The Arctic Code

by Matthew J. Kirby

  Eleanor watched the flap of their hut from the corner of her eye, waiting for her mother to emerge. She didn’t.

  “Dr. Perry!” Skinner shouted.

  Silence. Still no sign of her mom. Eleanor wondered where she could have gone. They would have passed her if she’d come up the crevasse.

  Skinner jabbed Eleanor in the ribs with his gun. “I believe you have lied to me, Miss Perry.”

  “This is where she was when I left,” Eleanor said. “I swear.”

  “Hmm.” He narrowed his eyes. “Then take me to the energy source. If you have lied to me, your liability will have exceeded your usefulness.”

  Eleanor felt a fresh surge of fear. Without her mom, she was alone down here with this man. He could shoot her, at any moment, in the name of preservation.

  “It’s this way,” she said, and led him onto the tundra.

  As they walked, he remarked on the vegetation, the geological features, the smell of the air. “This entire cavern is an ice age time capsule,” he said. “How is this possible?”

  Eleanor wondered where Kixi was but willed silently for her to stay there, out of Skinner’s sight. “It’s an effect of the Concentrator,” she said.

  “Is that what Dr. Perry named the energy source?”

  “Yes,” Eleanor said.

  Before long, they arrived at the final hill. As they reached its crest and looked down into the crater, Eleanor saw her mother standing at the base of the Concentrator.

  “Mom!” she shouted. “Run!”

  “Eleanor?” her mother called “What—?” But then she saw Skinner, and the gun, and she paled.

  “Stay where you are, Dr. Perry,” Skinner said.

  Eleanor’s mother nodded. “Aaron, what are you doing? That’s my daughter.”

  “Everyone has daughters,” Skinner said, walking Eleanor down the slope. “Everyone has sons. Or a mother, or cousins, or a husband, or a best friend. Your relationship warrants no special status.”

  When they reached the base of the crater, Skinner shoved Eleanor toward her mother, who caught her in her arms. They hugged for a moment.

  “I’m sorry,” Eleanor whispered.

  “No, sweetie,” her mother said. “I—”

  “A Concentrator, you called this?” Skinner still had the gun pointed at them, but he was looking upward into the shifting, impenetrable branches.

  “Yes,” her mother said. “This is what has been concentrating the telluric currents.”

  “Ley lines.” Skinner shook his head with a huff. “Who would’ve thought?”

  “Aaron, please listen to me.” Eleanor’s mother let go of her and took a hesitant step toward Skinner, hands up in front of her. She was about to try reasoning with him after all. “This is not a source of energy.”

  “Really?” he said. “Because I just measured it from the surface, and I can assure you this is most definitely a source of energy.”

  “No,” her mother said. “You don’t understand. This is the energy. The earth’s. Calling it a resource would be like calling your blood or your DNA a resource. Remove it, and you die.”

  “The earth is already dying,” Skinner said, gaze roaming back up the trunk of the Concentrator, voice becoming absent. “But if we are clever, some may survive.”

  “The earth isn’t dying,” her mother said. “It’s hemorrhaging. Right here, where this object is embedded. But we can stop it—”

  “Stop it?” Skinner said. “Quite the opposite, Dr. Perry; we need to exploit it while we can. Where is the wasted energy going now?”

  “To the rogue planet,” Eleanor said. “That’s what I tried telling you before. That planet up there isn’t just pulling the earth out of orbit. It’s stealing the earth’s energy.”

  “How do you know this?” Skinner asked.

  Eleanor lifted her chin. “I’ve . . . seen it. In my mind.”

  Skinner smirked at Eleanor. “Is that so?” Then he turned to Eleanor’s mom. “Do you concur with your esteemed colleague’s psychic assessment, Dr. Skinner?”

  Her mom’s back stiffened. “Don’t you dare mock my daughter.”

  “Look at that thing!” Eleanor pointed at the Concentrator. “Does that look natural to you? It’s been here for thousands of years! And someone—something—put it here!”

  Skinner paused. He appeared to be thinking about Eleanor’s statement. “I grant there are unanswered questions, Miss Perry. But nothing that you have said changes the fundamentals of our situation.”

