Arctic Gauntlet

by D. J. Goodman

  “Yeah, I guess I can see that,” Jimmy said, although he kept his face neutral. Quinne couldn’t be certain exactly what he thought, but neither did she really care. What she and Amani did together was their business.

  “Any idea what’s going on?” Quinne asked.

  “No clue,” Wanda said. “As soon as we heard people rushing for the exits, we… uh… um…”

  “Wanda, I do porn. You don’t need to be coy with me.”

  “Um, okay. We stopped with the sex and put our clothes back on. We know probably exactly as much as you two do.”

  “Maybe it’s the rescue choppers,” Amani said.

  “Maybe,” Quinne said. “I guess we’ll just have to go see for ourselves.”

  On their way out they passed Masterson, along with the woman Quinne had seen him with earlier in the evening. They were in an over-exaggerated embrace, the kind Quinne might have expected to see done as a dramatic painting on the cover of an old VHS box. All that was missing was the woman clutching him by the leg instead of around the chest, and a massive, masculine sword in Masterson’s hand.

  “Don’t go!” the woman said. “I… I love you!”

  “Denise, thank you, but you can never be my first love. My first love will always be… SCIENCE!”

  As the foursome left Masterson and his lady friend behind, Amani made a point of looking down at the soles of her feet.

  “Something wrong?” Quinne asked.

  “I guess not. It’s just that I could have sworn we were wading through bullshit again.”

  They intercepted one family once they were back out on the deck who told them that they’d heard something about the lifeboats, but beyond that they didn’t have any details. Quinne had a very bad feeling about that as they went back in the direction of Masterson’s earlier conference for the better-off passengers. The closer they got, the more apparent it was that things had certainly been happening while the two couples had been getting busy.

  Lundgren was here with the majority of his security force, or at least, Quinne assumed, the ones that were left. Several of their uniforms were torn and bloody, and their faces had a haunted and perplexed cast. Like so many other things tonight, Quinne was sure there was a story there. It just wasn’t part of her story, so she would likely never find it out.

  Those who didn’t look like they had already been through hell were following Lundgren’s orders as he informed the growing crowd to stay back. Beyond this line of security Quinne saw a great many of the passengers who had been here earlier, and all of them were crowding around the lifeboats. Mickey and Gordon were frantically going among them, looking like they were trying to talk the passengers out of something.

  “What’s going on?” Quinne asked the nearest man. He was in a Letroix Corporation uniform that identified him as a member of the cleaning staff.

  “What, you asking me?” the man asked.

  “Why? Should I not?”

  “No, go right ahead, but nobody tells me anything. All I know is that the rich people seem to have gotten it into their head that they need to take the lifeboats.”

  “Why, is the ship sinking?” Jimmy asked.

  “Again, how the hell am I supposed to know? To these people I’m little more than soulless furniture.”

  Quinne pushed through the growing crowd, making sure that she didn’t lose track of her friends (which was still a strange way to think of them after so little time, she knew, but at this point it certainly felt true) among the jostling. Lundgren saw her and immediately pointed a Taser in her direction. “Don’t you dare.”

  “Dare what?” Quinne said. “I don’t have the slightest clue what’s going on.”

  “These people are going to take some of the life rafts out and get to safety.”

  Quinne’s jaw dropped. “Are you people fucking high?”

  A very prim and proper looking man on the other side of the security team turned to Quinne with a look of disgust. “Don’t swear. This is a family ship.”

  “Jesus Christ, would you people stop with the freaking out about swearing?” Quinne said. “People have died tonight, and probably a lot more will if you go out there in those tiny little things, but you’re seriously stuck on whether or not I say the word fuck? Get your fucking priorities straight, you fucking dipshit!”

  Mickey did his best to find a position that made him look taller. “Everyone listen! People have died tonight, and a lot more still will if any of you go out there in these tiny little boats.”

  Quinne through her hands up in the air. “That’s literally what I just said!”

