Dry Ice

by Evans, Bill; Jameson, Marianna

  Tess stared at her former mentor. “With all due respect, Greg, choosing a successor is not your call to make. This is a commercial, scientific enterprise, not a medieval fiefdom. Whether you like it or not, Croyden Flint and the board of directors own TESLA, and they want me to replace you.”

  For the first time since they began talking, fire lit Greg’s eyes. Rage he must have worked hard to keep carefully hidden was there for her to see. He practically spat his next words at her. “You know nothing about what we really do here—”

  Bad things. Things we never authorized and never would authorize, Tess. The properties of the ionosphere have been changed.

  A cold pit of fear opened in her gut as Gianni’s words came back to her. Maintaining her composure became more of a battle than a challenge.

  “Then enlighten me, Greg. I’ve reviewed the entire program: the mission, the installation, its operations, program goals, execution, successes, and failures. Tell me what I don’t know.”

  The fire went out of him as fast as it appeared. His usual icy demeanor was back in place. “Why should I?”

  “Because I’m in charge now. I want a smooth transition.”

  “You propose to take charge while I’m still here?” he asked after a brief, amused pause.

  She lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “I’m already in charge, and you won’t be here for long. You’re leaving as soon as they get the plane refueled.”

  Greg watched her for a long, silent moment and then shook his head. “You’re making a mistake, Tess. I’m as critical a component of this installation as the wind turbines or the phased arrays. TESLA cannot function without me.”

  The alarm Tess had felt a moment ago was tempered by a distant cousin to pity. Greg had an enormous ego; it was in keeping with his character that he’d see her as the undeserving usurper of all of his power, all of his work. Nor did it surprise her that he considered himself one of TESLA’s vital organs instead of a replaceable cog. It didn’t take a genius to realize that the thought of leaving TESLA had to be killing him.

  Tess blinked. Get a grip, girl. Greg Simpson bleeds liquid nitrogen and probably eats kittens for lunch. I refuse to cut him any slack.

  She pushed away from the wall. “Greg, I know you don’t trust me with TESLA, but Croyden does, and that’s what matters. I can only assure you that we’ll make it work.”

  He looked at her blankly for a long moment, then offered a bland smile. “Well. If you are so confident that you can replace me, it appears the only thing for me to do is to bow out gracefully.”

  Tess stared at him, almost breathless at the rapid change in his demeanor and decision. “Thank you,” she said warily.

  “Of course,” he said with a slight, stiff nod. “Naturally, the staff, the programmers, and the other scientists will welcome you, although I feel obligated to advise you that this is a highly structured organization that places a significant value on routine and predictability. Attempts to disturb the status quo will not be met with any support from the team. You need that support when living in an environment as isolated and dangerous as inland Antarctica. But, of course, how you choose to behave while you’re here is up to you, Tess.”

  While I’m here? Why does that sound so temporary? Cold distrust layered itself on top of her wariness.

  He moved to the door and opened it, watching her from within that bubble of odd stillness. “If you don’t mind, Tess. I have things to do.”

  “I’ll survive, Greg. So will TESLA. Nik and the others will fill in whatever gaps you’re referring to.”

  Ignoring her words, Greg looked into the hallway. “Gentlemen, I believe we need to talk?”

  “Thanks for the chat,” Tess said as she passed in front of him.

  Greg’s face was immobile, his expression cold, as if it were carved from the stone of those lethal cliffs she’d flown over just a few hours ago. “You’re very welcome, Tess.”

  * * *

  The meeting with the two executives from Flint was brief and mostly administrative in scope. Before they left his office, they confiscated his computers, his phone, and his smart card. He didn’t mind. He didn’t need them anymore.

  Greg closed the door behind them and leaned against it.

  The mere fact that Tess had arrived had sealed his fate, and when she hadn’t backed down, he knew he’d had to accept reality. He was leaving TESLA. Oh, he’d played his part well; he’d signed the surrender. Though there was no longer any need to maintain his control, he would leave with his head high and his dignity intact as befitted a king dethroned. But he was not without power, nor was he without the means and the desire for revenge.