  “What fundamentals?” Eleanor asked.

  “The invading world will continue to pull the earth out of orbit,” Skinner said. “The earth will continue to freeze. Our only hope is the plan I conceived when I first discovered the rogue planet: to stockpile enough energy for a handful of humans to survive until the rogue planet has moved out of our solar system and our orbit has corrected itself. You see, Miss Perry, that is what rogue planets do. They roam. They move on.”

  “Not this rogue planet,” Eleanor said.

  “That is an absurd proposition, Miss Perry. Are you really suggesting that someone is up there steering an entire planet as though it were a car, stopping to fill up at our pump?”

  When he said it that way, Eleanor heard the absurdity in it and had no reply.

  “This site presents an unparalleled opportunity,” Dr. Skinner said. “To stop it, as your mother suggests—” He paused. Then he looked hard at Eleanor’s mom. “What did you mean by that, Dr. Perry? What exactly were you doing here when we arrived?”

  Eleanor’s mother took a step back. “I was trying to shut it down.”

  “To what end?”

  “If we can somehow disable it, we can stop the hemorrhaging. We can save the earth’s energy.”

  “But I will save the earth’s energy—”

  “No, Aaron, not your way,” her mother said. “And I’m not giving up. I’ll go to the press. I have evidence. You won’t get away with this lie anymore.”

  “I see.” Skinner looked up at the cavern’s ceiling for several moments and then nodded once to himself, firmly. “Dr. Perry, you and your daughter have been deemed imminent threats to the Global Energy Trust and the success of the UN’s Preservation Protocol. Please move back up the hill.”

  The way he said it made it sound like some kind of official pronouncement.

  “Imminent threats?” Eleanor’s mother said. “What does that mean? You—”

  “Dr. Perry, please move up the hill,” Skinner said.

  “Aaron, you—”

  “Now!”

  Eleanor flinched. So did her mother. They stepped away from the Concentrator and walked out of the crater. Skinner followed behind them.

  When they reached the top of the hill, Skinner said, “Keep walking.”

  “Why?” her mother said, turning around. “Where are we going?”

  “I am putting some distance between you and the Concentrator,” he said, his pistol unwavering.

  Dr. Powers had said they didn’t know what Skinner was capable of. He had already shot Amarok. Was he going to shoot them? At that thought, Eleanor’s legs weakened, and she almost lost her footing.

  Her mother folded her arms and widened her stance. “I’m not going anywhere. This is ridiculous. What happened to you, Aaron? You used to be a scientist. What are you doing with a gun?”

  “You are a talented scientist yourself, Dr. Perry,” Skinner said. “I’d much rather you joined me. But since you’ve made it perfectly clear that won’t be possible, I need you to turn around now.”

  Panic leaped through Eleanor.

  Her mother swallowed.

  “Do as I say, Dr. Perry.”

  “Why?” Her mother’s voice quavered.

  “Please,” Skinner said. “Do as I—”

  “Why?” Her mother’s voice pitched higher. “You can’t—”

  “TURN AROUND!” Skinner shouted.

  Her mother did what he asked, her eyes filled with fear as they made contact with
Eleanor’s.

  “Mom?” Eleanor couldn’t think of anything she could do to stop this. Was he about to—

  “Please, Aaron,” her mother said. “Whatever you do to me, don’t hurt my daughter, she’s innocent—”

  “Silence.” Skinner reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a plastic zip tie. “I won’t hurt anyone unless I have to. Hands behind your back, please.”

  Her mother closed her eyes and reached her hands backward. Skinner cinched them together at the wrists with the zip tie. Then he turned to Eleanor.

  “Now you, Miss Perry.”

  Eleanor did as her mother had done.

  “Sit down,” Skinner said. “Both of you.”

  Eleanor and her mother lowered themselves to the ground, backs to each other, sitting cross-legged. Skinner pulled a handheld radio out from another pocket in his suit.

  The device chirped. “This is Skinner. Status update? Over.”

  A staticky voice came through the radio. “The hostiles are secure. Medical attention underway.”

  “Casualties?” Skinner asked.

