“Because society is going to crumble. That’s why. She’s absolutely convinced that society is about to crumble like a stale cookie.”
“Who? Who are you talking about?” she had demanded.
“Jesus, you don’t even know who is running this? Our lord and mistress. The owner. Of Cathexis. Lystra Reid.”
“Lystra Reid? Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m quite sure. This is only one of two secret facilities. This is where we create the sleighs, where we train pilots: this isn’t the final level any more than Cathexis is the final level.”
“There’s a third base?”
A third base. Three hundred kilometers south in a small dry valley. Dry valleys are a phenomenon unique to Antarctica, places of rock and little else, where for reasons of ice drift and unusual wind patterns the ground is bare of snow.
If Lystra Reid had built a base in a dry valley, it would not be one of the McMurdo group. The McMurdo Dry Valleys were more or less permanently infested by scientists collecting rocks and drilling core samples and complaining about their grant proposals.
She pointed this out to Babbington.
“Yes, well, this dry valley is an odd duck. It’s extraordinarily deep and also quite narrow—just two kilometers across at its widest point. The ice is piled high against both mountain ridges, and sooner or later, of course, the weight of all that ice will crumble the mountains and take the valley. Soon by geological standards, so within a hundred thousand years.”
He laughed, obviously thinking that was a science joke. When Suarez mustered up a half smile, he seemed encouraged.
“There’s actually a meltwater river there, helped by some subterranean geothermal activity, and the whole place is quite sheltered from the wind. It’s a garden spot, really. The average annual temperature remains within twenty degrees of fifteen degrees Fahrenheit. So sometimes it’s actually above freezing.”
“Garden spot.”
“Anyway, that’s where the third base is.” He showed her on a map.
And that was when Babbington made an ill-fated leap for the gun. In a hand-to-hand battle of SEAL vs. scientist, the outcome was not in doubt.
Babbington landed on his butt several feet from where he started.
“I’d stay there if were you,” Suarez warned.
He took her advice, crossed his legs awkwardly like a kindergartener, and sat.
“I’m afraid I will have to lock you up, Dr. Babbington. I’m sure there’s a tool locker somewhere. They’ll find you when the party is over and when the weather clears. Do you have to use the bathroom? Because you’ll be tied up for as much as a day.”
Amazing, Suarez thought, how quickly life can get weird. One minute you’re driving an LCAC delivering oranges and booze and hauling away garbage, and the next minute you’re beating up scientists and preparing to get yourself killed in some dry valley at the end of the world.
She had no doubt that this Lystra Reid person was capable of killing. You don’t set out to build secret bases defended by sophisticated weapons because you’re peaceable by nature.
But the question in her mind was whether this whole thing, whatever was going on here, was a secret government op unknown to Tanner. Tanner was low-level; this could simply be something way above his pay grade. In which case she would earn no thanks for barging in on this third base unannounced.
But they wouldn’t kill her, not if this was a government op. They’d give her a stern lecture, make her sign more threatening letters, and just maybe hire her on.
If, on the other hand, it wasn’t a government op but some actual crazy woman buying missiles and building a secret lair at the frozen anus of planet Earth, well …
She had to tell someone what was up: a witness she could trust to follow up just in case Imelda Suarez was never heard from again. She glanced at the computer on a work desk.
“User password on that computer?” she asked, sliding into a chair.
Babbington shrugged. “1234ABC.”
“Seriously?” She typed it in and got access to her own e-mail account. She wrote a message to her brother, Frank. Frank was with the Capitol Police. He wouldn’t be cleared for this information, but she knew she could trust him.
She spent a few minutes locating a good, strong steel tool locker and pushed Babbington and a bottle of water inside.
“You okay in there?”
“Well …”
“You’ll be fine.”
Then: the sleigh.
Suarez was honest enough to admit that she was motivated in part by an almost lustful desire to drive the sleigh. It was an object of beauty. A work of art. It screamed “speed” just sitting there.
She shed her parka, stuffed it into the very minimal storage space behind the cockpit seat, and slid into the leather chair. The pedals were where they should be. The yoke was awkwardly placed by her lights, but she could live with it. The displays were elegant and wonderfully easy to read.
She closed the canopy and realized the hangar doors were shut. So she climbed back out, scrounged around until she found a remote control, and climbed back in. It was just as good the second time. She had to fight the urge to run her fingers over the displays. Beautiful. If Rolls-Royce, Tesla, and Porsche teamed up to make a hovercraft, this would be it.
There was an autopilot, but she couldn’t imagine trusting herself to a computer—not at the speeds this thing moved, not on the most treacherous terrain on planet Earth. But she turned on the automated warnings as well as, after some hesitation, the impact-avoidance system that would take control if she was in immediate danger of crashing.