The Arctic Code (2 page)

U
NCLE
J
ACK SAID VERY LITTLE AT THE POLICE STATION
. Mostly, he just nodded along with whatever the cop was saying, very slowly, as if the earth's gravity had doubled. He was wearing his blue coveralls, which meant he'd been at work when they called him. Uncle Jack was always picking up extra shifts when he could, even on the weekends.

“Young lady,” the cop said, “do you know how lucky you are Mr. Goering decided not to press charges?”

He expected an answer. Eleanor sat up straight. “I do, sir.”

“This could have been a lot worse for you,” the cop said.

“I know,” Eleanor said.

The cop directed the next thing he said to Uncle Jack, and Eleanor mostly ignored what he was saying. They weren't going to charge her, that was what mattered. Instead, she focused on the cop's cluttered desk, the half-buried photo of his family—wife, two kids, one of whom was squeezing an unhappy cat fighting to escape the frame. She focused on the water cooler burping every few minutes in the corner—

“Ellie,” Uncle Jack said.

“Yeah?”

“Officer Nez asked you a question.”

Eleanor looked in the cop's eyes. “Yes, sir?”

The cop angled his head, like he was stretching a kink in his neck. “I
said
, you're not going to set foot on your school's construction site, or any other site, ever again. Are you.”

Uncle Jack was wrong, it wasn't a question. “No, sir.”

“Good. I suppose you're free to leave.”

“Thank you, Officer.” Uncle Jack labored up from his chair, still fighting gravity. “What do you say, Ellie?”

“Thank you, Officer,” Eleanor said.

“Have a nice day,” the cop said, and Eleanor was pretty sure he wouldn't have said it any differently if she were being escorted out of here in handcuffs.

Eleanor followed Uncle Jack out of the office. She
walked behind him as he lumbered down the crowded hallway, clearing a path to the elevator, where he hit the ground floor button with his thick finger. They rode down listening to music that left Eleanor's brain itching, and then Uncle Jack led the way through the lobby, out to the heated parking garage, to their small, ancient electric car.

Eleanor wanted him to say something as they drove home, but he kept his eyes forward, right hand on the steering wheel, left hand rubbing his forehead. Eleanor looked out the window, at a billboard with a picture of a young mother reading a bedtime story to her two children by the soft glow of a lamp. The caption read,
THIS MOMENT BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE GLOBAL ENERGY TRUST
. The G.E.T. supplied power to, well, just about everyone.

They took the freeway, swinging around the maze of towering apartment buildings someone had long ago nicknamed the Ice Castles. They'd been built to house the thousands of refugees from Canada and the northern states who had been staggering into the city day after day, driven from their homes by the sheet of ice clawing its way south. Claire and Jenna lived in those apartments, and they hated it. Eleanor felt horrible when they talked about the crime, the plumbing and the power going out, the noise, the police raiding
one of their neighbors down the hall in the middle of the night. But there were plenty of refugees who couldn't even get a place in Phoenix and had to keep moving south, hoping for a chance to cross the border into Mexico.

Past the Ice Castles, they entered into the suburbs where Eleanor lived. It wasn't the nicest neighborhood, but it was better than most people had it. Her mom was a geologist, and she'd been lucky enough to land a good job with Sohn International, a nonprofit oil company. And in today's world, oil meant the ultimate job security.

They rolled down the narrow streets, past the identical narrow houses planted but inches apart, until they reached their home. Uncle Jack pulled into the driveway, left the engine running, the heat blasting, and cleared his throat.

“What would your mom say if she were here?” he asked. He sounded tired.

“She'd blame the Donor.”

Uncle Jack chuckled. Eleanor's mom had never made time for romance but had always wanted a child, so she'd finally gone to a clinic. Eleanor's dad had been, and always would be, anonymous. That was just fine with Eleanor. She never even thought about him, except for those times her mother jokingly suggested
that
he
was to blame for whatever it was about Eleanor that was irking Mom at that moment.

“And then what would she say?” Uncle Jack's voice sounded a bit lighter.

Eleanor shrugged. “She'd say she was disappointed in me. She'd say she was angry. But more than anything, she'd say she was glad I didn't kill myself.” Eleanor swiveled toward him in her seat. “Which
totally
would not have happened, by the way. I had it under control.”

“I'm sure you did.”

“And she'd probably say it was ‘devilishly clever' that I made my own snow.”

He nodded. “Sounds like her. And since you already know what she would say, I don't think you need to waste the little time you get to talk with her making her say it.”

“You mean . . .”

Uncle Jack ran his hand back and forth across the top of the steering wheel. “I mean we'll wait until she gets back from the Arctic to fill her in.”

Eleanor smiled, relieved. “Thanks, Uncle Jack.”

“No problem. But if you end up dead or in jail, I'll have to spill the beans. Got it?”

Eleanor laughed. “Got it.” But her laughter faded quickly. “She was supposed to be home by now.”

“I know. She'd be here if she could.”

“But she hasn't even told us why she's still up there.”

“She will when she can.”

Eleanor gave a very small nod.

“Okay, get on inside. I gotta head back and finish my shift.”

“I'm sorry, Uncle Jack. I didn't mean to mess up your job.”

“It's okay. Maybe if I weren't working so many hours, I'd be around to keep you out of trouble.”

