The Arctic Code

by Matthew J. Kirby

  She was now over two hours into the flight, with a good five or six to go, and she still had nothing to do.

  She ended up unpacking all her gear—the mask, the crampons, the coats, all of it—and then practiced putting it on and taking it off, repeatedly, until the actions became quick and smooth. She timed herself and got to the point where she could suit up completely in under a minute. Even though she had no idea whether that meant anything, it made her feel more ready for the Arctic.

  Another hour had gone by.

  She walked to one of the two windows and peered outside. Everything just looked white. She turned away from the window—what she thought was a sky full of clouds—but then stopped. She returned to the window and looked down.

  White. It wasn’t just the sky. It was all white.

  The ground had disappeared, as if someone had pulled a white sheet tight over a bed. Eleanor blinked.

  The ice sheet.

  They’d reached the great glacier’s border, the edge of life and civilization, then flown right over it without her realizing it. She’d heard so much about the menace of the ice from school and the news, she’d half expected it to have claws and teeth. But from up here, it appeared quiet and still. Tranquil, even. Somehow, that made it more frightening, because that meant the ice could lie.

  She watched the endless white for some time—the ice that had taken her mom—but after a while, its image became distorted. She started seeing things down there. Was that a river? A road? A town? In the same way her eyes imagined shapes and shadows in pitch darkness, she saw signs of life on the ice where there couldn’t be any, as though her mind simply refused to accept a void.

  She forced herself from the window, back to her gear. Her eyes watered and burned from staring too long. She rubbed them and realized they wanted to stay closed, so she made herself a bed with her coats and her sleeping bag and lay down. They weren’t quite halfway yet. Maybe she could sleep for some of the flight.

  Eleanor awoke to a sudden jolt. It bounced her hard enough to bang her head on the floor. The whole plane rattled and shook.

  They’d landed.

  She quickly gathered all her gear and shoved it into her pack. How long had she slept? Four hours? She hadn’t realized she was so exhausted. But her level of stress and fear over the last day had been intense.

  The plane lumbered along and eventually settled to a stop with a giant sigh. Eleanor decided it would probably be better to stay out of sight at first. She climbed back up the webbing to her previous perch and settled in to wait.

  Before long, the door to the cargo hold opened up, and first light, then wind, and finally snow poured in. The cold hit Eleanor’s face like an unexpected slap, and she realized instantly that this was Alaska.

  “Your stuff is there,” she heard Luke say. His voice had a metallic, muffled quality. “Behind all the G.E.T. cargo.”

  “You’re running shipments for the G.E.T.?” It was a woman’s voice, also metallic and muffled.

  “Don’t have much of a choice, according to the law. They even ordered me to skip your delivery, so if anyone asks, this is all for ‘humanitarian purposes.’ Article something or other from the International Conservation of Energy Treaty.”

  Eleanor thought back to the earlier conversation she’d overheard. If she understood Luke correctly, they weren’t in Barrow yet. He’d stopped in Fairbanks after all. Her cheeks and nose were already starting to hurt from the cold, and each breath stabbed the inside of her chest with an icicle.

  “Well, I appreciate you violating a UN treaty,” the woman said.

  “Anything for you, doll.”

  Eleanor could hear them getting closer.

  “Any trouble, otherwise?” the woman asked.

  “Nope. But I have to hustle the rest of this to Barrow before the storm hits.”

  “Forecast is saying it’s going to be a bruiser.” She paused. “What’s that?”

  “What?”

  “That pack.”

  Oh no. Eleanor closed her eyes. Her pack. She had left it on the floor. Luke knew she was here.

  He raised his voice. “Come on out, kid!”

  “Kid?” the woman asked.

  Eleanor sighed, rose to her hands and knees, and peered over the top of her crate tower. She saw now why their voices had sounded odd. They were both wearing masks—full plates of plastic and metal, with dark lenses over the eyes and a breathing apparatus over the mouth—which was what Eleanor wished she was wearing with each moment her skin was exposed to the Alaskan cold blowing into the cargo bay.

  “Get over here,” Luke said. “Now.”