  “Four dead. Fifteen wounded.”

  “Medical status of the hostiles?”

  “Comparable casualties.”

  “See to their medical needs as well,” Skinner said. “After that, resume preparation for drilling. There is a crevasse a quarter mile away, but I don’t think it will provide efficient access.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “There is a cavern directly below the station. I estimate drill penetration in less than an hour. Alert me to any status changes. Skinner out.”

  The radio chirped again, and Skinner returned it to his pocket. He holstered his gun, and then he pulled a few instruments out of his suit, sensors and other devices. Eleanor recognized one of them as a telluric scanner.

  “Now,” he said, “before we return to the surface, I’d like to get a better look at this thing.”

  “Aaron,” her mother said, “don’t do this. The Concentrator—”

  “Do not attempt to escape,” he said, ignoring her. “Or you will force me to shoot you.”

  With that, he marched back down into the crater, toward the Concentrator. He approached it, checking his instruments, and then circled around it. Eleanor felt a shift in the telluric currents as he did so, as though the Concentrator were responding to his probing.

  It seemed to be waking up.

  CHAPTER

  23

  “IT’S OVER,” ELEANOR’S MOTHER WHISPERED.

  Eleanor strained a little against the zip tie but couldn’t budge it. “There has to be something we can do.”

  “There isn’t. It’s too late. I’m so sorry, sweetie. I should never have sent you those files. If I’d thought for one minute that you would—”

  “It’s not your fault,” Eleanor said, while below them, Skinner seemed to have become lost in his study of the Concentrator. “We know whose fault it is.”

  The hum continued to build in response to Skinner’s instruments. But after a few moments, Eleanor felt something else moving beneath its current, like a squirming larva within its cocoon. Something inside the black tree. Every time Eleanor had interacted with the Concentrator, she had become more aware of . . . it. But it was hard to really grasp what it was with the hum so deafening. It felt as though it had reached her bones, and she moaned a little.

  “Sweetie, what’s wrong?” her mother asked.

  “It’s the Concentrator,” Eleanor said. “I . . . feel it.”

  “What do you mean you feel it?”

  “I always have. Since I came here.” Just then, Eleanor felt a tremble in the ground. A drum-like pounding, growing closer. It wasn’t the humming of the telluric currents. This was something else. “And I don’t think I’m the only one.” Kixi was coming their way. Eleanor thought back to the mammoth’s agitation. “Skinner needs to stop. Now.”

  Her mother was silent a moment but then called out, “Aaron! Please, stop this! You don’t know what you’re dealing with!”

  “Do you?” he called back. “Or do you believe in your daughter’s notion of aliens driving rogue planets around?” When her mother made no reply to that, he lifted the scanner. “I truly wish I could’ve counted on you to help me, Dr. Perry. But I am prepared to do this alone. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must dial up the gain and check for subcurrents.”

  As soon as he adjusted the scanner, the hum became overwhelming, just as it had when Eleanor’s mother had done the same thing. Kixi bellowed from somewhere very nearby, the thunder of her approach growing louder.

  Skinner looked up from the scanner. “What in God’s name was that?”

  In the next moment, Kixi erupted from a nearby wash, charging toward Eleanor and her mother like an avalanche of muscle and fur, tusks held high, trumpeting in anger. She charged up the hill to the crater’s rim, right past the Perrys.

  At the sight of her, Skinner’s eyes and mouth opened wide. Kixi roared downward, right for him. He fumbled for the gun at his side but failed to pull it from his holster before Kixi reached him. A sideways swipe of her tusk sent him flying through the air. He landed in a heap, but he was still alive and struggling to get up. Kixi was on him before he could, trampling him under her massive feet again and again, rolling him and folding him, breaking him until he stopped moving.

  The humming quieted. Only then did the mammoth stop, shaking her head and huffing, whatever spell she’d been under now broken. She sniffed and probed Skinner’s body with her trunk, as if confused or surprised by it. Then Kixi turned toward Eleanor and her mother and lumbered toward them with her usual gait.

  “Eleanor,” her mother whispered, her voice terrified.