  And he lusted for the taste of its sweetness.

  He had already ensured that Tess would not bother him again. Not publicly, not privately. She and every money-grubbing, soul-sucking miscreant who had participated in the decision to send her here would be eliminated. Messily, dramatically, but inescapably.

  It was all over, really. Much earlier in the day he’d embedded the software into the system and had set it to initiate as soon as a new password—Tess’s password—was activated on the system. She’d be complicit in her downfall, and the world’s.

  All that was left for him to do was sit back in whatever five-star hotel Flint booked him into and watch his legacy unfold.

  He removed a few mementos from the shelves, then glanced around the office. His eyes rested on a small framed quotation from Mohandas Gandhi. Be the change you wish to see in the world.

  He smiled, congratulating himself on having lived true to those words, albeit in a way the great man never intended. He left it where it was, hanging over his desk, and completed his perusal of the room.

  She can have the rest of it. And find out for herself that none of it will do her any good.

  He left the office then, and headed toward his personal quarters.

  CHAPTER 9

  Outside Greg’s office, Tess stood still for a moment, waiting for the sense of surreality to fade. Fred and Tim had searched her face with cautious glances, but she’d waved them into Greg’s office with the assurance that she’d meet them in the dining room later.

  The two other men remained outside the office after the two executives went in. She knew they were the security team that had flown down with her, but everything that had happened since she’d met them in Capetown had wiped their names from her mind.

  “Are you okay?” the taller one asked.

  Tess raised her eyes to meet his. “Fine.”

  “You don’t look fine. You look—” He paused, and the other filled the void.

  “You looked freaked out.”

  She smiled. “No, not freaked out. Just still tired from the flight. I’m sorry, but I don’t remember your names.”

  The taller one pointed to himself, “Joe,” then jerked his thumb toward his colleague: “Teddy.”

  “Nice to meet you again. And thanks for coming down here.” She paused. “Do you do this for everyone?”

  “It’s standard procedure when there’s a transfer of power,” Teddy replied. “Coming here is a better gig than accompanying some suit to a test farm in Iowa.”

  She laughed. “I’ve never been to Iowa, but I’ll take your word for it. So do you stay here—” She stopped and indicated Greg’s office door.

  “Yes, ma’am. Unless you’d like one of us to accompany you somewhere.”

  “No, I’m fine. Just curious. I’ve never done this before. Walked in and taken over, I mean.”

  “It’s a piece of cake,” Joe replied. “Just give ’em hell.”

  Right.

  She smiled and headed down the corridor toward the central staircase, inwardly cursing herself for letting her delirium at being offered the job get in the way of pressing Gianni harder on the issue of Greg.

  When she was far enough along the curved hallway that she could no longer see anyone, she stopped and leaned heavily against the wall.

  I need food. And a sanity check.
And to find out when that plane is going to get gone.

  Glancing down the hall in both directions, Tess still saw no one, and took the opportunity to slide to a sitting position, eyes closed, the back of her head resting against the wall. Just for a minute. Just until she was thinking clearly.

  It was futile.

  One comment Greg had made overshadowed everything else that had come out of his mouth: “Do you know what we really do here?”

  Her answer should have been an emphatic yes, but just the way he’d said it, the fact that he’d thought to ask it, told her that she probably didn’t know the full scope of what went on at TESLA. And if that gap in her knowledge wasn’t critical, Greg never would have mentioned it.

  Tess blew out a slow, steady stream of air and took in another, then repeated the sequence and dragged herself to her feet so she could track down Nik or some food.

  Or some answers.

  She hadn’t gone very far when she saw Nik leaning against the curve of the inner wall, hands thrust loosely into his pockets, watching her walk toward him. His normal, casual clothes—the hot-pink Polo and seriously worn blue jeans—reminded Tess that she hadn’t changed out of the unfashionable but mandatory flight gear, which started with waffle-weave thermal underwear and just got better from there.