  Eleanor scrambled down the webbing, nervousness making her feel especially clumsy. But what could Luke do at this point? It wasn’t like he could just leave her there in Fairbanks, and with his deadline, he wouldn’t be turning back to Phoenix, either. He’d be mad, for sure, but she would get to Barrow, which was all that mattered.

  Luke folded his arms, and with his mask, he looked a bit more threatening than before. “What do you think you’re doing, kid?”

  She folded her arms, too. “My name isn’t kid. It’s Eleanor.”

  “I don’t care,” Luke said. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Oh, Luke, go easy on her,” the woman said. “It looks like she had a long flight. Eleanor, I’m Betty.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Eleanor turned to Luke. “I didn’t mean any harm. Your plane was the only way.”

  “The only way to what?” Betty asked.

  “The only way to get to Barrow.”

  “Barrow?” Eleanor could imagine the shock on Betty’s face behind her mask. “Why on earth would you want to go—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Luke said. “Betty, your drilling cores are stacked over there. Be careful—they’re heavy.”

  Betty snorted. “Always a gentleman.”

  “You know me.”

  A moment passed, and when it became clear Luke didn’t intend to help, Betty went to the crates he’d indicated. She lifted one, and with a backward glance that would probably have been a glare, she marched out of the plane.

  Eleanor felt a sudden, violent shiver. Back in Phoenix, she thought she knew cold. But this Alaskan cold had moved its assault from her face to the rest of her body, as if determined to make sure she knew it was something else entirely.

  “You need a mask,” Luke said. “Did you bring one?”

  Eleanor nodded.

  “Well, don’t just stand there like a fool. Go get it.”

  Eleanor hurried to her pack, pulled out the mask, and put it on, just as she’d practiced. Her face warmed a little, which felt better, but the biggest difference was the air. It no longer bit on its way into her lungs.

  “Better?” Luke asked.

  “Better.” Her voice had taken on that same metallic muffle.

  “Good,” he said. “Now get off my plane. This is as far as you go.”

  “What?” Eleanor almost laughed. He couldn’t be serious.

  “You heard me.” He firmed up his stance. “End of the line. Off. Now.”

  CHAPTER

  8

  “LUCIUS FOURNIER!” BETTY HAD COME BACK INTO THE cargo hold. “You are not leaving her stranded here.”

  Lucius?

  “Better here than stranded in Barrow,” he said.

  “I won’t be stranded,” Eleanor said. “My mom is there.”

  Luke stared at her a moment through the dark lenses of his mask. “Your mom is in Barrow?”

  Eleanor hesitated before answering. “Close to Barrow, yes. That’s what I’ve been trying—”

  “Why the devil is your mom in Barrow?”

  “She’s a geologist,” Eleanor said. “She works for an oil company.”

  Luke turned toward Betty.

  The woman put her hands on her hips and cocked her head. “Don’t look at me that way. You’ve only got one choice here, and you know it.”

  Another moment passed, and then Luke flipped bot
h hands in the air. “Fine. Betty, get your crap off my plane. Kid, let’s go.” He stalked away through the hold.

  Eleanor turned to Betty. “Do you need help?”

  Betty laughed. “Not as much as you will once this plane takes off. But don’t let him fool you. Luke is a good guy underneath all that, and that’s a rare thing up here. You better get going, though, unless you want to stay back here for the rest of the flight.”

  “Thanks.” Eleanor grabbed up her pack and followed after Luke. She found him waiting at the bottom of the ramp.

  “That all you brought?” he asked.

  Eleanor nodded. Then she looked around. She was now immersed in the sea of ice she’d seen from the plane, the sheet flat and unending to the horizon on all sides. They were on an airfield, but the buildings and hangars looked more like battered bunkers. Every vehicle Eleanor saw had tank treads instead of wheels. Every person she saw moving around wore layers and layers of armor against the cold and walked with head and shoulders down. Their appearance created the impression that Fairbanks was a city at war, under constant siege from the cold and the ice.

  “This way.” Luke led her to the front of the plane, then up a motorized staircase.

  Eleanor followed him up and through the door into the cabin.

