Days of Night

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Days of Night Page 23

by Jonathan Stone


  You gotta adjust your thinking.

  He doesn’t know—he’ll never know—if it is Calloway’s manner of death returning him to speculation about his own fall, or else his slow but steady recovery from his fall and blackout, or his mind shifting away momentarily from relentless thoughts about Ann and Amy that causes a few memories of that inspection tour with Pritchard and Dolan to finally surface, arrange themselves in his mind in a way they never have before.

  Seemingly small things.

  Seemingly unrelated, but now, for whatever reason, aligning.

  How, as they prepared that morning, Pritchard went searching for a roll of sealing tape, impatient and annoyed—until finally a roll turned up, buried at the back of his shelves.

  How Dolan took the key out of a sealed plastic envelope when he removed it from his toolbox at the first tower.

  And a certain snippet of conversation. “Let’s have the One-Four go first. That’s got a better headlight.” “No, I think the Cat’s better. It spreads wider.” “No, let’s have the One-Four.”

  Wouldn’t they have had that conversation before?

  Wouldn’t Dolan have taken the key out of that sealed envelope before? When and how would he have put it back in the envelope and resealed it?

  Wouldn’t Pritchard know where the sealing tape was if they were regularly using it during inspections?

  The conclusion is inevitable.

  They haven’t been out on previous periodic inspections, as they’ve always assured the leadership they have.

  They said they have, but they haven’t. They had to go on this one because Heller wanted to go with them.

  So they’ve lied about going out previously.

  Lied, or at least misled, or prevaricated. Lied and hedged when regular equipment inspections are a standing order from Hobbes and Simmons and the leadership. (Heller himself has heard Pritchard and Dolan referencing previous inspections. Talking confidently, affirmatively to him about their schedule, their diligence in making them.)

  Lied or misled, Heller notices, together. Both of them. In sync. Watching each other’s backs?

  Lied, and the question is, why?

  Laziness? Inexcusable, but understandable.

  Fear of the weather? Of the hazards? Inexcusable, but understandable also.

  Or because they know everything works? They just know, confidently, arrogantly, that the comm towers are fine, even though they’re hearing no one, getting no signal, but they know it isn’t them. It’s the rest of Earth—evaporated, zapped into incommunicative nonexistence.

  Or:

  And this boggles him. This is where his headache instantly returns.

  Because they know everything doesn’t work.

  Because they know—confidently, arrogantly—that the comm towers are not working.

  The knock in the head—has it knocked this crazy idea into him? Or knocked some sense into him?

  He saved you. Dolan saved you.

  Does Pritchard believe that? Does Dolan? Did Dolan really save him, catch him by his collar as they said?

  Save him for what?

  Did Dolan save him impulsively? Heroically? Or save him purposefully? For some less obvious reason than heroism, or competence, or quick instinct? To prove Heller’s own vulnerability to him? To send him a message? Or just to prove what a good guy Dolan is? Putting some good feeling in the bank. Confusing him. Letting him chalk it up to T3.

  He saved you. Dolan saved you.

  Maybe. But he can’t know. He can’t be sure of what happened out there.

  Or what’s happening in here.

  67.

  He is standing in Pritchard and Dolan’s suite.

  He has surprised them. They won’t know what he’s doing here. He’s come to confront them about his fall out at the second tower—but he’s not sure exactly how to approach it. It’s just an intuition, after all, which still feels a little primitive—foolish—on this continent of science.

  Pritchard is stretched out on his bed. Dolan isn’t around. It occurs to Heller, just then, that it’s the first time he hasn’t seen them together. Even on Heller’s previous visit, when Pritchard was curled up in pain, which Dolan attributed to T3, Dolan was right there in the Comm Cave next door.

  Heller is suddenly aware of something crossing the floor and disappearing—he could swear—beneath Pritchard’s bed.

