His lips compress to a thin, hard line. His eyes are cold.
I lift my hand. ‘Hear me out. The BSA is a bunch of radicals. They are growing in numbers. Probably ten percent of the human population is tied to or involved with the BSA by now. Quite a lot of people who want to suppress humanity, or, if the suppression thing doesn’t work out, they’ll just kill everyone who doesn’t agree with them. What do all the peaceful people do? You said so yourself: they don’t move a finger. They are irrelevant.’
‘Bullshit,’ he signs.
He has no idea. I cross my arms over my chest and grin coldly at him. ‘During the first World War, the majority of the people were peaceful, but more than forty million people were butchered.’
I let that sink in, but he only shrugs. ‘Because of that one time, you believe—’
I cut him off. ‘In the second World War, most of the people were peaceful. The radicals — they were called Nazis — were in the minority. The peaceful majority did little, and sixty million people were killed. Want to hear more?’
His jaws are working. He doesn’t answer.
I’m almost enjoying myself. I know it’s cruel, but truth often comes like that. ‘The majority of the first people to come to North America were peaceful, yet more than ninety million natives were killed — men, women, children, even babies. When climate change gradually disrupted our food supply, our ecosystems, our basis for survival, the majority did nothing to change the course of things. People love to watch the shit hitting the fan! Not once in the history of humankind was the peaceful, the inert majority, relevant. Not one single time.’ My fists are balled. I’ve had enough of humanity. They can all go down the drain.
Katvar shakes his head. He seems to want to scrape my words from his brain.
But I’m not done yet. ‘I believe that Erik has a brilliant understanding of human nature. In all of our history, there has never been a mass movement driven by altruism. Not one! You motivate people — men mostly — by telling them that the “others” have something that ought to belong to them, to us, to the “better” humans. Land. Women. Resources. You lead men with the carrot and drive them with a stick. Erik knows that people, as a mass, don’t do anything if you merely point out that people are supposed to help one another. These children at BSA headquarters, all kids in BSA camps, are half dead already. It will be a mercy to finish them off. Believe me. I know it.’
I turn away and stomp back to our cave. At the entrance, I stop, panting and undecided. I know I hurt him, but hell, I have no idea how to sugarcoat it. Or even why I should sugarcoat it.
He can believe in the good of people all he wants, it’s simply not going to happen, this…this…people helping each other thing. I mean, on a large scale. Yes, people helped us get here and Katvar helped me and I helped him, but the greater stuff. People uniting to push the BSA off their self-constructed throne and taking their weapons away. People loving their sons and daughters just the same, so that no one feels it necessary to join the radical motherfuckers. Is that so hard? Is that too much to ask? I groan and turn back to Katvar and find him kneeling in the snow, his back bent. Shit.
I run to him and ask, ‘What happened? Are you okay?’
He sits up and signs, ‘I’m praying.’
‘You’re what?’
‘I’m praying for you.’
Religion. The worst that can happen to me is to run into someone religious. ‘No. You cannot. What the fuck, Katvar?’ I can’t help but rake my gaze over his clothes to make sure there’s no pistol hidden anywhere.
‘Micka,’ he signs and looks up at me as if I've insulted him deeply. ‘I am on my knees. You are not listening to me, so I’m…begging silently to whoever might be listening to what I have to say. To me, praying is simply to get down on my knees, being humble, saying things no one wants to hear. I listen to what my heart tells me in times when…when life is so hard it bends me, and I have no one else to talk to. That’s it. I don’t talk to a god who wants to kill us all. That guy is an asshole. I don’t talk to assholes.’
‘Why don’t you come inside?’ I croak. ‘It’s cold out here. And… And I promise I’ll listen. I’m sorry.’
He blows a cloud of breath and stands, follows me into the snow cave and sits cross-legged on the bed.
I cut slices of frozen meat and lay them out for us. He inclines his head and picks at his dinner.