  There were three rows of passenger seats, four to a row, two on each side of the aisle. Luke pulled the door closed, latched it with a big lever, and removed his mask. Then he ducked into the open cockpit at the front and took the pilot’s seat.

  “Sit anywhere you want,” he called over his shoulder as he stretched a headset over his ears.

  “Okay.” Eleanor took off her mask, replaced it in her pack, and tossed the pack into one of the seats. Then she climbed up into the cockpit and slipped into the copilot’s chair beside Luke.

  He lifted an eyebrow at her. “What are you doing?”

  She buckled in. “You told me to sit anywhere I want.”

  “Yeah.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “Back there.”

  “That’s not what you said.”

  “Well, I—” He closed his mouth. “You know what? Fine. Whatever. Just don’t touch anything.”

  Eleanor brought her legs up and crossed them in her seat. “I won’t.”

  Luke positioned the headset’s microphone in front of his mouth. “Fairbanks Tower, this is cargo craft one-nine-three-zero Consuelo, reporting all systems go. . . . Roger that. . . .” He flipped a series of switches around and above him. Eleanor scanned the cockpit, with all its dials and gauges and controls, and noticed a little black-and-white screen with a fish-eyed video feed from the cargo hold. It appeared that Betty had unloaded all her crates. Luke watched the feed carefully for a moment and then flipped another switch. On the screen, the cargo door closed.

  Then it occurred to Eleanor. Luke had known she was back there. Had he been watching her the whole time? She swiveled in her chair and looked directly at him while pointing at the screen.

  He shrugged. “I didn’t notice you until we were three hours out of Phoenix, but by that point I’d already lost too much time—” He snapped forward as if listening to something in his headphones. “Affirmative, Fairbanks Tower. Cargo craft one-nine-three-zero Consuelo, taxiing to runway.” He took hold of the yoke and the throttle, and the plane crawled forward.

  Eleanor hadn’t taken her stare from him.

  As he guided the plane, he shook his head at her. “Don’t look at me like that. You’re the one who illegally stowed away on my plane.”

  Eleanor faced forward in her seat. “That doesn’t give you the right to spy on me.”

  “According to ancient maritime law, stowaways have no rights. They can even be thrown overboard.”

  Eleanor squinted at him. “You just made that up, didn’t you?”

  “I’m sure I heard it somewhere,” he said. The plane reached a position at the end of a long, unpaved runway that appeared to be made of ice mixed with gravel. “Fairbanks Tower, cargo craft one-nine-three-zero Consuelo, am I cleared for takeoff? Over.”

  Eleanor wasn’t quite ready to let his lie go, but Luke’s focus had shifted entirely to the plane. He took hold of the yoke in front of him.

  “Affirmative. See you next time, Fairbanks Tower.” He pushed the throttle down again, but this time, the plane jumped, gaining speed fast enough to squeeze Eleanor’s stomach. “Here we go, kid,” Luke said.

  Taking off was a very different experience up here than it had been back in the cargo hold. Through the windows, Eleanor could see ahead of them and to either side, and she felt a thrill at the way the world streaked by.

  Luke pulled back on the yoke, and the nose of the plane lifted off the ground, followed by the rest of her, and they were airborne. The plane climbed at a steep angle, the world falling away from them at a rapid pace, and she kept climbing until they were above the clouds.

  Several moments later, Luke leveled them off. “About two hours to Barrow.”

  Eleanor’s earlier irritation and embarrassment had faded. Luke might have been spying on her, but that also meant he hadn’t kicked her off. “Thanks,” she said.

  Luke took a moment to respond. “You’re welcome.”

  “So, where are you from?” Eleanor asked.

  Luke shook his head. “No. We’re not doing that.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Getting to know each other.”

  Eleanor rolled her eyes and turned to look out the window. “Just trying to pass the time.”

  The engine droned.

  “Anchorage,” Luke said. “That’s where I’m from.”

  Maybe that answered the other question Eleanor wanted to ask, which was why Luke kept flying up here when other pilots didn’t. “Ever been married? Kids?”

  Luke gripped the steering column. “Married once. Two kids. Robbie and Amanda. When the ice came, my ex took them south. I took to the air.” He turned to look at Eleanor. “What about you? Your mom’s in Barrow. Where’s your dad?”