  Jimmy nudged her. “Not literally. I kind of think stuck-up people like this are pretty much incapable of acknowledging that anything in the world might be more than PG-13.”

  Several of the people who had been working to set the boats up to lower stopped to look at Mickey. Most of them continued to ignore him, just like they ignored Quinne and the growing crowd.

  “Look, I don’t know what your game is, but you’re not fooling any of us,” a woman of about fifty said to Mickey. “There’s no such thing as sea monsters. We’ll be fine. In fact, we’ll be better off out there than we will on here with all the overflowing sewage.”

  “How can you still not believe us?” Mickey said. “There’s evidence of sea monsters all up and down this boat! You even saw the tooth Masterson found earlier!”

  “It’s a hoax,” another woman yelled. “We’re not idiots.”

  “Oh my God,” Quinne muttered. “I think my brain is totally melting from the stupid.”

  “I guess sometimes people can’t acknowledge the horror in the world if it hasn’t happened to them,” Amani said. “If you hadn’t seen the plesiosaurus and the liopleurodon with your own eyes, would you believe it?”

  “No. I’d probably be asleep in my room. I’m a heavy sleeper.”

  “But you’re not asleep. You’re awake with us. So what are we going to do about it?”

  Quinne stared at her for several seconds before turning to Lundgren. “You’ve seen at least one of the creatures. You know those people won’t last long if they go out there. You can help us save them from themselves.”

  “I didn’t see shit, little girl.”

  “Language!” one of the wealthy passengers yelled at him as they climbed into the boat. The lifeboats were now on their pulley systems and each one was ready to be lowered into the water.

  “Are you kidding me, Lundgren? You know exactly what that monster did to Sarah, er, I mean that woman that fell over the side.”

  Lundgren’s stand-offish demeanor faded somewhat at that. “Just keep back, Miss Quiver. Nothing you or I do is going to convince these guys that they can’t do this.”

  “You recognize me?”

  “Uh, I, um, used to have a subscription. Before, you know, I found a place where I could get videos of you for free.”

  “Oh, nice. Just when I thought you couldn’t be more of a douchebag.”

  Lundgren looked over his shoulder as the multiple boats began to lower over the side. “It’s too late now, anyway.”

  Wanda gently touched her shoulder. “It was always too late, Quinne. Those people in those boats, they’ve never had to fight for anything in their lives. Everything has always been handed to them. They think that mortal danger is going without phones or internet for a couple hours.”

  “Look, all of you, just back away, alright?” Lundgren said. Quinne had to give him at least a small amount to credit. His voice cracked as he spoke. When he looked down at the boats halfway to the water again, she saw the one thing about this that must have upset him: Quinne hadn’t seen it before, but some of those people had children with them. The youngest she could see was a toddler, all the way up to mid-teens. The oldest kid, probably only fourteen, looked back up at Quinne, and she could see the sheer terror in his eyes. His parents or his grandparents or whoever had forced him into this boat might be totally oblivious, but he knew. These folks were forcing him to his death. />
  “Lundgren, if you don’t stop this, I will,” Quinne said.

  “And how exactly do you expect to do that?” Lundgren asked.

  Quinne sighed. “This would be a lot easier if I just had a gun.” She unzipped her coat, then muttered at Amani, Wanda, and Jimmy. “Get ready. I’m going to do the thing again.”

  “You know, I’m starting to think that should be used like a nuclear option,” Wanda said. “You know, last resort only. It’s just too powerful.”

  “What are you talking about?” Lundgren said. Quinne had to smile at the way he was suddenly backing away from her, short and skinny little thing that she was.

  “This,” Quinne said, lifting her shirt and bra up and aiming at the other security guards. Most of the men reacted with dropped jaws. One of the men, though, gave her a raised eyebrow that clearly said “Oh honey, you don’t have anything I want under there.” There were three women among the guards as well, two of whom looked disgusted that Quinne would use her assets in such a blatant way while the third was clearly pleased by what she saw.