  “Don’t worry, Mom,” Eleanor said. “She’s herself again. We’re safe.” When the mammoth reached them, she gently laid her trunk on Eleanor’s shoulder. “See? Now, how’re we going to get free?”

  “There’s a knife in the left pocket of my suit, if you can reach it.”

  Eleanor extended her hands behind her as far as they could go and rooted her way into the first pocket she found.

  “Not that one,” her mother said. “The next one down.”

  Eleanor found the right one and felt the blade, a small pocketknife. She pulled it out, managed to open it, and carefully cut the zip tie from her mother’s wrists. Then her mother turned around and did the same for her.

  Eleanor rose to her feet and gave Kixi’s trunk a hug. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you, girl.”

  Kixi touched Eleanor’s cheek with the velvet tip of her trunk.

  “Oh, Aaron,” her mother whispered, looking over at the scientist’s body. “If only you had listened.”

  “You tried, Mom,” Eleanor said.

  Her mother nodded and took a deep breath. “We need to get back to the Concentrator.”

  “Why?”

  “When you and Skinner arrived, I had just found what I think is a control panel of some kind. I was trying to see if I could use it to shut the Concentrator down.”

  “Okay, but . . .” Eleanor glanced over at Skinner’s ruined body. “It’s over, isn’t it?”

  “No. The G.E.T. will be back, and next time, we won’t be able to stop them. Skinner drove the G.E.T.’s experimental energy program, but you heard what he said—this ‘Preservation Protocol,’ as he called it, is UN policy now. The G.E.T. board of directors will find someone else to continue his work.”

  “Who’s the head of the board of directors?”

  “The chairman. His name is Charles Watkins.”

  Watkins? Where had Eleanor heard that name before?

  “Come on,” her mother said.

  They left Kixi at the top of the crater and descended to the Concentrator. Her mother led her around to the far side of the trunk, where Eleanor saw a circular panel of porous metal with a series of bumps and divots.

  “I think these are buttons or switches of some kind,” her mother said. “But I have no idea what they do or how they
work.”

  Eleanor didn’t either, but as she approached the object, she felt the sensation from her dream return, of being cradled in its branches. She inhaled deeply to clear away the residue of fear over Skinner and tuned in to the hum, tracing the currents flowing around her into the Concentrator. She laid her hand on the panel, feeling its contours, trying to make some sense of them.

  She felt the larva move in her mind, reaching back. Almost a shock, but not painful. A force, responding to her through her hand, climbing up her muscles.

  She recoiled, yanking her hand away.

  “What is it?” her mother asked.

  “I— It’s . . . alive.”

  “What?”

  “No.” Eleanor chewed on her lip. “Not quite alive. Aware, maybe.”

  Her mother took a step away from the structure, casting it a wary eye. “What do you mean aware?”

  Eleanor rubbed the hand that had touched the console. “It’s what I was telling you. I can feel it. I think Kixi felt it, too. That’s why she attacked Skinner. The Concentrator reaches out.”

  Her mother shook her head. “I don’t like this. Perhaps this was a mistake.”

  Eleanor didn’t like it either. She hated this black thing spreading its limbs over her. Hated it the way she hated snakes and spiders, but magnified exponentially. It was as if the Concentrator struck the instinctual fear buried deep in her genetic memory. But fear was actually too simple a word. Fear of the unknown could be tempered by knowing it. But what Eleanor felt now was a horror at the unknowable.

  Was this how Amarok had felt, staring at the spheres of Polaris Station in their slow march across the ice? Either way, he had decided to fight. How could Eleanor do any less? And if the Concentrator could reach out, to Kixi and her, did that mean Eleanor could reach in?

  She laid her hand on the panel again, ignoring her mother’s protests, prepared this time as the same force insinuated itself through her arm. She closed her eyes, trying to keep the presence contained, as it covered her mind like an oil slick.

  Once she allowed the connection with the Concentrator, she began to glimpse a little of how it fit together, but at the deep, almost unconscious level of intuition. With her thoughts, Eleanor tugged at its roots, reaching deep into the earth like a tumor. She observed its intent, the fearful calculations of its aim. She caressed its controls, empowered but disgusted by them, bending its function to her will.