  She slowed her pace and made eye contact, wondering what role he played in Greg’s warped fiefdom. As she drew near, Nik straightened and gave her a half-smile.

  “I’m beginning to wonder if you have a job,” she said lightly.

  His dark eyes flashed with amusement. “I do. I’m just not doing it at the moment. So, were you welcomed into the fold like one of the family? The prodigal daughter, perhaps?”

  Tess slowed to a stop in front of him. “I wouldn’t quite characterize it as a ‘welcome.’”

  “Greg doesn’t like change.”

  “He never has.”

  “Where are you headed now?”

  “I wouldn’t mind finding a hot shower and a hot meal.”

  “I can help with both. Follow me,” he said, turning in the direction she was headed. “I heard you speak at a conference a few years ago. In Moscow.”

  She smiled as they walked next to each other. “I’ve been to Moscow twice, both times for conferences in the same year. For one, I spoke about ionospheric echo boundaries. At the other, I debated climate change as the only outsider on a panel of chaos theorists.”

  “I attended echo boundaries.”

  “The other one was better.”

  “So I heard. Someone threw a chair.”

  “No, the chair fell over when he stood up to throw a punch. It connected, too. Not bad aim for an eighty-year-old. But I doubt the heart attack he had afterward was worth it,” she added drily. “So why didn’t you stop by to say hello?”

  He gave her a sidelong glance, a rueful smile teasing at the corner of his mouth. “You were the most popular girl on campus. I couldn’t get near you.”

  Tess laughed. “You should have tried harder. I would have loved to see you. I think I was the only girl on campus at that conference. With a speaking role, anyway. Were you waiting for me just now? Wondering if I’d emerge in a body bag?”

  “Not really. I was heading downstairs and heard a noise. I waited to see if it was you. Do you mind if I ask you a blunt question?”

  “It’s apparently impossible to stop you.”

  He grinned. “Are you going to answer it this time?”

  Tess felt her smile fade as she met his eyes. She slowed to a stop. “Yes, I’ll answer it. But not here. Where’s your office?”

  * * *

  Nik blinked at her as she stood there, facing him in the hallway in that flannel-shirted he-girl getup, her blue gaze meeting and holding his.

  That was easy.

  He cleared his throat. “Back there. I was standing outside of it when you saw me. But, hey, I can wait until you’ve had something to eat.”

  Tess shook her head, sending that long blond hair spilling over her shoulder. She pushed splayed fingers through it, then tucked some of it behind one ear. It was a gesture he remembered from the old days. It meant she was distracted and maybe a little edgy. Then again, she was hungry and tired and most likely had just gotten verbally slapped around by Greg. She had every reason to be edgy.

  “Thanks, Nik, I appreciate that, but we might as well get this over with.”

  Get it over with?

  He shot her an odd look but said nothing.

  “Besides, I have to meet Fred and Tim in the dining room when they’re done with Greg,” she added. “This won’t take long.”

  Maybe I am on the way out. “Okay,” he said and motioned toward his office.

  They walked in silence and came to a stop outside the unadorned door a few minutes later. Nik could feel her watching him as he swept his smart card through the sensor and pressed the pad of the middle finger of his right hand to the biometric screen.

  “Nice touch. Did you think that up all by yourself?” she asked drily.

  Nik turned to her with a grin that usually got him what he wanted. “Why be boring? Besides, it sums up my attitude to all the security measures around here.”

  “The security protocols aren’t onerous. I think in some ways it must be easier to live in a top-secret vault than to work in one and then have to keep your nose clean for the other sixteen hours a day when you’re in the real world,” she said as she preceded him into the space at his invitation.

  “Well, you have a point, but come on: no Internet connectivity? No attachments coming through on emails unless they’re cleared by a censor? That’s a bit over the top. The NRO and CIA let their people have outside connections.”