  Mere shadow. Mere movement. He doesn’t know what it is, or even if it is. It could merely be an effect of the low light in here. A tracer in his eye. No more than a shadow across his senses. Not even there. A mild hallucinogenic effect of T3.

  But then he hears a tiny rustle beneath the bed. Faint. Barely audible. A slight thump.

  And he sees Pritchard’s eyes look down—just for a moment—so that he knows he isn’t the only one hearing it. And maybe wasn’t the only one seeing it a moment before.

  “What’s that?” Heller asks.

  “What’s what?”

  Pritchard stares at him purposefully, unyielding. Stiffening a little, Heller can see. He seems, Heller notices, suddenly a little vulnerable without Dolan here. A little nervous. When he has always seemed like the more relaxed, open one when they’re together.

  “Whatever you looked down at,” says Heller.

  “Oh, that’s nothing,” says Pritchard, with a nervous shrug.

  Heller looks at him. He doesn’t think Pritchard even realizes his mistake. Oh, that’s nothing. It’s like a version of that scurrying shadow, that slight sense of something running along a back wall of Heller’s brain, a tiny firing synapse of illumination: there’s something a little off about Pritchard that he’s never noticed before.

  “Well, if you tell me it’s nothing, that tells me it’s something,” says Heller. As if reasoning with a child for a moment.

  While Pritchard is still lying there, Heller suddenly bends down to look beneath the bed.

  Radio equipment, electronic components, in cardboard bins, all jammed together in there. Transistor boards, tubes, hobbyist junk.

  Creating a little wall, Heller notices.

  He shoves aside two of the cartons.

  Even in the low light, he can see: There’s a terrarium behind it. Heated—a wire running from it to a plug.

  He pulls the terrarium toward him.

  “Be careful,” says Pritchard, leaning off the bed toward Heller. “Don’t pull the plug out. They need the heat.”

  Heller has been acutely aware of Pritchard lying on his bed, not trying to stop him from bending down by distracting him, not trying to physically restrain him, not moving, not reacting until this moment, when he’s worried about the plug.

  Now Pritchard swings his legs off the bed and bends down alongside Heller. Pulls the terrarium carefully toward them, out from under his bed. Sharing it.

  Heller recoils as it gets closer. Snakes. Dozens, writhing in there.

  “Snakes,” says Pritchard, with a certain, unhidden amount of pride. “Snakes—in Antarctica! Pretty impressive, huh?” His eyes gleam, drink in the squirming, bustling terrarium. “I know there’s some weird winter-over hobbies, Mr. Heller. Well, so okay, I’ve got mine.”

  “Are they poisonous?”

  Pritchard looks at him. “Poisonous! Of course not. These are Enhydris anteriori. They’re happy to be together like this.”

  “So this is what I saw slithering by in the shadows?”

  Pritchard looks uncomfortable. “Sometimes I let one out in the room. They’re well behaved. Look, please don’t tell anyone. You’re not supposed to have pets of any kind. That’s why they’re under the bed. Please . . . please don’t. They’re not hurting anyone.”

  But I’m exactly the person you wouldn’t tell, thinks Heller. Why are you telling me?

  “Dolan knows?”

  “Oh yeah—but he doesn’t know I let them out.” He looks down. “But he’s not here right now.”

  Confiding in him. Asking him not to tell Dolan.

  “Oh, that’s nothing.�
�� Heller had no idea that Pritchard has compromised social function. Mildly childlike. It has always been hidden behind his radio expertise. Or is it T3 effects? He knows that Pritchard suffers it acutely. Is this just Pritchard right now? Temporarily less functional? A different Pritchard?

  He watches the snakes with Pritchard silently. He hopes Dolan doesn’t suddenly appear. He is disgusted. Watching them slither, climb each other. But he manages to act fascinated. To gain Pritchard’s trust. This is obviously a new experience for Pritchard. The chance to share them. The chance to show them.

  “No one can breed snakes in Antarctica,” says Pritchard. “I promise you this is unique. Well,” he frowns, “except those snakes they have in the lab.”

