The Antarcticans (20 page)

He made his way to the medical unit on Deck Four, where he saw Dr. Cristofari, disheveled and frantic, through the glass doors. They slid open as he walked in. Once inside, he set the boy in one of the waiting-lounge chairs and headed over to her.

“Hello, Captain.” She lightly saluted him. “Who’s the boy?”

“No idea.” He lowered his voice so the boy wouldn’t hear him. “His mother is half dead down on Deck Two, blood everywhere, weak pulse.”

A patient lay on a stretcher with a two-foot-long steel beam protruding from his leg. His face was blood soaked and partially collapsed. Two men in tight blue suits, each with belts full of devices and tools Captain Bongri didn’t recognize, were attending to him. The captain was pointing at the injured passenger when Dr. Cristofari pushed his hand down. “He’ll be fine. Stop gawking at him,” she said, frustrated.

“What am I supposed to do with the boy? He’s not injured, and there are plenty of people on the ship who need my attention.”

“Bring him to the nursery. I know a couple of adults who are sheltering there. It’s a reinforced part of the ship with supplies.” She turned her back to him.

“I don’t even know where that is. I’ve been on board for two weeks—I’m only temporary until Captain Clark returns,” he pleaded. “I have to get back to damage assessment. I’ll leave him with you.”

“Well, that’s just the worst plan I’ve heard all afternoon. Get out of my unit.” She pointed to the door.

When the doors closed behind him, Dr. Cristofari made a note to restrict the captain’s access to the medical unit. She hadn’t liked him since he’d come aboard; she found him indecisive and weak.

She told the receptionist to occupy the little boy the best she could until she could find a place for him, and then she walked deeper into the medical unit.

The captain came to the archives. He’d never been in this part of the ship before; his access was restricted because of his temporary status. The security protocols, however, weren’t being as strictly adhered to because of the storm. He knew that some of the most precious cargo on the ship was stored here. His curiosity got the best of him; he wanted to know what kinds of secrets this ship was hiding. The perimeter of the door was flashing green, which meant everything was okay inside but there was a disturbance that required attention, albeit at the lowest priority. He pressed a call button, announced who he was, and waited, hoping whoever was inside would open the door.

The door whooshed open, and Gavin was standing face-to-face with the captain. Gavin was wet, his hair dripping, his bare feet sticking out. The room was completely dark.

“Thank God you pressed the call button. It made the panel light up so I could see something. What happened?” Gavin was breathless.

“Tsunami, bigger than I’ve ever seen. Anybody else in here with you? The panel shows two occupants.” Pushing past Gavin, the captain tried to peer into the darkness.

“Dr. Sagona is in here. I think she might be hurt. Can you get any lights to work?”

Captain Bongri turned back and moved some icons around on the panel. A few moments later, small lights lit up from under the floor, illuminating the room with an eerie orange glow. Dr. Sagona was still strapped in her seat, pitched forward, leaning against her restraints. Her short hair was stuck to her face in wet clumps. She was staring at her forearm, which had been cleanly sheared off. Gavin ran toward her, stepping over the debris and treading cautiously as the drains in the floor sucked out the last of the water from the room. When he reached her, he took off his polo and wrapped it tightly around her upper arm. When he was done, he realized her arm had been cauterized by whatever had sheared it off, and there was no bleeding. He gently put his hand on her chin and lifted her head so he could look into her eyes. She didn’t focus on him; she was mumbling something about the documents, but he could only make out every third word or so.

The captain inspected the cocoons, looking for signs of damage. He ran his hands along their cool exteriors, searching for a way to open the drawers and get a look at what was inside. “What’s in here?” he yelled to Gavin.

“Dr. Sagona is badly hurt. Can you call a medic?” Gavin asked.

“There are worse injuries on the ship, people dying. I’ll put it in, but she’s not going anywhere soon,” the captain said. “Now tell me what’s in here.”

Gavin let out a frustrated sigh. “All sorts of ancient writings.”

