The Arctic Code (16 page)

Eleanor and Finn watched him fall, but the snow
was deep enough that he seemed to land easily. After he'd scrambled out of the way, Finn motioned for Eleanor to go next. She dropped her pack ahead of her and sat down on the ledge, dangling her feet over the opening, feeling the wind snatching at her boots as it circled below her like a pack of waiting wolves. It reminded her of a moment not too long ago, perched on a sled, high above a construction site at her school. Nothing and no one would stop her now.

She pushed off, eyes open, falling through the storm's teeth, right into its open maw.

S
HE LANDED HARDER THAN SHE
'
D THOUGHT SHE WOULD
, but it didn't hurt. The force of the wind against her felt stronger than the force of gravity, blowing snow sideways at her. She rolled out from under the hatch so Finn could follow her, which he did a moment later.

Then the three of them labored to their feet in waist-high snow that had gathered around the hydraulic feet of the spheres. From the outside, the pods seemed larger than they had on the inside, and even larger than Eleanor remembered them.

“That way!” Julian pointed.

The transports sat half buried in a row several yards away. Eleanor, Finn, and Julian trudged toward
them, the strain burning Eleanor's leg muscles within moments. Her mask had a hard time keeping up with her heavy breathing, letting a little bit of cold into her lungs.

But she told herself they would be out of the storm soon, when they reached the armored transports and got inside one of them. So far, everything had played out as they'd planned, and they were almost there.

As they drew closer, Finn asked, “Which one is ours?”

Julian held up the key and looked at it. “I think it's the middle one!”

They quickened their pace and reached the rear end of the vehicles a moment later.

“Hurry!” Eleanor said. “Let's—”

Two figures in polar gear stepped out from between the transports. One of them was Luke. The other—

“Miss Perry!” he shouted. “Mr. Powers and Mr. Powers!”

Skinner. Eleanor felt her legs wobbling under her from exhaustion and disbelief. Luke had sold them out.

“Turn around, all of you!” Skinner said. “March back to Polaris Station! Immediately!”

Eleanor didn't move. Neither did Finn and Julian. They would never have another chance to go searching for their parents. Eleanor's mom was out there,
somewhere. She'd come so far, and gotten so close. The transport was right in front of them. But so was Skinner.

“NOW!” he shouted, his anger rivaling the storm.

“You lied!” Eleanor shouted at Luke.

“Better that than letting you die,” Luke said. “I can live with a lie on my conscience.”

Finn leaned in close. “What should we do?”

“I don't know,” Julian said. “Think we can make it into the transport?”

“They'll just follow us,” Eleanor said.

“If you do not move now,” Skinner shouted, “I will have you brought back by force.”

“Oh, yeah?” Julian shouted. “How're you going to do that?”

A third figure stepped out from between the other transports. Eleanor stopped breathing for a moment, choking on a gasp. A giant of a man strode toward them. Eleanor knew him. She knew the polar bear pelt he wore.

It was Boar.

“WHAT?” Luke shouted. “What is HE doing here?”

“He works for me,” Skinner said.

Boar worked for Skinner? But he had tried to rob her. The giant had almost reached them, and Eleanor didn't know what to do.

Luke turned abruptly to Skinner. “The G.E.T. hires thieves?”

“Relax, Mr. Fournier,” Skinner said. “Boar seized the initiative when he saw Miss Perry, perhaps a bit zealously. He knew I needed her Sync. But he is the best bounty hunter in Barrow.”

The giant was only a couple of steps away now. “Told you this wasn't over, girl.”

“Stay away from her!” Finn shouted.

He and Julian leaped in front of her, and both looked ready to fight what would clearly be a losing battle. But before either of them had the chance, Luke charged at Boar from behind, striking him in the lower back with his shoulder, the impact taking them both down.

“Run, kid!” Luke shouted, grappling with Boar on the ground. “I was wrong! Get out of here!”

The giant had almost regained his feet, in spite of Luke's efforts to keep him down.

“Stay where you are, Miss Perry!” Now Skinner charged toward them. “Don't move!”