  “And they’re hacked regularly.”

  Nik shook his head. “If we can’t be trusted not to be stupid, we shouldn’t be here.” He walked past her and tapped the iPod on his desk, bringing it to life, before gesturing for her to sit in the chair wedged into a corner of the small, bookshelf-lined room.

  “I haven’t heard the Eurythmics in years.”

  Like, maybe, fifteen years? Since that first night we got a little inappropriate with each other?

  He stifled a smile. “I’m lost in the eighties, what can I say?” He picked up the small remote control unit and increased the volume slightly, then met her eyes again. “But I didn’t put it on to entertain you.”

  She blinked and a look something like … relief?… washed over her face. “You think your office is bugged?”

  “I operate under the assumption that everything is bugged. Greg is one weird dude. That much has not changed,” he said, settling into the chair behind his desk. “So, Tess, talk to me.”

  “Interesting decor.” Tess lowered herself into the chair as she looked around the room.

  “Thanks.” Nik watched her eyes stop, then widen, as she studied the set of framed pieces over his desk. It took her a minute to drag her gaze back to him.

  “I’m here to replace Greg,” she said simply.

  “I figured it had to be me or him.”

  She smiled at him, her blue eyes clear and direct and slightly surprised.

  “I mean, your reputation is … stellar, Tess. There would be no other reason for someone like you to be here,” he said, hoping he looked less awkward than he felt.

  Tess gave him a faint smile and crossed her legs.

  Even in those crappy clothes, you look good. Damn good.

  Blond and brainy was his favorite combination of traits in a woman. Adding a pair of huge baby blues and wraparound legs made the combination seismic.

  “Okay, so … why?” he asked.

  “Why what?” she replied warily.

  “We might as well get it out in the open. Why you and not me? To run the show, I mean.” The question didn’t come out as smoothly as planned. Even he could hear the irritation, the bashed ego in his voice.

  To her credit, Tess didn’t look away. “I wasn’t privy to those conversations, Nik. Gianni approach
ed me with the offer. That’s all I know.”

  He picked up a pen that was lying on his desk and snapped the cap on and off while keeping his gaze on her. “Come on. You never asked him why Greg’s lieutenant, who’s been here for years, who knows the site, the people, the project, the players, wasn’t getting the spot, even temporarily, when it would have eased the transition? It didn’t strike you as just a little odd, given the time of year?”

  She said nothing.

  “It’s your turn to talk,” he pointed out.

  She leaned back in her chair, letting her head rest against the wall. “Do you really want to know, or do you just want to get your digs in, Nik?”

  “I want to know.”

  “Okay. I don’t know why you weren’t chosen. I wasn’t told. Gianni only said that Croyden Flint wanted me here. Can we move on?”

  “No.”

  “There was a comment made about leadership skills, Nik, but it wasn’t in the context of what you’re asking.”

  “Croyden doesn’t think I have leadership skills?” he demanded.

  Tess lifted an eyebrow. “Like the ones you’re displaying now?”

  As annoyed as he was, Nik had the urge to laugh. He squelched it and kept his eyes on her.

  “I don’t know what Croyden thinks of you. Gianni said it,” she continued. “But from what I’ve seen in your personnel file, you’re still considered a loose cannon. A practical joker—”

  “That can’t be in the file,” he snapped, mildly embarrassed.

  “Everything is in that file. You know Greg is a lunatic for details.”

  “So why is he getting yanked?”

  “Croyden wants him in Connecticut to work on other projects. Greg’s known that for months. He kept refusing their suggestions that he return to headquarters, so they finally had to get tough. He wasn’t told that I was on my way until I was in the air. It’s a dreadful way to handle it, but they wanted him out immediately.” Tess looked like she was about to say something else, then stopped.

  “Hell of a way to do it,” he muttered. “What a bunch of douche bags. When were we going to be told?”