He shook his head and turned back to Dr. Sagona. He gently unfastened her restraints then supported her limp body as he lowered her to the floor. He kicked a few broken pieces of her desk out of the way, and his foot brushed something softer and solid. He gagged, thinking it was likely the rest of her arm. He held her head, putting his hand behind it, and lowered it to the floor. “You’ll be okay,” he told her. “We’ll get you help when we can.”

She focused on Gavin for a second then replied in a feathery-light whisper, “Thank you.”

The captain abruptly ran out of the archives, the door shutting behind him. Gavin noticed the perimeter light on the panel had turned to solid green, signaling everything was okay. It wasn’t.

…

Gavin guessed that hours had passed. He might have nodded off from exhaustion, but he wasn’t sure. The orange lights below the floor flickered. The power source for the ship was straining and weak. The dark cabinets containing the priceless texts framed the room in blackness and gave the space an endless feeling of darkness. The sounds of the ship were desperate and unfamiliar. The floor finally leveled out as the vessel righted, and Gavin was able to stop bracing his body. He pulled his leg away from the wall and let go of Dr. Sagona, who was lying still on the floor. She weakly lifted her uninjured arm and pointed to a drawer in her desk. Gavin went to it and found a vial of water; he unclasped the top and slowly poured it into her mouth. As she shut her eyes, Gavin wondered whether she had sustained other internal injuries he couldn’t see. There was nothing he could do. He prayed silently to himself, asking for her life to be spared.

Joshua’s face captured his mind, terrible images of him hanging from the bed, unable to be helped, the white suit he was wrapped in strangling him. God had sent him these visions in the past—visions when his family was in trouble; when Noila was stranded on the highway with a flat tire; when his mother was sitting in her living room, with the dog on her lap and the gun in her hand, ready to end her world. Each time the visions had been true. He had to get to Joshua, had to leave the archives and find his way through the
Dragon
to his son. He leaned down to Dr. Sagona’s ear and whispered, “I need to find my son. I’ll come back for you.” He wasn’t sure she’d heard him; she didn’t respond.

He walked to the door and waved his hand in front of the panel to open it. The door hesitated then slowly slid on its tracks. As he stepped out onto the soggy carpet, the emergency lighting created strange shadows and blurry shapes. He placed his hand against the wall to brace himself and headed in the direction of the medical bay. Someone behind him yelled for him to return to the archives. He ignored the order and pushed through the otherwise deserted hallways, his mind focused on his son, trying to erase the image of him strangled and actively inserting sunny and happy snapshots he could pull from Joshua’s childhood. His hand touched the panel for the lift next to the medical bay, and the doors slid open.

The woman behind the desk rolled her eyes at him. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said.

“I’m just checking on my son.”

“He’s fine. Everyone is really busy here.”

As Gavin walked toward Joshua’s room, the receptionist shook her finger at him. “Mr. Pennings, stop. Please, just come back later,” she pleaded.

He ignored her—he had to see Joshua; he had to know the thoughts he was having about him weren’t true. The halls were littered with medical instruments, broken glass, and spilled medications. A woman around Dr. Sagona’s age was missing both her legs and weeping silently against the walls of the hall. She was picking up red-and-yellow capsules from the floor and popping them into her mouth. Her lips were coated with tiny white dots, her teeth clamping down hard on the little plastic capsules. Gavin reached out and put his hand on her wet hair. “God bless you,” he said, then kept walking until he reached Joshua’s room. The walls were intact, and the bedsheets were rumpled. His son wasn’t in the bed.

“Joshua?” Gavin called into the room.

“Yeah?” The voice was croaky and rough.

Gavin looked around the room until his eyes came to a white foot sticking out from the other side of the bed. He saw the white-wrapped body of his son lying on his side in the fetal position.

“You okay?” Gavin reached down and pulled Joshua up to a sitting position. His hands wandered to the back of his son’s head, looking for a release of the strange material that covered his body. His finger slipped into a small opening, and he pulled hard, tearing at the small space in the fabric.

Hundreds of tiny wires sprang from the tear, and blue fluid ran down the side of Joshua’s head. “I’m getting you out of this. We’re getting off this ship the first chance we get.” He kept removing the layers, but there was a layer below each one he pulled off.