Eleanor looked at Finn and Julian. Luke was right. They had to run. Eleanor didn't know what Skinner intended, but if he was willing to hire men like Boar, the situation was even worse than she had suspected.

She tried to bolt, but just then Boar lunged up and
got ahold of a strap on her pack, almost yanking her off her feet. She screamed, managed to wiggle out of the straps, and then ran.

A backward glance revealed Finn and Julian right behind her. Luke had Boar in a desperate grip around his waist, holding him back, while Skinner shouted something at them Eleanor couldn't hear over the storm. A few paces later, the whiteout erased them.

“Where are we going?” Julian shouted.

“I don't know!” Eleanor said. “Just keep running!”

Just keep running.

E
leanor had no idea how far they had gone. The storm made it impossible to measure the distance, but to her legs, it felt as though she had run miles. However, it turned out the endless expanse of the ice sheet did offer them one single advantage. Without anything to pile up against, the snow blew horizontally across the surface, scouring the ice without accumulating, so Eleanor didn't have to plow through deep snow anymore.

“I'm too tired!” Finn shouted. “I need to rest!”

“Me too!” Eleanor said.

The three of them collapsed together to the ground, huddling tightly, pressing their heads together in a circle, the wind and snow at their backs.

“Who
was
that other guy?” Finn asked, close enough that he no longer needed to shout.

“His name is Boar,” Eleanor said. “He tried to rob me when I first got to Barrow.”

The storm assaulted the silence that followed between them. There had been no time to really consider what Boar's presence back at the station really meant. No doubt remained in Eleanor's mind over Skinner's intentions. He had never been interested in finding Eleanor's mom, or even in Eleanor's safety. His sole purpose for being in the Arctic had been to find what Eleanor's mom had discovered, and he had been willing to lie and steal to obtain that information.

“What do we do now?” Julian asked.

“He got your pack,” Finn said, looking over Eleanor's shoulder. That meant they had lost all their supplies. Their tent, their food, their power. Everything. They were stranded the same way her mother had been. “Without the GPS, we won't even know where we're going!”

But Eleanor had one last hope. She reached into her pocket, pulled out her Sync, and brought it to the center of their huddle.

“What's that?” Julian asked.

“This is what Skinner wanted,” Eleanor said.

“You mean you had it all along?” Finn said.

Eleanor nodded.

“How did you know not to trust him?” Finn asked.

“My mom sent me a bunch of files before she disappeared and told me not to show anyone. I figured that included Skinner.”

“And me and Finn, apparently,” Julian said.

“May I remind you,” Eleanor said, “not too long ago,
you
were threatening to go to Skinner.”

Julian fell silent.

“But I'm trusting you both now,” she said. “We can use the GPS on the Sync.”

“To go where?” Julian asked.

“The coordinates,” Eleanor said. “We can't go back. Our only option is to go forward.”

“We don't have any supplies,” Julian said. “We're not going to last long out here.”

“We just have to last long enough to get to the coordinates,” Eleanor said.

“What was in the files?” Finn asked.

Eleanor pulled them up to show him. It was the first time she had dared to look since her mom had sent them. With what Eleanor had learned, they seemed to make a little more sense. The network of lines crisscrossing the world map looked like they might be telluric currents. They intersected in concentrations at
certain points, like Egypt and China, and Eleanor realized those sites were the same locations that nutty Dr. Johann von Albrecht had written about.

“Whoa,” Finn said.

“What?” Eleanor asked.

“The energy measurements on those ley lines are off the charts.” Then he pointed to a star map. “What's that?”

“I don't know why she had this,” Eleanor said.

“Can I see it?”

Eleanor passed the Sync to him.

“Guys,” Julian said, “we don't have time for this. Every second we waste—”

“This is weird,” Finn said. “This isn't supposed to be here.”

“What isn't?” Eleanor asked.

“Guys!” Julian shouted. “Seriously?”

Finn traced his fingers along the arcs and curves. “The distances between earth and the other planets are completely off. And there's an extra orbit.”

“Extra?” Eleanor asked.

“According to this chart, there's something here that shouldn't exist.”

“Something where?” Julian asked, suddenly interested.

Finn pointed upward. “Out
there
.”

“Something like what?” Eleanor asked.