  “Snakes in the lab?”

  “Yeah—and those, we hear, are poisonous. One that’s super poisonous. So they don’t let anyone see those. They won’t even let me in when they get them, and I love snakes.”

  Heller squints into the terrarium. He’s sure that Pritchard never moves his terrarium to the front of the bed. Leaves it hidden behind the radio components. He’s betting it’s at Dolan’s insistence.

  “Hey, what’s that bright snake at the back? A little smaller. Is that a baby?”

  Pritchard squints. “No, it’s not a baby. Over there—that’s a baby Enhydris.”

  “But that other one looks different, though. What is it?”

  Pritchard looks silently.

  Then admits, with a shrug, but more than a note of fascination: “I don’t know.”

  68.

  That blow to the head, out there with Pritchard and Dolan.

  His memories of that little excursion got overwhelmed by the blunt fact—the blunt single impact—of that blow, he senses now.

  But the smaller memories have kept circling back to him, a little clearer, a little more insistent each time.

  And suddenly seeing Pritchard in a different light—childlike, a covert herpetologist, separate from Dolan for the first time, kneeling on the ground with Heller, looking into a writhing terrarium, like two pubescent junior high teenagers after school—certainly it colors his chain of understanding . . .

  Pritchard not being able to find the sealing tape . . .

  Dolan unsealing a tool that would have been unsealed before . . .

  The two of them arguing about which ATV light is better, when they would have decided that long ago . . .

  Thinking back to their preparations for the inspection of the comm towers, Heller hears Dolan’s question again in his head: You won’t even know what you’re looking at out there. Do you? Do you have any idea?

  He’d thought it was just disgust, judgment, an insensitive passing comment aimed at Heller the outsider.

  He realizes now: It was making sure. Making sure he didn’t know what he was looking at. Making sure the comm towers would not be understood. That it would just be a bunch of incomprehensible wires and diodes and dials to Heller. So they could keep them not working.

  Why?

  To cut everyone off obviously, to cut off McMurdo, but why?

  To create an alternate world. Their own world. And why?

  Why would you attempt something so radical, so wholly unimaginable, so strange and unthinkable?

  Even as he forms the question, he knows.

  To protect—to perpetuate—something equally radical, equally unimaginable and unthinkable.

  To insulate the unthinkable.

  To extend the unimaginable.

  A radical cover-up that might only occur to Pritchard and Dolan, via the radical act or acts that preceded it.

  He is instantly fascinated.

  He is instantly nauseous, dizzy, sick.

  He is thrilled, salivating with the solution, with finality.

  He is aware of a feeling of sudden light.

  He is aware of a feeling of sudden darkness.

  Jesus. They are the only experts. The only radio people.

  And what else has he heard, but misheard?

  Understood one way, when there is another.

  Heller and Pritchard both hear Dolan coming down the hallway.

  Pritchard pushes the terrarium back. Pulls the cartons in front of it.

  “He wouldn’t want me showing you,” he says to Heller.

  “I won’t say anything,” Heller assures him.

  Dolan is a little disconcerted to see Heller there. It is just a moment—a twitch, like a snake’s shadow—that Heller detects, before Dolan goes opaque again. “You feeling better?” Dolan asks.

  “Yeah, I am, thanks,” says Heller. “Much better. The fogginess is finally lifting,” he says, gesturing to his head.

  Yes, the fogginess is finally lifting.

  “Hey, Hobbes asked me to come down, see how you guys are doing with the radio.”

  “Same, unfortunately,” says Dolan. “I mean, you went out with us to inspect. We don’t know what else to do.”

  “Can you walk me through it, give me an update? I need to report back, reassure him. As you know, it’s getting a little desperate around here.”

  Dolan shrugs. “Follow me.”

  Pritchard reaches for his key, to open up the corridor door to the Comm Cave, before realizing that Dolan just came from there, so it’s still open.

