The Icarus Project

by Laura Quimby

  Kyle and I skimmed through a half-dozen videos that Jake had filmed of his uncle. Many of the older videos chronicled the building of the station, which went back years, but the interesting ones came after the first sighting. This wasn’t the sighting of Charlie under the ice. This was something they saw in the night sky—maybe even the snow ghost that I had seen. From what we could tell, Randal had been tracking the flying creature, following it. In one of the videos, filmed inside a dome, Randal sat on a crate, wearing his trademark puffy brown coat and discussing the being he had just seen. He had gotten close to it, really close, and he described the creature as miraculous, an advanced life-form. The word that stuck in my memory was otherworldly. He thought the snow ghost creature was an alien life-form—from another world, another planet, far away.

  We found another video of Randal’s “nightly sojourns,” as he called them. He and Jake were tracking the snow ghost across the ice.

  Randal had apparently tracked the creature’s movements for years, finally establishing the dig site where the creature was seen most often. He speculated that the creature was searching for something—and whatever it was, he wanted to find it. Once he focused on a location, Randal used radar technology to find the mass, which he figured was the thing the creature was looking for.

  He had never been looking for a mammoth—but he needed a credible scientific team to verify his findings, and so he had concocted a mammoth “discovery” to lure scientists to his compound in the Arctic and help him dig up the mysterious mass that would turn out to be Charlie. The model mammoth park in his secret room—all fake, designed to keep us off the trail of the real discovery.

  I felt numb, but I still wanted to have proof of what I had seen out on the snow. I needed to see the snow ghost again. “We have to hurry,” I said. “Did you find the film from the other night?”

  “Right here.”

  In a few seconds we were watching the sky around the snowy compound. We fast-forwarded through a couple hours of wind sweeping over the desolate area, blowing gusts of snow. Nothing exciting at all … until an image of me stumbling under the tarp, yelling for Randal, appeared on the screen. My entrance had been less than graceful.

  I cringed. “Wow, I look like a crazy person,” I said.

  “You sure do. Especially in that giant coat and goggles.”

  “You don’t have to agree with me.” I nudged Kyle with my elbow.

  We watched and listened as I dug around the crates and looked for Randal, until I realized the mistake I had made. Then I talked to myself for a few minutes. That’s when the wispy snow ghost appeared out on the ice.

  “Look!” I said.

  The camera had indeed caught brief glimpses of the image as it floated in and out of view.

  “Pay dirt!” Kyle said.

  The creature was a beautiful ghostly form with wings, just as I remembered. At first it looked as if threads of light from the aurora borealis had spooled down from the sky as a wave of translucent light danced over the compound. The greenish-blue light was the color of pure energy. But the closer the figure got to the camera, the more pale and ethereal she became. As the creature turned in the sky, the huge white wings became visible. Wings just like Charlie’s.

  “Look at the face,” I said. The winged creature had soft features, beautiful and alien—sparkling large eyes, and long glowing arms. A glittery aura surrounded her.

  “It looks like a girl,” Kyle said. He blushed. “I mean, a woman.”

  “It does. Like a woman with wings.” I glanced at Kyle. “And Jake captured it all on film, which is proof that this is real.”

  “We aren’t imagining this,” Kyle said. “She’s not in a solid form like Charlie,” Kyle said. “He’s got a body, skin, all that. She’s more like … energy.”

  “It makes sense now why Jake won’t tell anyone what he filmed. He wants to keep this a big secret.” I watched the creature float across the screen. She was weaving between the buildings of the compound, and I could see why Randal had hypothesized that she was looking for something.

  This was what Jake and Randal were hiding. That’s what they didn’t want Ivan and Katsu or even Dad to find out about. They had another Charlie—but this one was alive.

  “They want to keep this quiet,” Kyle said.

  “Think about what this would mean for the station. Think about all the money and prestige from all the interviews and appearances.” I couldn’t believe what we were seeing. The creature was so beautiful, so exciting—and Jake had captured her on film. “Not only do they have the film, but they also have a real specimen.”

