James Patterson - The Final Warning

“What are they?” I asked.

“Wandering albatrosses,” said Nudge, who had now shucked her coat and scarf and was peeling down to her underwear. “Sailors used to think they held the souls of dead sailors. Oh, my God, this water feels fantastic!” She sank down slowly, seeming to almost disappear into the mist.

“Be careful,” I said. “The water might suddenly turn boiling or something.”

“I’m going in too,” said Total, trotting over to the water.

The albatrosses wheeled overhead. The biggest ones had wingspans bigger than Angel’s- maybe nine feet across. They were amazing. They hardly ever flapped their wings- just glided on the rising currents of warm air. Because our body-weight-to-wingspan ratio was so much greater, we probably couldn’t pull that off.

“Oh, my God!” Nudge said again, sounding alarmed.

I whipped my head around and hurried toward her. “What?” Behind me, Fang was examining the sky, the sea, the land, for approaching threats. I skidded to a halt at the water’s edge, scattering grit and tiny pebbles. “What’s wrong?”

Nudge pointed at Total. He was up to his nose in the warm water, looking more cheerful than I’d seen him in a long time. His black fur was wet and slicked down against his sides. I peered at what Nudge was pointing at.

“What?” said Total sleepily, relaxing in the steamy water. “Man, this is heaven on my paws. They get so cold… Maybe little boots…”

Now all of us were at the water’s edge, frowning at Total.

He groggily blinked up at us. “Yougotta try this. If I had a martini right now, I’d never come out.”

Then it hit me, what I was looking at. I don’t know why it took me so long- I’d seen stuff just like it a bunch of times, and not only on us. I somehow never expected it to happen to Total, that’s all.

Fang raised his eyebrows. I made a “Holymoly ” face back at him.

“What?” said Total, waking up a bit, realizing we were all staring at him.

I swallowed. “Uh, Total? You’re growing wings.”

I knew there was something strange about that dog, mused the Voice.

“OKAY,” SAID MICHAEL Papa the next morning. “Let’s go over some things.”

We looked up from breakfast warily. I’d felt just a weensy bit guilty about how much the flock was eating until the station commander had dropped the info that they allowed between 4,000 and 5,000 calories per person, per day because of the cold. Unlike ordinary humans, we didn’t burn that many more calories in really freezing weather. So we were actually getting enough to eat, and we were wolfing it down.

The really jaw-dropping thing? Total had asked to have his breakfast in a bowl on the floor – next toAkila’s bowl. Of course, eatingAkila’s special cold-weather dog food was out- Total still had waffles with syrup and bacon, and a bowl of coffee with milk and sugar.

“We have to press on with our work, despite Sue-Ann’s betrayal. Today you guys will accompany some of the scientists here, do a little exploring,” Michael said. “But you have to remain extra on-guard.”

I nodded.

“You were helping document the status of our local penguin colony before Sue-Ann was attacked,” Michael went on. “Today you’ll go with Emily andBrigid as they take measurements and examine different ice layers. The chemical concentrations of the ice layers tell us a great deal about the history of the atmosphere in this area.”

“But before we set out, we need to go over some safety issues,” saidBrigid.

I tried not to, but I flicked a glance at Fang. His eyes were glued toBrigid, his face friendly andunforbidding. I felt my stomach twist, which made me madder at myself than I was at him.

“Obviously, this is an extreme environment,”Brigid said. “We do have dangers here, as you have seen. For example, what would you do if you suddenly realized you were lost? A lot of the terrain looks the same.”

“I’d fly up till I could see the station,” I said. “Then head back to it.”

The scientists looked at me, taken aback. I guess that solution hadn’t occurred to them.

“Okay,” saidBrigid, nodding slowly. “That would work. Now, there aren’t that many crevasses, but they can be extremely dangerous. If you happen to fall into one-”

“I would fly back out of it?” I suggested.

“Um, yeah,” saidBrigid, then heroically pressed on. “Okay, you know the penguins aren’t dangerous, nor are any of the other birds here, though you should stay away from nests. And of course there are no polar bears.”

We nodded. Nudge, Angel, and I had been crushed about the lack of polarbearity.

“But as you saw, leopard seals can on occasion attack,”Brigid went on. “We recommend staying at least twenty meters away from them at all times. But if you do find yourself confronting one again, I’drecom -”

“Flying away from it?” Really, this was too easy. I was bad.

By this time the flock were suppressing smiles.

“Blizzards,” saidBrigid firmly. “Katabaticwinds. Sometimes upward of eighty miles an hour. They blow snow and ice particles around, and it can feel like needles.” She paused, as if waiting for me to say I’d fly out of it.

Which I didn’t. You’d have to be a complete moron to fly in a storm like that. Last time I looked, I wasn’t a moron.

“Hunker down,” saidBrigid, relieved to finally be able to give us advice. “Dig a hole for yourself in asnowbank. Stay together. Don’t eat ice for hydration- it’ll only lower your core temperature. Stay put and wait for help. We will come find you.”

“Ayeaye,” I said, and saluted.

Brigidgave me a faint smile, and then we all suited up to brave the great outdoors. Brian Carey watched us gather our equipment. He was staying behind to type up some reports.

Ordinarily, Sue-Ann would have taken the ice samples we brought her and put them through her chromatograph. Now it was Melanie’s job. She would analyze how concentrations of carbon dioxide and other chemicals had changed through the centuries. Basically, they were finding that carbon dioxide levels- primarily a by-product of burning fossil fuels- were the highest they’d been in the past 800,000 years.

Being completely objective here, I could see how that would seem like a bad thing.

“KNOWING THAT THERE ARE EVIL, bloodsucking corporations out there willing to spend a bazillion dollars to create machines whose only purpose is to kill us mutant bird kids is depressing,” said Nudge. We were kneeling on the ice, helping Melanie andBrigid drill their core sampler down into it. “Knowing there are evil, bloodsucking corporations out there who are knowingly and willingly destroying the only planet we have to live on just to make bazillions of dollars is worse.” Nudge sighed and looked bummed.

Okay, I totally admitted that there were evil corporations out there who were complete bad guys and were polluting everything in sight. I got that. But I still wasn’t sure that it was all causing global warming, or that having a slightly warmer earth would be that bad.

“How can they possibly stand themselves, knowing what they’re doing?” I agreed. “I mean, how many cute shoes can one company need?” You’d think I was megalomaniacal enough to understand their mind-set, but I didn’t. It was like, make a bunch of money so you can control things, like land or armies or governments or countries- and you want to control them so you can… essentially make more money. So you can control more things. So you can make more money. Kind of an empty loop, huh?

Not to be judgmental.

But someone had to be judgmental! Someone had to judge that this was crazy and wrong, and those companies were boneheaded idiots! If that person had to be me, so be it. I might not be the perfectspokesmodel against global warming, but I could still absolutely be against pollution. That had been proven to be bad, beyond a shadow of a doubt.