder” tone. It always comes just before a punch to the gut.
‘Sometimes I think marrying you to Silas was a mistake. I could have sharpened you faster without him.’
‘You sharpened me extremely well by making Silas my husband,’ I growl.
Eighth stitch, ninth stitch. Two more to go. I focus on my hand and on Katvar’s fist grabbing my sweater. I don’t look into his eyes. I don’t want to see hate in there.
‘Perhaps,’ Erik muses. ‘He didn’t look pretty when you left.’
I exhale a sigh, wipe my hands and gently wrap Katvar’s head in a thin layer of gauze. Then I unpack the ultrasonic scanner, place the gel pillow on his bandaged injury and press the “scan” button.
‘I need to see if you have any fractures,’ I explain. An image appears on the small hand-held device and when I move it around his skull together with the gel pillow, it’s as if I’m looking straight into his brain. But I don’t even know what a fracture is supposed to look like and I’m about to grind my teeth in frustration when a thought hits me.
I pull off my right boot and sock, then place the scanner on my ankle. There’s a clear white line and the bone is a bit thicker where the fracture might have been. But this one is healed now. Maybe I just have to subtract the white line to have a freshly broken bone?
I move the scanner back to his head and find lines all over his skull, but they seem to be symmetrical, which makes me think they are normal. Shit. I have no idea what I’m doing. Frustrated, I switch the machine off.
‘Okay, this is what happened: Your head was grazed by a low velocity bullet from one of the old submachine guns. I don’t know if there are fractures to your skull, but at least the wound is stitched up and the bleeding’s stopped.’
I pick up the water bottle and make him empty it; he needs to drink to compensate for his loss of blood.
Trying not to show my concern, I ask him if he’s warm enough. He nods, but his legs are trembling. I fetch more furs and drape them over him, then squeeze his hand gently and turn to Erik. ‘Hey, dad.’
I gaze at his yellow beard, the orange hair that has a few grey streaks in it, his hard, thin lips, and I wonder if all this harshness will one day show in my own face.
‘I see,’ he says. ‘You like to think you can refuse my offer. If you do, you and your friend will die. You cannot possibly believe you can drag him across the ice thousands of kilometres. Need I mention that, if you refuse me, you will be hunted by the BSA and the Sequencers? They believe you work for me and, ha! You did indeed do my work.’
‘You sent them here under false pretences, just like you sent our forces to Taiwan and killed them all. You killed all my friends. Do you really believe you’ll get away with that?’
He ignores my question. ‘I can send my second-in-command to kill you both, or I can send a physician and food. Which is it?’
‘Did Silas’ brother get the job?’ I ask. The man is a perfect copy of my ex-husband. Well, not perfect enough. He’s not dead. ‘Did you know that Silas murdered your granddaughter?’
‘I am aware of it. It was his right as your husband. She wasn’t his.’
‘Of course she wasn’t. He fucked me with a pistol. Few contraceptives are more effective than that,’ I hiss and take off my necklace. The ivory dog guards a tiny square thing, glinting in the artificial light. I slip it into the computer.
‘I don’t wish to know what happened between you and your husband.’
‘I don’t give a shit about what you want and what you don’t want,’ I mutter while typing my old password and hitting “Enter.”
‘What are you doing?’ Erik demands.
‘Trying to find out how to treat gunshot wounds to the head. It would help if you shut up.’
‘I’m disappointed by your choice of words—’
‘I don’t give a fuck. In fact, I don’t give one single fuck about the feelings of a man who forces his own daughter into marriage with a guy whose only hobby is torturing women.’
‘As I already said, I have no wish to know… You aren’t searching for treatments, you are uploading a program.’
It’s the first time I hear uncertainty in his voice.
I enjoy it for a second before reminding myself that he manipulates his own emotions just as perfectly as he manipulates all his followers.
‘You have ten seconds to explain to me what you are doing,’ he growls. His voice sends goose bumps across my skin, my neck hair rises. Like hackles.
‘Start counting.’ I don’t look up at him, I’m busy learning what the program can do. It seems intuitive, there’s a globe and a grid covering it — that must be Earth’s satellite system. A red dot is labelled “SvalSat.” That’s where Katvar and I are.
