Michael Siemsen - Exigency

John choked. “Beautiful, but can we go?”

“Sorry,” Minnie said, observing John’s pallor.

She released the skimmers’ hover lock and steered them upwind toward the nearest fresh air. Once clear, she resumed west and engaged the autopilot, opting for low altitude travel. The frigid air this far north was cold enough without adding the icy insult of higher elevations. The skimmers would consume more energy, but it’d be worth it.

Combing through the data John had uploaded to her fone, Minnie had identified a sizable swath of land where Ish had never observed Hynka. Adventurous (or lost) individuals had been spotted roaming higher latitudes, but Minnie wasn’t concerned with the odd loner.

According to Ish’s recent maps, Minnie’s target campsite’s nearest village was a three-week journey at top Hynka running speed. Serious peace of mind. A full night’s sleep awaited them. A night free of anxiety, and, if Minnie had her way, a night without more lecturing from John. He’d been relentless for the first couple hours. Minnie’s bittersweet triumph at proving Ish’s guilt had been short-lived. She’d earned but a few fleeting minutes of gloating before the subject veered.

She shouldn’t have admitted to the episode. The man didn’t need more things to worry about. Despite his troubling, repetitive assertions that she could and should carry on without him “if anything should happen,” Minnie’s convictions were unshakable. She’d get them to the coast. She’d build them a sturdy boat. They’d make it to Threck Country.

As if she needed more motivation than mere survival, John had tried to reignite her love and fascination with Threck culture, clumsily quoting proverbs, and sending her her own pics. But she didn’t snub his efforts. She thanked him and oohed, aah’d, even gasping at pics that had never left her consciousness, as if viewed for the first time. “Wow, is that one of mine? ” Because she got it. He felt like baggage. A liability. He needed to contribute to the task at hand, like stuffing a single survival bag among a hundred other tasks.

Fortunately, she’d rewarded his inspiration efforts enough to satisfy him. Either that, or his meds had taken over. His back leaned against the access panel below the other skimmer’s console, he’d been mostly quiet for hours. Eyes attentive, observing the transient scenery, but with nothing to say.

She wondered if he was watching more Ish vids or reading journals—ones he hadn’t copied to Minnie’s fone. Despite that whole privacy rant, he was the type that wanted every minute detail. It wasn’t yet clear how long Ish had been sunk in her game, living a second life as God-Queen of virtual Hynka. Minnie didn’t care. What happened happened, and she needed no additional explanation, no analysis of the root psychosis, missed cues, or turning point. If Aether was still alive she’d no doubt blame herself, but Minnie was now satisfied with what they’d learned, and content in the knowledge of where Ish’s plot had led her.

As knowledgeable as Ish had been about her beloved beasties, she died for lack of the very depth-of-field diversity Minnie was trying to evangelize. “Context is everything, context can be nothing, scale is infinite.” Ish wasn’t some noob overlooking a subtle detail. She’d fully immersed herself in that society, and yet missed the very underpinnings of Hynka spirituality. They didn’t fear and respect their gods. They despised them. And like any other external power they beheld, they wished to conquer the gods. They’d hung their vanquished Goddess of Floods above the shrine to Death. “Warning: We’re stronger than you.”

John had been quick to highlight that Ish’s scheme hadn’t worked out as planned—as if her ghost needed a lawyer—emphasizing that she had no intention to injure, strand, or kill other station crew. The pod was only supposed to strike the Backup Habitat, not the main station (how sweet of her!). Apparently, without a functional BH, frontline safeguards were automatically removed from the EV’s. Whenever the dust settled, days or weeks later, Ish would isolate one of the EV’s systems, hack in a bogus exigency event, and launch solo to the surface, free to bring her twisted fantasies to life.

Minnie sent John an M.

MINNIE: You awake?

He peered over at her, eyes squinted against the sun. For an instant, he looked like a little boy.

MINNIE: Where’s your pain? You good for another 30 or so mins?

He nodded and returned to whatever zone he’d been in, remaining there until they reached their new campsite.

Dark, low-hanging clouds blanketed the region, soaking the skimmers and everything on them. Minnie had to wipe the moisture from her visor every few seconds as she flew several passes over the area, scanning as far as optics allowed. John, too, helped to survey the scene from his vantage point, agreeing that the area appeared safe.

The paired skimmers descended into a flat plain, patches of snow dotting the mostly barren landscape. Here they’d find no natural protection from beast or weather, but with this came the benefit of unobscured surroundings. The area’s largest plantlife were sparse orange shrubs, each standing alone, dozens of meters from another sprout. Growing only a meter or two high, they wore their dense foliage close to a central trunk.

Stretched sideways across a skimmer pad, John observed Minnie in front of one of the bushes. “They’re perfect camouflage for evac’d crew.”

Minnie glanced behind her, noticing the shade matched her survival suit. “Just stand up real straight and be still, right?”

She resumed setting up the tent.

Late afternoon dropped a few light waves of snow, and it appeared they’d make it through the night without any more serious systems rolling in. Fearful of sending smoke with the southerly winds, each ate one of their few remaining calorie bars. With prox alerts on guard duty, the exhausted pair turned in before the last light had left the sky.

Minnie awoke with a start.

John was snoring loud beside her. She had to pee. How long had she slept? The ever-present clock on her fone revealed it’d been less than two hours. Minnie groaned. It was so cold outside. They’d both layered up their clothes before bed. She closed her eyes and played out in her head the arduous undressing process she’d have to go through just to pee. The freezing air. Why hadn’t they made survival suits with some sort of nifty flap you could easily undo, like that old-style full-body underwear? And why in perfect hell had she drunk so much water?

Because calorie bars are like eating a brick of chalk.

Exactly.

Maybe she could fall back asleep—hold the pee for morning.

Yeah, right.

Shut up, it’s possible.

John’s version of snoring was maddening. He’d go quiet for what seemed like forever, done with the straining sounds and breathing normally, but with each stretch of silence, just when she thought she could finally doze back off, he’d groan as if constipated and striving to release a gigantic crap. It’d been like this every time he’d slept—especially so with the diclomorph—but, aside from their original cave, she hadn’t been trying to sleep at the same time. Aether must’ve worn canceler plugs every night.

Uh-oh.

What uh-oh?

Nothing, just go back to sleep.

With the snoring and the pee and now you? Impossible. Just say it. Is it about Aether? Ear plugs?

I shouldn’t say. It’s too soon for you to know.

A bolt of pain shot out from her groin. Overfull. She reached down and pressed in. Waited too long. Now the idea of sitting up, of folding her body, compressing her bladder, standing up, the cold outside—it was all too much. And she couldn’t just let it go in her clothes. It wouldn’t just be a little dribble; she’d be soaked, and that was dangerous in this sub-zero environment.