  “No dad,” she said. “I have an Uncle Jack, though.”

  “He know where you are?” Luke asked.

  An instant guilt put Eleanor on the defensive. Uncle Jack was probably freaking out by now, calling the cops and everything. “I’m sure he has some idea. He’ll forgive me, though. Eventually. He gets me.”

  “That a problem you have? People not getting you?”

  “Pretty much,” Eleanor said. “People think I’m a freak. Maybe I am. No one I know would have stowed away on a plane heading to Alaska.”

  “Well,” Luke said, “not many pilots are crazy enough to fly up this way, so I guess that makes me a freak, too.” He paused. “What about your mom? Does she get you?”

  “Sometimes,” Eleanor said. But there were also times it didn’t seem like her mom, or even Uncle Jack, truly understood her. At times it seemed like no one did. She shook that thought away and focused on the clouds, the blue sky, the blur of ice below. This was much better than riding in the cargo hold.

  “So.” She bounced an eyebrow. “Lucius, huh?”

  He chuckled. “Only when I’m in trouble.”

  Eleanor grinned. “Betty was right, you know.”

  “About what?”

  “You are a good guy.”

  His demeanor changed. The smile abandoned his lips and his eyes, leaving a hardness behind. “Don’t get your hopes up, kid.”

  For the next hour or so, they didn’t say much. The ice sheet below gave way to the peaks of a mountain range pushing up through it, creating the appearance of an island chain. Eleanor started thinking about what she would do when she reached Barrow. The first thing she wanted to do was find someone with a snow vehicle she could hire, travel to her mother’s station out on the ice sheet, and start helping in the search.

  But that might have to wait. It was nearing four o’clock in the afternoon, which meant there wouldn’t be a lot of time before the sun set, and even Eleanor knew better than to go out onto the ice sheet at night.
>
  The eastern horizon had grown dark. It took Eleanor a moment to realize it was too early for that to be from the time of day.

  “Why is it so dark over there?” she asked Luke.

  “Polar storm,” he said. “It’ll hit Barrow earlier than I was expecting. I’m barely going to have enough time to unload and refuel.”

  “What happens if you run out of time?” Eleanor asked, but what she worried about more was her mom, stranded or lost or trapped somewhere out there, about to get caught in the same storm. Unless Eleanor managed to locate her first.

  “I’m stuck in Barrow until it passes over,” Luke said. “Could last a week, or longer.” He shook his head. “We’ll be landing soon. How quick can your mom come get you?”

  Eleanor shifted in her seat. “Um, not quick.”

  Luke paused. “Why not?”

  Eleanor didn’t think there was any reason to keep the truth from him now. They were almost at Barrow. “My mom is kind of . . . lost.”

  “What?”

  “She went out on the ice sheet and her company lost contact with her.”

  “Okay, so who’s coming to get you?”

  Eleanor’s voice got quiet. “No one.”

  Luke’s face reddened. “Is anyone up here even expecting you?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Ice me, I knew something was off,” Luke said. “Should have listened to my gut and kicked you off back in Fairbanks. After I unload and refuel, I’m taking you back to Phoenix—”

  “NO!”

  “You don’t have a choice, kid.”

  “I’m not leaving until I find my mom. I’m the only one she trusted, and I’m going after her!”

  “Well, I don’t know any mom who would want her kid daughter coming up to Barrow, of all places, all alone on some rescue mission.”

  “I didn’t say she wanted me to come,” Eleanor said. “I chose to come up and find her.” She sat back in her seat, arms folded. “It doesn’t matter—it’s not your problem. After we land, you don’t have to worry about me anymore.”

  Luke closed his eyes and kneaded his forehead. His voice got quiet. “Listen to me very carefully. Barrow is a dangerous place, even for people like me. Especially for someone like you. It’s like the Wild West up here, kid. Excepting a few scientists like your mom, most of the people up here are criminals running from the law, or desperate folks trying to strike it rich. Lots of people get stuck up here in forced labor outfits. Drill junkies murder each other over oil claims. You don’t have any idea what you’re doing.”