A window pops up. “Engaging Shell…”
What the hell does that mean?
Shell doesn’t sound good. Involuntarily I gaze up at the ceiling, expecting a bomb to hit any moment. I swallow, and my eyes are back on the screen.
“Incoming data bypass: Active. Incoming data transfer: Secure. Incoming communication: Active.”
“Outgoing data transfer: Active. Outgoing communication: Active.”
Okay? That seems to be…
“External controls blocked: 93%. Unblocked external controls: SvalSat.”
“Shell installed and active.”
I exhale and pinch the bridge of my nose. So that’s what the Shell is — to cut off everyone trying to control the global satellite network. Except me. Holy shit, Jeremiah.
A menu at the bottom appears and gives me various options. The most interesting are, “Navigation,” “Reconnaissance,” “Weaponised.”
‘You are still immune to my teachings. What a pity. My team is on the way. You will not survive,’ Erik growls.
‘Why thank you! We really need a few more carcasses, else our dogs will starve and won’t make it across the sea ice.’ I take a closer look at the screen and click “engage optical internet.”
The computer begins to work. I lean back, wait and learn.
‘You know,’ I say to Erik. ‘What you keep telling your troops is bullshit. You never planned to fulfil the Creator’s wishes and bring an end to all humans, clean the planet of the virus humanity. No, you are creating a dictatorship of men over women. You plan to debilitate a whole species by telling men and women that they are enemies, by antagonising what’s two halves of one kind. You create emotional poverty to weaken the ones you want to rule. You want to be God. And why all that?’ I bark a laugh, bend close to the camera, and snarl. ‘Because you couldn’t get your way with my mother. You are pathetic. You are bound to fail.’
I watch bright green lines shooting across the grid, lighting up the entire fishing net of global data transfer. Cool.
I hope.
A small window pops up, the first line reads, “connected” in bold letters, and below, a list of satellite names is rattled off, faster than anyone could read. As each name-number combination appears, one of the small knots in the global network blinks brighter.
A few minutes later, a message reads, “Complete.”
Well, shit. What am I supposed to do now?
Erik is cackling softly. ‘It seems, you don’t have the ability to connect the dots. I cannot fail. Did you forget the power of religion, Mickaela? Judaism, Christianity, Islam — you read the books. Men are superior to women, and even to nature. It’s written there and has been believed and practiced for more than two thousand years. It must be true then, mustn’t it?’
‘And you want a woman to lead the BSA for you. Or with you,’ I mutter.
‘You would be a…pretty addition. It would show women all around the world that they can trust us, that they can come to us.’
I nod as if it all makes sense now. Then I cock my head, faking curiosity. ‘Could you please shake your head real hard for me, Erik? I want to hear that pea brain of yours rattle.’
Appealing to Erik’s human side never generates the anticipated result. I want to make him glow white hot with fury. I want to stir up his emotions to a thunderstorm, so he thinks with less clarity. I want him to believe I underestimate him.
Blood drains from his face, his grey eyes turn a deadly black. This fury, he can’t fake. I wonder if he’s aware of that.
I push my arm out, tap my finger to the screen, and click “Weaponised.” Another menu opens, more options, satellite specification, status, orbit, and location.
‘What are you doing?’
I ignore his question. ‘I read all your holy books, dad. They are boring and full of crap. But I learned. From you. Human nature, for example, is so very fascinating.’ I gift him a sweet smile. ‘And if there’s one thing I find most remarkable, it’s the martyr concept.’
‘Micka?’ Katvar’s hoarse voice carries panic. Do not kill them, his eyes seem to beg.
‘Trust,’ I sign and turn back to Erik, show him my teeth, and push a button. ‘This is for my daughter and for Jeremiah, you bastard.’
‘What did you do? Look at me, daughter. What did you do?’
‘I set fire to your throne,’ I answer and stick a piece of tape over the tiny camera. He stares at his now darkened screen in shock. I watch him, his confusion, and the grid of satellites that begins to blip and blink. I cast a last glance at the inconspicuous window at the bottom right of the screen. “Destruction of global network: 0.1% complete, 294 hours remaining.”
