The Arctic Code (9 page)

They reached the hangar, which resembled a military bunker in the same way the buildings had in Fairbanks. Luke pulled the plane up alongside its
enormous, heavy doors, which slowly opened at their approach. Workers filed out wearing full polar gear, their coats emblazoned with the G.E.T. logo. Their presence worried Eleanor, even though she didn't think they could possibly know who she was.

“Good,” Luke said. “They're ready for me. We might just beat the storm.”

He killed the plane's engines and hit the switch for the cargo bay door. Eleanor watched it open in the video monitor. Luke got out of his seat and left the cockpit.

“I'll say it one more time: You just sit tight in here.” He put on his mask, gloves, and coat. “Got it?”

“Got it,” Eleanor said.

He pulled the latch to open the door, and the Arctic cold forced its way into the plane. Eleanor shivered but waited in her seat. After he'd left, she watched the monitor, the G.E.T. crew marching into the cargo bay, undoing the straps, taking down the towers of crates. Soon Luke was there, directing them. Eleanor waited until he appeared completely involved in the unloading, and then she left the cockpit.

In the main cabin, she pulled on her own gear. Mask, gloves, coats, all of it. She slung her pack up on her back, and with one last glance at the monitor to
make sure Luke was still distracted, she opened the door.

Outside, the air and the cold seemed even harsher somehow than they had in Fairbanks. Perhaps it was the towering wall of darkness approaching from the east. Perhaps it was the low light of the late-afternoon sun, skirting the horizon. But Eleanor was glad for all her gear, and for now, she felt protected and safe. She just had to get to town and then somehow get to her mom's station before the storm hit.

She descended the mobile stairway and reached the frozen tarmac. G.E.T. crew scrambled nearby, but no one paid her any mind at all. She looked around, and a short distance off, she spotted the cluster of buildings she'd seen from the air. They seemed to huddle together, forlorn and insignificant against the immensity of the icy horizon, an isolated outpost that shouldn't even be here.

Barrow.

With one last glance at the
Consuelo
, she set off toward it.

T
HE CITY OF
B
ARROW WASN
'
T A CITY—AT LEAST NOT LIKE
any city Eleanor knew. Instead, it was a collection of fortresses, each building apparently constructed with nothing in mind but defense. No paint, no decoration of any kind. Just masses of wood, concrete, and steel. Most of them were shaped like domes, some of them like fat cylinders, others like Quonset huts. They all seemed to have air locks, too, with tunnels between their outer and inner doors.

All the people Eleanor saw moved among these buildings with the same forward-leaning trudge, like trees that had grown up in a permanent wind. It felt like several of them were staring at her as she walked
through town, though because of their face masks, she couldn't be sure.

Eleanor didn't know exactly what she was looking for. She needed to talk to someone who might know how she could contact her mom's facility. The best place for that would probably be some kind of gathering spot. A store. A post office. A restaurant. Did they have any of that up here?

She hadn't yet seen any obvious signs on the buildings. A few had stenciled numbers and letters that might be helpful if Eleanor knew what they meant. But she did spot a building with a row of snowmobiles parked out front. They reminded her of the trucks parked outside the Prop Stop Cafe, so she decided to try there first.

When she reached it, she saw that this building did have a sign: a carved wooden one with a palm tree, a hula dancer, and the word
CANTINA
, little flecks of chipped paint hanging on in the deepest cracks, the rest having been ice-blasted away.

As she reached for the door, it opened. A large man ducked out, then unbent to his full height. He wore a mask like her, but in addition to his coats, he wore the dingy white pelt of a polar bear, an animal that had long since vanished from the Arctic. Eleanor could smell the sharp, unwashed musk of the fur, and
maybe the man, through her mask.

He noticed her and stopped. He said nothing, just stared down at her. Beneath his blank gaze, unease crawled up Eleanor's back. She nodded toward him and moved for the door. As she opened it and stepped through, she felt him turn behind her to follow her inside the air lock, so she hurried to the inner door on the opposite end.

But inside the Cantina, Eleanor's unease only grew as every man and woman turned to stare at her. Indoors, she saw the faces beneath the Arctic masks, and they were all as weather-scoured as the buildings. Skin that looked burned. Ragged noses missing their tips, hands missing fingers, the carnage of frostbite. Red, sun-damaged eyes. Some of the men grinned at Eleanor, but in a way that made her want to run, and the smell of the place, unwashed bodies and alcohol, kept getting worse.

She kept her mask on. She'd picked the wrong building. The
very
wrong building.

Eleanor was about to turn and leave, but the big guy from outside had come in behind her and now blocked the door.