  Heller has noticed before that the Comm Cave is kept locked from the corridor side, and never thought about it much. It seemed somehow prudent to lock it. But now he wonders whether their keeping it locked has nothing to do with the safety or value of the equipment.

  Pritchard throws some switches.

  He dials through a few frequencies.

  Static. Nothing.

  “The last thing was that Australian farmer, wasn’t it?” says Heller.

  Pritchard and Dolan nod, glumly.

  “Hey can you play that again? I remember you recorded it. That was smart.”

  Dolan pauses for a moment, Heller sees.

  (A snake, a shadow, slithering across the edge of the periphery. The edge of Dolan’s eyes.)

  Pritchard nods cheerfully. “Sure.” And flips some other switches, to load the track.

  It’s as scratchy and muffled as before, just as you’d expect from a jury-rigged ham radio system.

  “Hey, blokes, this is Aussie 2094, broadcasting from the Brindabella Range. Anyone out there? Anyone know what’s happened? The grid is down. We’ve been operating on generator plus batteries and flashlights here since Monday . . .”

  Son of a bitch, thinks Heller to himself. He stares at the radio equipment—to avoid looking at Dolan or Pritchard.

  “One more time,” says Heller.

  “Hey, blokes, this is Aussie 2094, broadcasting from the Brindabella Range. Anyone out there? Anyone know what’s happened? The grid is down. We’ve been operating on generator plus batteries and flashlights here since Monday . . .”

  Son of a fuckin’ bitch, Heller thinks again.

  He is thrown back to his first months without Paul. When he wanted to be left alone, but there was that ridiculous Global Police Technique exchange program, and they made him partner for a month with an Australian kid named Bailey, and they had a stakeout together, when Heller asked Bailey to hand him the flashlight, and Bailey looked at him puzzled for a moment, and Heller pointed and asked again, and Bailey laughed and said, “Flashlight? What in fuck’s name is a flashlight? I’m handin’ you a torch, mate. ’Cause that light ain’t flashin’.” Whereupon Heller, smiling, turned it on and off a few times. “See it flashing? Flashlight,” said Heller. “Torch,” said Bailey. Both smiling, as they headed out into the dark on stakeout. Heller remembers it vividly.

  The accent is perfect. A perfect Australian accent.

  The voice is at a pitch and timbre that no one would recognize.

  But an Australian doesn’t say flashlight. An Australian says torch.

  Only an American would say flashlight.

  An American, with the help of filters and static and radio effects, pretending to be Australian.


  Heller knows. It’s Dolan’s voice—altered perfectly, ingeniously, convincingly, all the static of the recording, all the interference and the primitive radio transmission, helping to convince and persuade, helping them all accept it, covering any sins nicely—except for the wrong word at the end of the sentence. A word an Australian farmer would never use.

  It was their last communication with the world.

  A world that the Australian farmer—like the conveniently primitive, also-faked Morse code communications with Ranger Winslow before it—had confirmed was undergoing some disaster, some global catastrophe.

  A fast-moving, lethal, unprecedented pathogen, they had guessed.

  But all the poison, it turns out, is right here.

  “Keep trying. We know it’s grim work. But we need you to keep trying,” Heller manages to say evenly. And he thanks them for trying. And backs out of the room, without looking directly at either one of them.

  Son of a bitch.

  Torch. Not flashlight.

  Literally a moment of illumination.

  Of seeing into the Antarctic dark.

  Does he tell Hobbes? Hobbes who is in the middle of a slow-motion revolution? In the middle of the breakdown of the social order? Or is the slow-motion revolution and breakdown of the social order just the setting Heller needs for justice?

  69.

  He’s thinking as fast as he can.

  Trying to piece together still unimaginable strands and fragments.

  Realizing that this is a kind of master criminal who has managed to manipulate his whole environment. Bringing a radical level of control to it that is almost inconceivable. Cutting off communication entirely, leaving everyone literally and figuratively in the dark. A dark where he can choose them, pick them off, one by one.

 

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