Seventeen satellites equipped with particle-beam guns and nine swarms of now-autonomous parasitic nanosatellites are chewing through more than five thousand satellites in orbit. At the end, the nanosatellites will neutralise the weaponised satellites and self-destruct. In two hundred ninety-four hours — or twelve days — humanity will enter the post digital network era, the post global observation era and, if Erik keeps warmongering, we will soon enter a new Iron Age.
Exhausted, I rub my face, rise to my feet, and walk over to Katvar, and sign, ‘I didn’t blow up headquarters, but there’s little hope for anyone there the BSA doesn’t deem valuable.’
He touches my hand with his and I bury my face in his palm.
‘It appears you forgot a little…something,’ Erik says softly. His tone drives icy goose bumps over my skin; my spine stiffens. ‘How did I find you here, Mickaela? How did I know?’
‘The sensor at the high security gate told you as I entered,’ I answer.
He leans back in his chair and gazes at his camera. From here, it appears as if he looks right through me. He nods once and a trace of approval flickers past his eyes before he makes his expression inscrutable.
My mind begins to race. I check the clock on the monitors. I must have entered the Vault roughly an hour ago. The aircraft. The Sequencers. They arrived the moment I did and nothing is a one minute flight from here.
I touch my belly and gulp. Erik has implanted a tracker. Why did I not think of this earlier?
With quick, trembling fingers, I open a map on the screen and zoom into Greenland’s southern tip. Although I know I’m more than two thousand kilometres away from headquarters, the view makes me sick: small houses, ramshackle huts, the pit, the two gallows. I crank up the image amplification but see no movements, no heat signatures, nothing. I shouldn’t be surprised.
The area is too large to scan for enemy movements between there and our position, so I zoom back to Svalbard and the surrounding sea ice.
One aircraft is all I can find.
Think, Micka. Where would you be if you knew days in advance that your enemy is approaching a location which is of utmost importance to you? Yes. You’d be as close as possible, you would make sure he doesn’t see you, and you would take him out when he feels safe and makes a mistake.
I look up at the screen that shows Erik. He sits in his chair, arms crossed casually over his chest, waiting. He believes he’s already won this game. His men are nowhere in sight, yet he seems triumphant. He’s sure I’m sitting in his trap. Why is that?
My stomach drops. My hand drifts back to my lower abdomen. My eyes fall on Katvar and I feel the urge to run away from him.
I’m rigged.
When able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; w
hen we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.
The Art of War, Sun Tzu
I squint at the monitor. Erik picks his teeth and smiles at no one in particular. He’s content. He still can’t see me. But he can hear me.
I reread the small window of the Shell program.
“Incoming data bypass: Active. Incoming data transfer: Secure. Incoming communication: Active.”
Erik can’t access SvalSat or any other satellite control centre. He’s lost control over the global satellite network. But he can communicate with me. That allows only one conclusion.
He can communicate with my implant.
A clicking draws my attention to Katvar. He snaps his fingers, and as I finally focus on his face, he signs, ‘What can I do?’
I hold up my hand, then shake my head. I need time to think.
‘I’m almost done here,’ I say aloud, watching Erik. He types something on his keyboard. His eyes scan a monitor, a finger swipes across it. A corner of his mouth twitches.
Quietly, I rise and snatch the ultrasound scanner. I pull my waistband down and run the probe over my stomach, my eyes flicking from the scanner to Erik’s face and back again. My womb is empty.
Where else would I put an implant? I would use an opening that’s already there. That would be my shrapnel wounds on my leg and side — still fresh when Erik took me here two years ago. There’s also my tongue where my toxic implant used to be and my uterus where the Sequencer’s tracker was. The latter is clear, it seems.
I try my tongue and the scanner shows nothing but flesh. I pull up my shirt and scan the scars on my side. Nothing. My leg, nothing. Shit. What if it’s not detectable with ultrasound? Would Erik’s eyes betray the location if he sees me one last time?
I pull off the tape that covers the camera. He flashes a smile when he sees me. ‘Hello, Mickaela.’
‘Do you know why I came here, Erik?’
‘To destroy me.’ He shrugs. His eyes don’t stray from mine.
‘How?’
‘The usual. With lots of noise and drama. Is it burning already? I can’t see any smoke.’
Ice: The Climate Fiction Saga Page 20