‘I am excluded. I am forbidden a wife, children, a family. There is nothing I want more and yet, fear more. My situation was caused by someone else. It’s not my fault. I could rage, I could either kill the ones who forbade me to have what is so important to every man, or I could leave my clan and begin a life far away where no one knows me, where no one knows what the mark of the Taker means. There are many reasons to feel anger. I believe… No. I know that I would be a happier man if I were given a choice in this matter. I know how I would choose. But none of this is relevant, because I cannot forget who I am. I am my father’s son. He is the one who brought this on my mother, on himself, and on me. I cannot take revenge on him, because he already did so. There is only one thing that I can do.’
He holds my gaze with his dark eyes.
‘What can you do?’
‘Forgive.’
‘What does that have to do with the BSA?’
‘Everything, Micka. You’ve given up hope.’
I open my mouth and he lifts both hands, palms facing me. ‘Let me finish,’ he signs.
I shut my mouth and he continues. ‘You try to wipe away what happened to you as if it’s dirt that can be rubbed off a surface. It doesn’t work that way. You’ll have to forgive yourself.’
‘Forgive myself? Are you nuts?’
‘You believe you’ve been too weak, too soft, too something. You keep telling yourself that, if only you’d been tougher, stronger, you could have prevented it all. You cannot accept that what has been done to you was not in your control, that they were much stronger than you, and that you simply had no chance. It’s unacceptable for you to not be in control, but that’s precisely what happened. You had no control. None of it was your fault. You have to forgive yourself.’
I swallow. My vision swims.
‘I am not him or them.’ He exhales and looks down at his crossed legs. ‘Don’t be afraid of me.’
I feel as if I’m about to detonate. My body coils, all my muscles contract, and I sprint from the cave and into the woods. Somewhere in the dark, I collapse and press my hot, wet face into the snow.
———
I’m flat on my stomach, my right eye centimetres from the scope, my cheek brushing my rifle’s stock. I feel complete. Reindeer trail through the snow and I take my time assessing windage and distance to the target.
After days of running through forests, we are in a wide open space. This must be the tundra. We can’t even see the horizon — the white sky melts into the white landscape. It’s time for target practice. Time for hunting.
Katvar huffs and taps my shoulder. I look up at him. He signs, ‘Wild dogs,’ and points at tiny dots trailing through the snow. I move my rifle and catch sight of the pack.
‘They look more like wolves,’ I say. My breath clouds my scope. I wait a short moment until it clears. When I look again, the reindeer are in full flight. The pack splits up to get at their prey from three sides. I pull another round from my pocket and stick it between my teeth, then I aim.
Katvar stops breathing. He doesn’t believe I can hit a target from a distance of one and a half kilometres.
One straight line of reindeer. The fourth of the last in line is in my crosshairs. The bullet is meant for the last in line — the animal will run into the bullet’s path. I pull the trigger and watch while slipping the second round into the chamber. The last reindeer in line falls. Ten seconds later, the pack is upon it. The other reindeer scatter. Katvar, who can see only dots at the horizon, inhales a rattling breath.
My reticle follows the small herd as it gradually re-forms into a tight
line. I wait until they gain about three kilometres distance from the wolves, then squeeze off the second shot. Blood erupts from a cream-coloured coat, staining the snow red. I kill two more, then sling my rifle over my back and pull my mittens on.
‘Let’s be quick,’ I say.
We jump on the sleds and Katvar gives one of his throaty commands. The dogs obey at once and we are propelled forward.
While I keep an eye on the wolves, Katvar takes the hide off the first animal with lightning speed. The dogs keep licking their noses, waiting patiently for their turn. When he opens the carcass and pulls out the guts, the two lead dogs stand to catch the offerings. He removes all innards, keeping only heart and liver for us. The neck and head are chopped to pieces with an axe, and thrown to the dogs. Then the rest is hauled onto the sled.
Katvar rubs snow over his bloody hands and wipes them clean. As soon as the dogs have finished their meal, and he and I have eaten our fill of fresh, warm meat, we load the other two reindeer onto the sleds and leave.