“I don't know, it doesn't say.” Finn shook his head. “Just something . . .
big
.”

A sudden gust of wind ripped between them, shoving them into one another, and Finn almost fumbled the Sync. But he snatched it back before the storm could carry it away.

“Okay,” Julian said. “Okay, that's enough. We need to move. They could be following us.”

Eleanor and Finn agreed with him. Eleanor took the Sync back and pulled up the GPS. She plugged in the coordinates of the energy site and set their course.

“How far away is it?” Finn asked.

Eleanor stared at the screen, not wanting to think about the answer or say it out loud. “Thirty-two miles.”

If Finn or Julian responded, the storm stole their replies. But they didn't need to say anything. If the answer had been five or ten miles, it would have seemed a difficult distance on the ice sheet without supplies. Thirty-two miles edged on impossible.

“How long will the power last in our suits?” Julian asked. The nanotech that gave them warmth ran on limited energy, like everything else.

“Not that long,” Finn said. “But we can't go back, not now.”

“Then we better get started,” Julian said.

“At least the storm will cover our tracks,” Eleanor said.

She put the Sync back in her pocket, and they set off in the direction of the site, pressing forward through the wind. As she walked, it lashed at her as if trying to strip her to the bone, with no intention of letting up, gleeful that it could finally reach her. But the wind was only one of the dangers they faced. Eleanor had read about crevasses, too. Fissures that opened up in the ice without warning, or hid under the snow, waiting to take you down, down, down to who knew where.

They trudged ahead for what felt like hours, pausing periodically to check the Sync and make sure they were on course. Without it, they would have been lost almost instantly. In the harsh and terrifying emptiness of the storm, there was no landmark, no horizon, no world beyond their short range of sight. Even with Finn and Julian at her side, Eleanor had never felt so cut off. From everyone and everything. They were alone at the top of the world, swallowed up, and she didn't know if they could escape the belly of this beast.

More time passed.

When next they paused to look at the Sync, Finn asked, “How far have we gone?”

Eleanor checked. Then rechecked. “Six miles,” she said.

Storm silence followed.

“That's it?” Julian asked. “Only six?”

At this pace, the power in their suits would fail about three quarters of the way to the coordinates. The possibility of turning back crossed Eleanor's mind once again, and once again the image of Boar waiting there for her drove that thought away. Going forward was their only hope, as desperate as it seemed.

A few miles later, the air took a turn, growing sharper and colder. It was afternoon, and afternoon would soon lead to night. That thought shot a terror through Eleanor that set her hands shaking. They had no tent or shelter, and nothing could survive an Arctic night in the open.

Nothing but the shadows she'd seen. . . .

E
ven through her mask, she could feel it. Not even her polar gear could withstand the ice and snow of night. As she walked, her breathing went quickly from tolerable to uncomfortable to painful. She couldn't imagine how cold it would be if she removed the mask.

Her body felt hollow, empty of any will. Her weakened legs seemed to be working only by habit and forward momentum, each step getting shorter and
shorter. A couple of times, they gave out on her, and Eleanor dropped hard. Each time, Finn and Julian helped her struggle back to her feet, and she kept going, helping them in turn when they fell.

With the setting of the invisible sun, the white of the world had turned the color of old weathered steel. Less than a mile later, Eleanor felt the nanotech in her suit give out, abandoning her. It took only a few steps for the cold to move in, and soon the pain of it, the frigid air in her lungs, forced her breathing into the shallows. Without the oxygen it needed, her body weakened further, and she grew light-headed. Her thoughts loosened at the edges. Her mind wandered haphazardly, but she kept her eyes fixed on the blankness ahead.

Then something moved to her right. Eleanor turned to look, but the shadowy figure was there and gone in an instant.

“Did you guys see that?” she asked.

They hadn't. Perhaps she had imagined it.

“My suit is dead,” Finn said, wheezing.

“Mine died a little while ago,” Julian said. “I can't feel my feet.”

“That might be frostbite,” Finn said. “Can you wiggle your toes?”

Julian stamped his feet and almost lost his balance. “Yeah. I think.”

“Then you're okay for now,” Finn said.