  All of them, at least, were either staring or glaring at the sight of Quinne’s bare, tattooed chest. None of them noticed as Wanda, Amani, and Jimmy snuck through the crowd around them and made it to the electronic controls lowering the boats into the water. They did notice, however, when the motors lowering the boats reversed and started bringing the lifeboats back up.

  There was a collective cry of dismay from the boats, but Quinne didn’t get a chance to go to the side and see anything. One of the female security guards came up beside her and cold-cocked her before Quinne could understand what was happening. For the next several seconds she was so dazed that she didn’t register more than random images and noises. Someone, probably the guard that had hit her, yelled, “Bitch, show a little self-respect!” Quinne fell to her knees and the crowd around her went into chaos mode, people rushing back and forth and screaming and shouting, more guards telling Amani and the newlyweds to stop what they were doing…

  Oh, and there was something that appeared to be a giant rat. Quinne would have just dismissed that as a hallucination caused by having her bell rung, if it hadn’t triggered some recent memory.

  Then there was just horrible pain in her arm. She was on the deck, unaware how she had gotten there but fully aware that something was wrong with her. She must have screamed or something, because she heard Amani’s voice, sounding distant, calling her name. The time that passed could have been seconds or hours before a petite pair of hands grabbed her from behind by the armpits and tugged. Quinne blacked out for a few seconds more, then came back to something like her senses when she was once again able to see the sky. She hadn’t even realized until now that the view had been blocked by the riot of passengers around her. Several passengers cried out as they were tasered, but the most notable sound was the cry of a child. That should have caused Quinne to cringe, but for now it meant that the child in question wasn’t dangling like bait over the water.

  “Ow. Whuh? Huh-whu-pen?” Quinne asked.

  “Just, quiet, okay?” Amani said gently in her ear. “You’re hurt.”

  “Mah urm. Ih hurz.”

  “It’s broken. No, you probably don’t want to look at it. Don’t…”

  Through sheer habit of doing the exact opposite of what she was told, Quinne looked at her arm, then immediately looked away. Considering it looked like she had an extra elbow, it was surprising that it didn’t actually hurt more. That would likely be from shock. Once the pain finally hit her full force, it would be excruciating.

  “I’m pretty sure someone trampled it,” Amani said. “I reeeeeally don’t think you should try moving it.”

  “Wunda? Jimmuh?”

  “Wanda pulled Jimmy off to the side somewhere. I didn’t see exactly where. It looked like someone kicked the sugar out of him.”

  “Shih. Iz okay. You kin swear.”

  “Fine then. Kicked the shit out of him. I think it was Lundgren, but then Lundgren also went after some of the people in one of the boats, so I don’t really know. Everything’s a mess.”

  “Okay, everyone shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down!” Lundgren said. He had a handgun out again and was pointing it in the air where everyone could see.

  “Language!” someone called out to him.

  “And the next person who acts like the word ‘fuck’ is the worst thing that could happen is going to get a bullet between the eyes. Is that fucking clear?”

  There were murmurs, most of them saying that he wouldn’t dare, but slowly, in a wave that passed through the crowd, everyone went silent and hunkered down.

  Lundgren, keeping his gun where everyone could see it, went around to all of his security staff that were still standing and whispered instructions to them. A few of them were knocked out on the ground or injured, although none of the injuries seemed to be worse than scratches and bruises. Several of the passengers, however, had injuries similar to Quinne’s, and many of them were definitely going to need a medic sooner rather than later.

  All of it would have seemed like a waste, except every one of the boats was back up at the deck, and most of them were empty. A few still held an obstinate couple of people, but the few kids Quinne had seen were now back on the deck. She wasn’t sure if she had really done a good thing or not. Maybe she had just delayed some of these people’s inevitable deaths. She felt a small amount of satisfaction anyway, even though that was hard to concentrate on, considering the shooting pain growing in her arm.