At nightfall, while reindeer roasts in a pot over the fire, the thought of satellites watching us doesn’t leave my mind. The back of my neck prickles despite thick clouds concealing us. I keep telling myself that to find us, Erik would have to distinguish our small fire from all the other small fires lit by hunters all across Eurasia. He can’t have tracked us from the Carpathian Mountains all the way up here. He cannot know where we are.
But when I’m travelling across the sea ice and approaching Svalbard, I’ll stick out like a sore thumb. My eyes flicker to Katvar. The sea ice. I can’t take him there. Not to where the BSA is. One glance and Erik would know that Katvar means something to me. He would break him just to make me suffer.
Katvar scans me from head to toe and signs, ‘I’ve never seen anyone shoot like that.’
‘Runner taught me.’ And there it is again, the pain. ‘I miss him,’ I whisper.
‘How did he die?’
I gaze up at the overcast sky, wishing I could see the stars as clear and bright as I’d seen them in Taiwan. No. I don’t want to see the stars. They’ve long lost their beauty.
‘We were stationed in Taiwan. The BSA had set up headquarters there. We learned that Erik was their commander and had hacked our satellite control systems. It was terrible. The battle…’ I clear my throat. ‘I shot many men, I’m not even sure how many. And I killed children.’
The silence is heavy. Only the crackling of the fire and sizzling of food reaches our ears.
‘We believed we’d won the battle until he blew up Taiwan’s only functional nuclear power plant,’ I continue. ‘Then he sent me a message to come to him. He told us that, if Runner moved, he would leave the island without me. He watched us via satellite. He had us in a trap. The only opportunity I was going to have to take Erik down, was to leave Runner behind and go straight to the BSA. I hoped Runner would make it to Taiwan’s satellite control centre and call for an airlift. I tried to make him promise, but…’ I swallow and take a deep breath. ‘Erik gave me access to satellites, he taught me how to use them. For months I searched for Runner. I found him. I saw him die. He was alone.’
I blink the burning from my eyes. ‘The meat is done. I should throw a hind leg on the dying fire, so we can eat it roasted tomorrow.’ I hand the pot to Katvar. I don’t tell him how much Runner meant to me. He was my life support.
Instead, I talk about Jeremiah.
Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes.
Genesis 19:8
It’s late, well past midnight, when Jeremiah comes home. He closes the door and stands in the darkness. No approaching footfalls. He’s rooted to the spot. My scalp prickles.
‘Jeremiah?’
He doesn’t answer, so I stretch out my hand, pick up the matches, and light the petroleum lamp. The room is dipped in warm light.
There’s blood on his face, his throat, his chest. I push myself off my rug and tell him to sit. He doesn’t move, so I lead him to the bed. His hands are shaking. I fetch water and a washcloth, and start cleaning him off. ‘Did you propose to Silas?’ I ask.
He just stares at me, doesn’t seem to get the joke at all. Maybe he didn’t even hear me, there’s a lot going on behind his eyes. His right cheekbone is bruised and swollen. His lower lip is split, a crack runs through his right eyebrow, his eye is swollen and half shut. I check his hands and wash them, rub the blood off, and pull them closer to the lamp. His knuckles look fine.
‘You didn’t hit back?’ I pull his chin in my direction, make him look at me. ‘Jeremiah?’
‘How good are you at keeping secrets?’ he whispers and that’s when I know it’s bad.
I shrug, because I don’t know how to convince him. ‘I keep a lot of secrets.’
He shakes his head, then nods, shakes it again. I take his hand. Maybe it helps him think.
‘This is more important than anything. More important than your own survival. You must…do your best.’ He stands, snaps open a knife and sticks the blade between two floorboards. He wiggles it along the crack, then along the other crack, widening both.
I’m growing hot when he lifts out the board and retrieves a small silvery thing from the depths below — not much bigger than the nail of my pinky. ‘This place is not safe anymore. You have to find a better hiding spot. Until then, swallow it.’ He holds it out to me.
His tone dampens all protests I might have voiced. Like a good and obedient wife, I part my lips and he slips the thing into my mouth.
‘It’s sealed and acid proof,’ he says, and I swallow.