  “I bet they don’t care what happens to Charlie, because they hope to capture more of them. Who knows how many more there are out there?” Kyle said.

  “This whole expedition has been a con job, a scam from the beginning. Randal brought us out here to do his dirty work, but he’s saving the real discovery for himself. I think we should go tell Dad.” I hopped up.

  “Not going to happen.” Jake stood in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest.

  My stomach lurched.

  “Um … Hey. What’s up, man?” Kyle asked.

  “What’s up is that I just caught you two snooping around my computer. Trying to steal my files.” Jake barged into the room, pushed Kyle’s hand away from the mouse, and turned off the monitor.

  “We weren’t stealing,” I said. “Well, OK … you’re right about the snooping part. But if you and Randal had just told us what was on the film, none of this would have happened.”

  “Let’s get one thing clear. I don’t answer to you.” Jake’s words were full of bravado, but his face looked drawn and tired.

  “But we can help you and Randal,” Kyle said.

  “We don’t need your help.”

  “I think you do.” I tried to reason with him. “Katsu and Ivan are going to experiment on Charlie. They don’t know what he is—but you do. Don’t you care?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I think. A deal is a deal. And Randal promised Katsu he could have the mammoth’s DNA, and since there is no mammoth, that leaves the kid in the ice with the wings. I can’t stop them.” Jake sighed and slumped down on his bed.

  “But you have the film. You could use it to persuade them to leave Charlie alone.”

  “The films are a secret. No one is going to find out. It’s all we have.” Jake ran his hands over his face.

  “Then why did you do all this, if not for Charlie?”

  “Look, the Icarus Project isn’t over when you all leave. Katsu and Ivan get their DNA samples. Your dad and Karen will write their papers. I make a film. Randal gets all the fame and glory, vetted by top scientists so people know it’s for real. That’s how it’s going to work.”

  “But Charlie is special. Really special.” I paced the room. “We have to help him. We have to keep him safe.”

  “I get it—you’re a softhearted girl. But it’s OK. Katsu just wants to draw some blood and take tissue samples.”

  “He’s going to clone him,” Kyle said.

  Jake rolled his eyes. “You two worry too much. Cloning is never going to happen.”

  “Katsu will try. He always wins. Remember, he’s Doctor Victory!” I yelled.

  “Calm down.” Jake held out his hands. “I’d like to help. But there’s nothing I can do.”

  The loud roaring sound of an engine filled the room. It was coming from outside the compound.

  “What’s going on out there?” Kyle asked.

  “Let’s go see,” I said.

  The three of us raced out of the room and down the hallway. The sound grew louder and louder. I ran to the door but didn’t bother to get my coat. I cupped my hands and peered out of the window toward the hangar.

  “Looks like Justice got the chopper working again.”

  “You know what that means,” Kyle said, shaking his head. “It means that Ivan and Katsu will be packing up and leaving.”

  “And they’re going to take Charl
ie samples with them,” I said.

  I couldn’t let that happen. Not after seeing the film of the other winged creature. We hardly knew anything about him. We had to do something drastic. I stared down Jake. “You can either help us or not. But they can’t hurt Charlie. Not after what I saw on the film.”

  “Yeah, we’re not letting them experiment. Are you in?” Kyle asked as Jake looked out the window.

  “I’m not in until you tell me exactly what this big plan of yours is,” Jake replied. “If the plan is convincing, then maybe I’ll help. And you’ll have to tell me what’s in it for me.”

  “Well, for the first part of the plan, you need to get everyone out of the station for a few hours,” I said. “Can you do it?”

  He put his hands in his pockets and eyed me suspiciously. “Sure. Randal wants to start dismantling and packing up the dig site. I can encourage them to head out this afternoon. That should give you some time. Why? What are you going to do?”

  I had only one idea, and it was a big one. Katsu left me no choice. I just hoped that when everything was done, I wouldn’t regret my decision.