  “Okay,” Lundgren said when he turned back to the subdued crowd. “Under normal circumstances, I would arrest ever single last one of you assholes. But we don’t have the time or the room to round every one of you up. Instead, you are all going to disperse. No one is leaving in the life boats right now. We will keep them ready just in case, but it’s far more dangerous out there than most of you…”

  There was a sound, rather faint, but Quinne still managed to hear it through Lundgren’s announcement. “Wait,” she croaked. “Someone’s still…”

  She didn’t think she was loud enough, but other people inevitably heard the same noise as her. They turned in the direction of the lifeboats, and Quinne finally saw that she had been wrong. Not all the lifeboats were where they were supposed to be. Someone was still manually lowering one into the water.

  Lundgren realized he didn’t have everyone’s full attention, then looked in that direction. “Oh son of a bitch,” he said.

  Although the remaining guards tried to keep the crowd from moving, most of the people followed Lundgren as he went to the railing and looked over the edge.

  “Help me up,” Quinne said to Amani. “Need to see.”

  “Quinne, we need to get you to a doctor or a medic or…”

  “Need to see,” she said again. She tried to get up by herself, but accidentally put some weight on her broken arm. Her eyesight shot full of lightning, the agony hitting her other senses before she even properly registered it as pain.

  “Okay, stop that!” Amani said. “I’ll help you up if you stop being a stubborn idiot.”

  “Can’t,” Quinne barely managed to say. “That’s me.”

  The two of them found a place with fewer people where they could look over the edge. Quinne braced herself to see some family of four lowering themselves to their doom. The parents were dressed strangely, though, and the two kids were abnormally hairy.

  “What even are those things?” Amani asked.

  “Capybaras,” Quinne said, finally remembering why the possibility of giant rats had rung a bell.

  “What’s a capybara?” one of the other bystanders asked.

  “A large rodent native to South America,” someone else said. “They’re herbivorous, and tend to keep to areas where…”

  “It’s Troid and Murga,” Quinne interrupted.

  “Who?” Amani asked.

  “The magicians. The ones the Letroix Corporation booked as entertainment on the cruise.”

 
“Oh, you think I could get their autograph?” someone in the crowd asked.

  “Where’s my camera phone?” someone else asked. “I need to get a picture of this.”

  That was why they were dressed so strangely. The two aging magicians were wearing their trademark red business suits, which they claimed they wore so that no one would see any blood on them in case something went wrong. That excuse might have once made sense in the early days of their act, but Quinne couldn’t be sure what a capybara might do to someone to make them bleed. Maybe mistake them for a shrub and gnaw on them.

  “What are those idiots doing?” a familiar voice said from behind Quinne. She turned to see Wanda holding onto to Jimmy as the two of them made their way to join her and Amani. Jimmy had a cut on his head and looked about as dazed as Quinne, but even with that he was still together enough to wince in sympathetic pain at the misshapen sight of Quinne’s arm.

  “They’re making a break for it,” Quinne said.

  “Shouldn’t someone try to stop them?” someone in the crowd asked. Quinne immediately saw, though, that any such effort would be wasted. The boat was almost down on the water. The two magicians would be able to detach the ropes before anyone could start hauling them back up.

  “Shouldn’t something be attacking them by now?” Wanda asked.

  “Maybe we were wrong,” Quinne said. “Maybe the creatures are gone. Maybe they’ll be safe.”

  “Do you really think that?” Amani asked.

  “No. I actually think they’re dinosaur food. Those red suits might as well be ketchup.”

  Although there was a lot of angry and impatient murmuring among the people who had tried to escape in the boats, no one made an effort to get back in one and join Troid and Murga down on the water. By unspoken agreement, everyone had apparently decided that they would be the canaries in the coal mine, the potential sacrifices to test if the way was truly safe. Quinne felt somewhat guilty for thinking in those terms, but only somewhat. In the end, no matter what happened, these two were grown adults who had made their own choices. If anything, Quinne was more worried for the safety of the capybaras.