“Something I can do for you . . . miss?” the bartender asked. He leaned toward her, arms out straight against the bar like struts, and his tone suggested he
couldn't tell whether Eleanor was a boy or a girl under her polar gear.

Her voice was about to give it away. “Um, I'm trying to reach my mom's oil company.”

“Which company would that be?” a man asked from a nearby table.

“Sohn International,” Eleanor said.

“Don't see those folks too often,” the bartender said. “Least, not in here.”

Several of the men and women laughed at that. But it was an ugly sound. The stuff Luke had said about the people up here replayed in Eleanor's mind. She started to tremble.

“Do you—do you know how I could reach them?” she asked.

“Try the claims office,” the bartender said. “They, uh—they manage all the drilling rights.”

Another laugh.

“Thanks,” Eleanor said. “Do you— Where is the claims office?”

“I'll show you,” said the man standing behind her. He still hadn't removed his mask.

“I . . .” Eleanor was
not
comfortable with that.

“It ain't far, miss,” the bartender said. “Boar here can take you there.”

Boar?
The giant nodded and left through the door.
Eleanor didn't want to go with him, but she really didn't want to stay in here, either. The smell and the stares were becoming unbearable. She decided to just let this Boar man point her in the right direction, and nothing more. She thanked the bartender again and exited the Cantina.

Boar stood outside, waiting. “Ready?”

“I don't want to trouble you,” Eleanor said. “You can just give me directions.”

He shook his head. “Better if I show you. It's about to get pretty nasty.”

He was talking about the storm, which seemed to have doubled the speed of its charge. A heavy wind had picked up, and Eleanor felt herself canting against it. Half the sky roiled with the storm's ferocity, and the setting sun had long since been obscured by its advance. She hoped Luke had managed to take off. And she hoped wherever her mom was, she had shelter.

“Coming?” Boar asked, but didn't wait for her answer before stalking away.

She thought about going the other way and looking for the office on her own, but the storm frightened her, and she didn't want to get caught outside in it. She decided to follow Boar and just maintain a comfortable distance from him.

They passed several more buildings, but with the
storm and nightfall both approaching, there weren't as many people out in the streets. The ones who were seemed wary of Boar but showed the same disconcerting interest in Eleanor.

They turned down a few more streets, and the buildings shrank in size and number. Eleanor didn't know her way around Barrow, but it seemed like they were walking to the edge of town, not toward the center where she would expect a government claims office to be.

“Where is it from here?” she called to Boar, raising her voice over the growing howl of the wind.

He stopped and waited until she'd caught up to him. “What?”

“Where is it?”

“Just up there.” He gestured down the road.

Eleanor looked, and all she saw were three more buildings that appeared abandoned, and beyond that, the open expanse of the ice sheet. Then she noticed the snowmobile waiting there, and a sudden fear screamed in her mind louder than the wind. She didn't know where this man planned to take her, or what he planned to do with her, but she had to get away.
Now.

“Th-thanks, but I just remembered my mom—”

“Don't.”

“Don't?”

Boar lunged for her, so fast she couldn't react in time, and grabbed her up, pack and all, under one of his arms. She screamed and kicked and pummeled him, but with all their polar gear, it felt like punching a pillow. He carried her toward the snowmobile, squeezing her so tight her pack dug into her back, and she couldn't catch enough breath to scream. But she tried.

“HELP!” The wind seemed to swallow up what little she got out. “HELP ME!”

They were only a few feet from the snowmobile. She thrashed, as wildly as she could, snarling inside her face mask.

“Cut it out,” Boar said. “I just want your gear—”

Something slammed into them, hard, sending them both sprawling on the ground. Freed from Boar's grasp, Eleanor scrambled away from him and shot to her feet. Boar did the same, facing someone new.

Luke.

Eleanor felt an overwhelming gratitude and relief at the sight of him. He stood tall, pointing a pistol at Boar. “Stealing from a kid?” he said. There was a menace in his voice Eleanor hadn't heard before. “Just get on your rig and ride.”

Boar's broad shoulders heaved up and down, as if he were breathing hard through his mask. Even with a gun pointed at him, he didn't budge.

“Come here, kid,” Luke said. With his free hand, he gestured for Eleanor.

She rushed over to him, and he extended his arm around her, shepherding her behind him.

“Gimme the pack,” Boar said. “It's mine.”

Luke took an aggressive step toward him. “You get on your rig and ride. Now. Or I'll do you right here.”

Boar still didn't move.

“NOW!” Luke fired a shot in the snow at the giant's feet, kicking up a plume of white that the wind then instantly shredded.

Boar flinched, barely, and moved toward his snowmobile. He climbed on, unhurried, and said, “This ain't over,” before starting the vehicle's high-pitched engine. A second later, he cranked the handle, and the snowmobile leaped forward, chewing up the snow as it sped out of town.