‘What is it?’ Maybe I should have asked before eating it.
He replaces the floorboard, brushes dirt into the cracks and grinds it in with his boots. Then he sits down next to me. The mattress sags under his weight. ‘It’s a drive. It contains several exabytes of data. Orbits of satellites. All satellites.’
I let that sink in. I’m growing cold.
‘Satellite specifications and access codes. The entire global network; military, espionage, climate, everything.’
‘Why are you giving this to me?’ I ask.
‘To keep it safe. And one day…’ He clears his throat and looks down at his hands. ‘And one day you’ll use it to destroy them all. Go to Longyearbyen. You’ve been there before. Install the program.’ He dips a finger at my stomach. ‘Wipe out headquarters and shoot all satellites from the sky. Do you understand?’ He looks at me, then. Two sharp, pale blue eyes, pale blonde brows drawn low. Although we’re both sitting, he’s still much taller than I.
‘How do I get in?’
‘You will get in, trust me.’
So he’s hacked the security system of the Seed Vault, too? I’m stunned. I open my mouth to pour out all the questions that grate on the inside of my skull, but only one, the most important of them all, slips out: ‘What does Erik want with me?’
‘I don’t know. He’s planning something with you, that much is clear, but…I haven’t figured out what it is.’
‘He hasn’t told you?’
Jeremiah shakes his head.
‘Does he know you are a spy?’ I ask.
He doesn’t even blink. I’ve made a guess, and yet, it’s the only thing that seems to make sense.
‘I’m no spy. But I plan well and prepare for all…eventualities.’
‘What eventualities?’
His jaws are working. He inhales, his lungs are rattling. ‘I said I would only ever touch you when you wanted me. I don’t want to break my promise, but I need it…need you tonight. I need you to touch me tonight.’
His gaze sinks back to his hands and I know I’ll never see him again. I know that by tomorrow morning, the time of protection is over. For both of us.
‘Don’t you hurt?’ I ask.
‘Are you really a virgin?’
‘Why’s that so important?’
‘I need to know, so I’ll be gentler.
’
I give him a single nod. ‘I’m not sure what to do.’ To be honest, I have absolutely no clue what I’m supposed to do.
‘You could help me take off my shirt.’
It’s awkward. My hands are clumsy all of a sudden. My heart has lost its usual rhythm. Plopp-plopp it goes, as if blood is only randomly thrown into the organ and splashing back out of it.
The shirt comes off and there are more bruises. They don’t seem to bother him much. He’s built like one of those ancient steam engines. Raw power wherever I look.
‘Are you scared?’ he asks and I shake my head. I’m scared of tomorrow, not of tonight.
I pull off my shirt and step out of my pants. He looks at my small breasts as if lightning has struck him. His hand reaches out, his hard palms, calloused fingers, and then, a gentle touch to my soft flesh. Warmth rushes over my skin.
‘I want to kiss you,’ he whispers.
‘’Kay,’ I croak and he leans in. My fingers try his hair, trail through it. Soft. Almost white. His lips are gentler than I expected. I feel his teeth graze my nipple, then a warm tongue, hot breath. He groans and presses his forehead against my ribcage. ‘I want you to want it,’ he mutters. ‘I want you to want it.’
‘Yes,’ I whisper. ‘I want you.’ And it’s true. Tonight is outside of reality. Tonight is the calm before the storm. Tomorrow, everything will be washed away.
A growl rumbles up his throat. He wraps his arms around me and pulls me into him as he leans back on the bed. Together we fall. Through his pants, I can feel him harden against me. My hand slides along his length. I pull at his waistband and we kick off his pants.
‘You seem shocked,’ he whispers.
I nod. It’s as if, now that he’s naked and I am naked too, the heaviness of our decision settles in. That step forward.
‘Will it hurt?’ I hear myself ask.
‘I won’t hurt you. You might feel a little raw later. But in a very…enjoyable way.’ His pale skin acquires a pink tinge. The corners of his mouth twitch. ‘I hope.’
Ice: The Climate Fiction Saga Page 12