  My plan was simple, but the decision that led to it had been brutal. I was going against everything my parents had taught me about excavations, but I couldn’t ignore my heart anymore. Like Icarus, I had to take the risk and fly higher, no matter what the personal cost.

  All I could think about was the air. Air was the enemy of scientific discoveries. If I was wrong, then once the ice was breached, the air would eat away at Charlie, destroying the discovery. But I was counting on the fact that once Charlie was thawed out, he would no longer be seen as just a specimen to study, but as a boy. A living, thinking, feeling creature. I had to melt as many cold scientific hearts as I could.

  Charlie had been placed on a wheeled metal platform to make it easier to transport him in ice form. Kyle and I wheeled the ice block out of the freezer and turned the heat up really high in the lab. Kyle helped me position the table over a drain in the floor. Once the thawing began, there would be a lot of water, and we didn’t want it pooling and making a mess.

  Even out in the warmth, it was going to take a long time to melt the ice. It took Dad an entire day to thaw out a frozen turkey last Thanksgiving, and Charlie was a lot bigger than a turkey. After a few minutes, the surface of the ice was glassy and slick with moisture, but not dripping yet.

  “That was not easy,” Jake said, joining us in the lab. “Do you know how hard it was to get Katsu to go with the rest of the team to the dig site and help pack up the equipment?” He sighed.

  “How did you get him to finally go?” Kyle asked.

  “I lent him one of my cameras and asked him to document the teardown of the site.” He shrugged. “Everyone likes being a director.”

  “I think Katsu just hates manual labor. Helping to pack up isn’t any fun—it’s work,” I added.

  “And lots of work. We should have at least five or six hours before they come back, so I hope that’s enough time.” Jake strolled over to the ice block and peered in at Charlie.

  “Let’s speed up the process,” Kyle said.

  We found some heat lamps in the rec room and set them up over the body. The lamps were like small suns melting away the ice, this time setting the boy inside free.

  “This is going to take forever, heat lamps or not,” Kyle said. “What else can we do to thaw the little guy out faster?”

  “What about chiseling him out? That way we don’t need to thaw the whole block,” Jake said.

  Dad would kill me if he knew what we were doing. This was probably not the best or most scientifically approved method of extracting a frozen person. Probably the exact opposite. But now that we’d started, I was desperate to free Charlie. Being here in the lab with him, I felt connected to him. A shiver went up my spine.

  “Smart thinking,” Kyle said.

  “But we should do it slowly, just in case,” I said. “We don’t want to hurt him. He could go into shock if we wake him too fast.”

  Jake rolled his eyes at us. “I hate to tell you both this, but Charlie—whatever he is—might not be revivable or even alive under all that ice. And we don’t have a lot of time until everyone gets back. So I say we break the cube open. Why wait? If he’s dead, he’s dead. But if he is awake, he’s awake.”

  “Way to be blunt,” Kyle said, giving Jake a dirty look.

  “What do you mean, dead?” My stomach twisted. There was no way that Charlie was dead. He was otherworldly. Maybe it was ridiculous to believe that Charlie was alive inside of the ice, but I know what I had seen in the dreamscape: a living, breathing boy with wings. I couldn’t give up hope. “He can’t be dead.” My voice was quieter than I had expected. I was more than hoping for the impossible. I was betting on it.

  Jake and Kyle exchanged a look that meant she’s in denial, but I didn’t care. I had looked into Charlie’s eyes when he sat up on the table. I knew that he was inside the ice, desperate to get out.

  Kyle ran the nozzle of the wet vacuum around the giant melting block. “This is going to take a long time.”

  Jake twirled a chisel around on his finger. I hated to admit that Jake was probably right about breaking the ice. We needed to thaw Charlie out and fast.

  “OK, but don’t chip away too much. Go slow.”

  Jake smiled and grasped the handle of his chisel like he was about to bash the block to pieces.

