Tobias Buckell - Arctic Rising

“What’s wrong?” Anika asked.

Vy pocketed the cigarettes. “So, do you think everyone at any software company headquarters in Silicon Valley walks around with submachine guns?”

“It’s like a military base down there,” Anika agreed. “But most software companies don’t have half the world’s navies circling around like angry sharks. You think they don’t want to find the nuke?”

“No,” Vy said. “They want to find it. But we still need to be careful, okay? People with guns have a habit of using them.”

“And we’re going to need their help, and protection,” Anika said.

Vy looked over at her. “Thinking that far ahead?”

“If we secure and disable the nuke, then whoever put it out here is going to be angry with us. And who is that? Some sort of intelligence agency. We will be criminals.”

“Roo will be safe, he has the connections,” Vy said.

“And do you trust him still? He’s really taking to the whole Gaia song and dance down there. That stuff hits him hard, because of his home.”

Vy shrugged. “I trust him as much as I can trust anyone I’ve known for several years. But yes. He’s good people. He’ll be okay. As for me, this won’t change things too much. I’m already a minor criminal. Grass is legal, but you know I dabble in moving other products. You’re the one who’s hit the major career change.”

Yes. She was right. Anika looked down. Her quiet, stable, life: ripped up and torn apart. Everything she’d slowly worked toward. Gone.

Vy moved closer and turned her around. “You have a place, with me. If you want it.”

“What’ll I do?” Anika asked, looking into Vy’s pale eyes. The wind tugged at her hair.

“Shit, are you kidding me? I’ll keep you in a style you’re not accustomed to: living under an alternate identity in some non-extradition country! Don’t tell me you didn’t grow up dreaming someone would sweep you off your feet and tell you that.”

Anika laughed, and pulled her closer. “Okay,” she said. “I guess I’m stuck with you for a while, then, Vy.”

They kissed, a faint brush of the lips. And then a deeper kiss, pulling each other closer together so that they existed in a tiny world of warmth in the cold.

Their breath steamed the air between their faces when they pulled apart.

“You’re a pilot,” Vy said. “If you come with me, there will always be work for you.”

“Not flying airships, though,” Anika said, a tiny note of sadness creeping in.

“That could be a problem. But never say never.” Vy smiled.

“It was a childhood wish anyway,” Anika admitted. “And I got to live that dream for a while, anyway. I have no regrets.”

“That’s the spirit,” Vy said. Then she pointed. “Look!”

A shaggy, beige polar bear ambled its way along a floe, then jumped into the water. It paddled its way to the ice shelf underneath their vantage point, then clambered on.

It sat down and looked up at them.

The two of them stared back, quiet, only the sound of snapping ice in the distance.

Then Vy’s phone rang.

The moment broke, and the bear began to paw the air. “He’s hoping for a ham sandwich,” Vy said sadly. “The tourists probably toss him food from here.”

She turned back away and answered the phone. “It’s Roo. He says he thinks he’s found a good lead. He’s on his way up, and Gaia Security is coming with him.”

Paige Greer arrived at the surface and waved them over. “We’re scrambling men,” she said breathlessly as they raced down the sloping road with her.

“Where’s Roo?” Anika asked.

“Up ahead.”

Three armored cars braked to a stop at the entrance to the polar preserve and Gaia’s underground facility. Roo opened one of the doors and waved them in.

“How’d you find them? That was quick, wasn’t it?”

“I’m that good,” Roo grinned. “It was lead.”

“For shielding?” Anika asked.

“They didn’t want another scatter camera to hunt them down, so they purchased sheets of lead. Gabriel mentioned that they would be shielded and hard to find. So far most of the hunt has been for the radiation. But I went hunting for lead. Once I found the lead, I found four possible locations. This is as close as we can get this quick.”

“We’ll get teams out to each building,” Paige said. “See if we can secure local help to check them out. See if anything turns up.”

“They won’t give up easily,” Anika said, thinking of Gabriel.

“I know,” Paige said.

They stopped a block away from the target, near a cluster of dome-shaped silvered buildings jacked up on piston stilts.

“This is the Peary demesne,” Paige said. “We secured the right to place our men around the building, but volunteer community police are insisting they accompany us.”

More Gaia flatbed trucks ripped up ice as they braked to a halt.

“Not a dictatorship here, then?” Anika asked.

Paige brushed hair out of her eyes. “Peary’s modeled after Brazilian participatory budget and radical municipal democracy, with a few variants. People committee-vote on all municipal budget matters and draw up the budgets and where tax money goes; municipal employees serve as expert consultants, but have no say in the budget or projects list, they are contractors that execute what the voters decide every quarter needs done. Stops backscratching and corruption. These guys take it a step further: there are no municipal employees, municipal spots are volunteer positions. If you can’t find the time, then you can pay to have a subcontractor do your duty. But it means you’re stuck with waiting for damn amateurs to run out here.”

Several Peary citizens were indeed showing up, pulling on bright red-and-blue vests over their bulky cold weather gear and waving at them.

“Location two is clear,” one of the security detail reported.

One of the Peary volunteers walked over and introduced himself as the on-duty sergeant. He wore large goggles, and Anika could see information was scrolling across his field of vision. Probably some sort of software package that let the volunteer police link up with each other.

“We have a hundred community protectors moving in,” he said. “Thirty are in full riot gear. Nonlethal instruments. I have four snipers that should be in position within twenty minutes. Twenty of my regulars are armed with low-caliber pistols. If you need more manpower, we can call in other Thule citizens from neighboring demesnes.”

Paige nodded. “Okay. My force will go in strong, are you okay with hanging back? We want you to catch anyone who bolts.”

The volunteer nodded. “How hard are you going in?”

“They’re possibly sitting on a nuke, how hard do you want us to go in?” Paige looked carefully at the sergeant.

He grimaced, and looked upward, accessing some piece of information from his goggles. “We’re in a hard spot,” he said. “Because my fellow police want to remind you, legally, that you have not proven without a doubt the people you’re hunting are the ones inside this building. You could be going in full force…”

He never finished his sentence—the sound of gunfire erupted from the building in question.

“We found them!” someone shouted, unnecessarily.

Everyone ducked behind one of the large pylons holding up the nearest building.

“They’re shooting up the block,” someone shouted.

Roo shook his head. “We should have gone in without asking the demesne for help,” he chided Paige. “All they needed to do was grab a volunteer policeman and hold him hostage, let him tell them when any alerts came for him to assemble…”

Paige opened her mouth, then closed it. “Shit.”