“Oh, you think you can keep me out of trouble, do you?”

Uncle Jack shrugged. “I can try.”

Eleanor opened her door. “Love you, Uncle Jack.”

“Love you, too, Ell Bell.”

Before she shut the door, he craned toward her across the passenger seat and looked up. “Oh, and Ellie?”

“Yeah?”

“For the record, I'm glad you didn't kill yourself.” He winked.

Eleanor winked back and went inside.

L
ater that evening, Eleanor woke up to the sound of Uncle Jack in the kitchen downstairs. She'd lain down for a Sunday-afternoon nap shortly after he'd gone back
to work, and opened her eyes to a room striped with evening sunlight through her blinds. It was a golden light, but cold like exposed metal. Her mom and Uncle Jack could remember a different sun, a warmer sun that reached through the cold and could even make you sweat. The distant sun Eleanor knew wasn't something she ever looked to for heat. She climbed out of bed and shivered a little, shuffled into her slippers, and left her room.

Their house was small—her mom insisted it was “cozy”—just the two bedrooms upstairs with a bathroom they shared when her mom wasn't in the Arctic, and the kitchen and living room downstairs. Her mom didn't exactly have an eye for design or decoration. The bare walls were the same hospital white they'd been when they'd first moved in ten years ago, though Eleanor had hung a changing parade of posters in her bedroom. Right now, she liked old movie banners, a phase her mom described as “Unintentionally Ironic Vintage.”

Down in the kitchen, Uncle Jack stood at the stove wearing one of her mother's flowered aprons over his blue coveralls. Eleanor shook her head at the strings straining to reach around him, tied in a small and desperate knot high on his back.

He turned as she walked in. “Hungry?”

“It smells delicious.”

“I can't make any promises.” Uncle Jack always said that but never needed to. “They're supposed to be rosemary biscuits.” He pulled on an oven mitt that matched the apron, part of a set. “I had to use the toaster oven to save gas, and the blasted thing won't go high enough for them to rise properly.” He bent over, peering through the little smoky glass window. A few moments later, he seemed to sense something and pulled the baking sheet from the oven laden with plump, golden mounds.

“They look wonderful,” Eleanor said. “And I'm sure they'll taste even better.”

He frowned. “Get yourself a plate.”

She grabbed a dish from the cupboard, and he served her up a biscuit.

“Here,” he said. “I made a béchamel sauce and added a bit of prosciutto I found.” He took her plate, split the biscuit with a fork, and ladled steaming gravy over it from a pot on the stove. Then he handed the plate back. “My own version of biscuits and gravy.”

Eleanor shook her head. “Uncle Jack, you're going to get in trouble.”

He waved her off with the oven mitt. “Don't worry, Ell Bell. This is all stuff they'd thrown away.” Uncle Jack worked for an electrical company that serviced a
lot of the mansions and hotels in Phoenix. Sometimes, his company contracted with the G.E.T., but years ago, he'd wanted to be a chef. That was before the Freeze—the new ice age—had really settled in.

Eleanor took her first bite, and it tasted so good she had to close her eyes. The biscuit was light and fluffy, in spite of the toaster oven, with just the right hint of rosemary, and the sauce was creamy and smoky. None of the kids she knew got to eat like this. The only people who could were the ones wealthy enough to import fresh produce and goods from South America and Africa, where anything could still be grown.

“What do you think?” Uncle Jack hadn't moved since passing her the plate.

“Amazing. I can't believe they'd throw this stuff away.” She took another bite.

“A person's wealth is measured by what they can afford to throw away.” He tried to reach back and untie the apron, and Eleanor watched him struggle for several moments, his shoulders all scrunched up, eyes on the ceiling, his mouth hanging open.

She grinned. “Would you like me to help you there?”

“Would you mind?”

Eleanor shook her head, still smiling, and went around behind him. He'd pulled the knot so tight, she
ended up needing a fork to tease it loose.

“We need to get you a bigger apron,” she said. “If you're—”

The chime cut through every noise in the house. It was a sound to which Eleanor's ears were constantly tuned.
Her Sync.

Uncle Jack had heard it, too. “Go,” he said. “Hurry.”

Eleanor rushed up to the desk in her room. Her only connection to her mom was her Sync, a device used by the oil and energy companies so they'd have an instant, reliable method of communication that didn't require satellites or cell towers. The Sync, an advanced prototype, worked by something called
entanglement
. Tiny electrons in Eleanor's device perfectly matched their quantum twins in her mom's. The Sync couldn't transmit voice or video over this connection, but it could send text and other data. Over a normal cellular or Wi-Fi connection, it looked and acted like any other smartphone.

The screen flashed as Eleanor picked up the device.

Eleanor smiled. It had been a long time, almost a week.

She typed.

<;)>

. . .

Eleanor actually knew that already. She kept a daily eye on Arctic temperatures.

That temperature was fairly normal for this time of year, but winter had only begun. Temperatures would soon drop well below that.

. . .

Even through the Sync, Eleanor could tell there was something off.

. . .

Eleanor decided to let it go, for now.

Eleanor smiled.

Eleanor hesitated before typing.

. . .

. . .

Poor Uncle Jack.

Eleanor chuckled.

<:)>

. . .

Eleanor stared at the screen as the wind picked up
outside. It always got windy after dark.