  “Shouldn’t you be filming this?” I asked, taking the tool out of his hand. I didn’t trust him with that look in his eyes. He would probably take a chunk out of Charlie if he wasn’t careful. Jake scowled at me but grabbed a tripod and began to set up his camera equipment to capture the entire event.

  Kyle and I traded off being lookout, just in case. The station was quiet. When it was my turn to chisel, I found that the ice was rough and thick. But slowly, Charlie emerged. It was like watching a body float to the surface of a frozen pond. After chipping away for what felt like hours, there was only a thin crust of ice above Charlie’s body.

  I knew that the minute we broke through the ice we would know if he was alive. I also knew that the air would go to work on him. If he was just a body, he was going to start to decay. The discovery was huge; so much was invested—everyone’s hopes and wishes. My heart raced. My hands were shaking. I put down the tool. The surface of the ice felt slick to my touch.

  “Kyle, bring the lamp over.” I set the heat lamp over Charlie’s face and torso and waited. “We should let it melt. I don’t want to cut him.”

  I picked at the ice by hand until my fingertips were numb. The ice crackled and flaked off. Finally, the surface chipped away. I wiped Charlie’s face with a towel, then reached out to touch his cheek. The skin was cold but firm—not hard like I thought it would be. It was fleshy, like a living person’s cheek. He was alive! I knew it.

  “Come on already.” Jake pulled at the hammer and chisel and hit the ice around the body like he was trying to remove ice and snow from his car. “Let’s just do this.”

  The ice split and fell away from Charlie’s left side, crashing to the floor. I backed away as Jake broke the ice from Charlie’s other side. The only ice that was left was a thick bed beneath him.

  I inched closer and wrinkled up my nose. He smelled a little like a wet dog. Underneath his body was a layer of soggy feathers, the tarnished color of old newspapers. There had to be hundreds of them. Kyle touched one, and it fell off in his hand. Charlie’s legs and body were covered in a strange gauzelike fabric. I was glad he was wearing something, even though it did resemble ancient mummy wrappings. His chest and arms were bare.

  “Is he breathing?” Jake asked.

  Charlie’s eyes were closed. His lashes were crusted with ice. I was afraid to try to wake him up. I put my head down on his chest, but I didn’t hear anything. I shook my head, and my heart sank.

  “Use a mirror,” Jake said. “There’s one over there.” He pointed to the cabinet.

  I grabbed the mirror and
put it in front of his lips, but nothing happened. “I just want him to breathe. Charlie, breathe,” I said.

  Kyle put the heat lamp over his face. “Maybe he just needs to warm up some.”

  “He’s a Popsicle,” Jake said.

  “Breathe,” I whispered, and blew in his face. Nothing happened. He was not moving. I brushed his face with the towel again and picked the crust of ice from between his lips. I wedged his lips apart. “Breathe.” I blew again on his face, but nothing happened.

  “Sorry, kid,” Jake said. “Tough break. He looks good, though. I would swear he was still alive.”

  “Get some more towels. I’ll dry him off,” I said. I wasn’t giving up yet, as futile as it seemed.

  “I’ll help clean up the water,” Kyle said.

  I dried Charlie’s face and body, soaked up the water with towels, and tossed chunks of leftover ice into the big metal sink. One more time, I thought. The mirror shook in my hands. My fingers were numb. My heart was broken. Wishing didn’t make someone come to life—I knew that. But I made one last plea.

  Charlie, it’s me, I whispered inside my head and held the mirror up to his parted lips.

  A tiny cloud of breath formed on the reflective surface.

  My heart leaped. “He’s alive! He breathed!” I spun around.

  Kyle raced to my side, and Jake almost fell over trying to get his camera focused on Charlie.

  “What do we do now?” Kyle asked.

  “We warm him up,” I said. “Get the blankets!”

  We wrapped Charlie and cleaned up the piles of ice. Jake carted the biggest chunks outside. What water didn’t go down the drain got sucked up by the wet vacuum. I turned up the electric blankets on Charlie. The heat lamps were still going full blast.