Joshua began to hum, not words, just a low hum that made Gavin nauseous when he heard it. When Joshua was very young and the terrors of the night came to haunt him, he would hum to himself because the fear was too much to endure. And humming made the men in his head quiet.

A medical assistant burst into the room, her turquoise scrubs covered in slime and blood. She caught sight of Gavin with the layers of the medical suit on the bed beside him and the top of Joshua’s shaved head showing.

“What are you doing? You’re going to kill him.” Her voice was frantic and rushed. “Who let you in here?” She pulled at Gavin’s shoulders.

Gavin struggled with her, resisting her and holding tightly to Joshua. “He’s my son— enough of these experiments.” He turned his head to look at her and yanked harder at the medical suit, exposing Joshua’s eyes to the light. They were squeezed tight, like wrinkled orbs in a corpse. He opened one eye slowly, and his body began to shake violently.

“Stop!” The medical assistant reached for the flap that had uncovered Joshua’s eyes and pushed it back into place. She reached into a compartment under the bed and pulled out a device that looked like a miniature gun; then she pointed it at the ragged tear in the cloth on Joshua’s head and pulled the trigger. A red beam sealed the tear, and his convulsions stopped. She grabbed Gavin’s chin and yanked his face toward her so she could look him in the eyes. “I’m not kidding—you do that again, and the suit will fail and we’ll lose him. He’s your son; you can make that choice.” She let go of his chin, shoved the device back into its compartment, and hurried out of the room.

“Joshua?” Gavin’s voice was shaky. “You there, buddy?” He held him tighter. Joshua’s heartbeat was strong, his body warm. Gavin laid him on the floor where he had found him, stood up, pulled a pillow off the bed, and gently nudged it under his head.

A few hours later, the woman who had been devouring meds off the hallway floor was wheeled into Joshua’s room by the same medical assistant who had stopped Gavin from killing his son. She was unconscious, and Gavin helped the assistant lay her on the bed next to Joshua’s. The assistant pulled up an image on the virtual panel next to the bed and entered some information. The panels in the ceiling above the bed opened, and two robotic arms descended to the woman, took hold of her body, and lifted her into the ceiling; then the panels closed. Minutes later the arms returned her, fully wrapped in the same white material Joshua was wrapped in, and gingerly set her into place in the bed.

“Everything is so strange here. I feel like I’m inside Willy Wonka’s head.”

The medical assistant ignored Gavin’s comment. “You can stay in here,” she told him, “but don’t touch a damn thing, or I’ll have those robotic arms restrain you.”

She pointed to the ceiling, where the thick titanium hands had retreated to.

Vinettea floated at the front of the classroom, greeting each person by name as they entered and sat down. Her feline-like lips smiled high, exposing her perfect but deadly-looking teeth. An image of a contraption with moving gears spun behind her. When everyone was seated, she waved her hand over the image, and it expanded from two dimensions to three, filling up most of the space between the front row of seats and the wall behind her.

“Each of you was brought here to help with the Great Episode. Is anyone familiar with what we’re facing?” She smiled warmly, her arms outstretched as if she were receiving an infant. “No?” She clasped her hands and tilted her head, her white mane floating above her shoulders. “The Great Episode began when the last ice age ended. Our mechanics have pinpointed the period in time as here.” She pointed with her long blue index nail at a spot far within the internal workings of the machine. The wheels continued to spin, locked into each other, turning great axles connected to something that wasn’t in the projection being shown.

“What are we looking at?” Noila raised her hand, asking at the same time.

“A mechanical conceptualization of time; each tooth of each gear is an instance of time. It’s less important for you to understand the theory behind it, and more important to understand why our top minds have spent so much effort on it and how it translates into the work you’re here to do.” Vinettea floated over to Noila then waved her hand at the projection. The gears disappeared, and a vast landscape of ice appeared; the speed of the movie increased and showed the sun rising in setting in rapid succession, ice melting, glaciers giving way to plants, and animals running through lush green valleys. The great Srechritoris was panting, haggard, and weary as it chased a receding line of ice and snow. The clip flickered for a moment, and then the Antarcticans appeared inside an ice hall. They were inspecting massive machines and working with virtual surfaces, moving and tinkering with diagrams and schematics.