Luke watched him go for several moments, probably making sure he wasn't going to turn back, the cloud of white in Boar's wake growing smaller and smaller.

Eleanor threw her arms around Luke. “Thank you. Thank you.”

He didn't hug her back. “What the hell were you thinking?”

She let go of him and pulled away. “I'm going to find my mom.”

“No,” he said. “What you're doing is getting yourself robbed. Or worse.”

Eleanor didn't want to think about that. “Luke, I—”

“LISTEN!” The fury in his voice came pouring through his mask. “You're damn lucky all he wanted was your gear! Do you know what could have happened to you?”

She did. And when he forced her to examine it, she felt like throwing up. Tears of fear and relief filled her eyes, and her voice fell to a whisper. “I know, I just—”

“Just NOTHING! There is no just anything!” It sounded like some of the anger had left his voice, and now she heard
his
fear. “This is exactly what I warned you about!”

“I know!” Eleanor said. She couldn't keep the choke of tears from her voice.

Luke fell silent. The storm had only intensified around them, shrinking the range of visibility, and even with the protection of all her polar gear, Eleanor could feel some of the cold breaking through.

“From this moment forward,” Luke said, “you will do exactly what I say, or so help me, I will tie you up in my cargo bay. Do you understand me?”

She knew that meant she would be flying out on his plane. Back to Phoenix, without her mom. But the experience with Boar had shaken her badly enough
that she couldn't fight him. “Yes,” she said. “I understand.”

“Do you?”

“Yes!”

He nodded. “Okay then.” He turned and walked back toward the middle of town.

Eleanor followed him. “Where are we going?”

“Not my plane, if that's what you're asking.” He looked around, at the snow the polar storm had already begun to throw at them. “It's too late to take off. I'm not flying anywhere in this.”

Eleanor felt like that was her fault. “I'm sorry.”

“The storm ain't your doing,” Luke said. “But you should be grateful for it. Otherwise, I'd have been long gone, and you'd be . . .”

He didn't finish that statement, and Eleanor didn't want him to.

“We're going to a . . . friend of mine,” Luke said. “Betty wouldn't call him a good guy, but he's better than most around here.”

The streets were completely deserted now. The wind tore through with its continuous onslaught of snow and ice. It felt like the temperature had simply collapsed, plunging Eleanor into a cold that her mask couldn't keep at bay. She felt it deep in her lungs. Her fingers and toes numbed. This was a polar storm, and
she had no doubts that it wanted to kill her.

She could see only a few yards in any direction. The white erased the rest. But the white was fading to gray, and soon it would be night.

They passed several stubborn buildings, which did their job as bulwarks for those inside, until they arrived at one of the larger Quonset huts Eleanor had seen. Luke led the way to the outer door, opened it, and entered the air lock. Eleanor followed him in and forced the door shut behind her.

Though the storm persisted on the other side, they had escaped it. “I'm glad the door wasn't locked.”

“Outer doors have to stay unlocked at all times,” Luke said. “Arctic Code.”

“Arctic Code?” Eleanor asked.

“Unwritten laws. You can secure your inner doors, but you have to keep the air locks open. Gives people a place to escape a storm in an emergency.”

“Oh.”

“Let's see if Felipe is home.” Luke walked to the inner door and pounded on it. They heard someone moving on the other side and, a moment later, the turning of a lock. The door opened.

A brick of a man stood in the doorway, wearing a thick, corded sweater of charcoal gray with suede shoulder pads. His bronze skin bore deep crevices.
“Well, look at this,” he said. “A couple of idiots caught in the storm.”

Luke took off his face mask. “I'm smart enough not to live in this godforsaken place. How you doing, Felipe?”

Felipe smiled. “Good, Luke, good. Who's this?”

Eleanor became conscious of her own face mask and took it off.

“This is Eleanor,” Luke said. “Her mom's a geologist with one of the oil outfits.”

Felipe nodded and smiled. Eleanor smiled back.

“You going to let us in?” Luke said. “Or do we have to wait out the storm in your air lock?”

Felipe opened his door wide.
“Bienvenidos.”

Eleanor followed Luke through the door, and they entered a large space filled with snowmobiles and other vehicles, most of them partly disassembled. Machine parts, tools, and lots of equipment Eleanor didn't recognize covered the ground and the walls, and the air inside smelled greased. It seemed Felipe was a mechanic.

“Looks like business is good,” Luke said.

Felipe chortled. “I wish. Most of these have been sitting here for months. Their owners can't pay, and until they do, I'm not putting them back together. Back home, I would have already sold them to get them out
of my shop, but up here, there's no one to buy them.”