Holly couldn't speak.
Rupert twisted his arm. Holly swung close to the ladder. But her arms remained limp at her sides. "Don't worry. I've got you."
With a soft shudder, she reached out her hands. Her fingers closed around a metal bar.
"That's it," he said. "Now, put your feet on that other rung."
She shifted her legs and planted her sneaker firmly on the rung. Then she moved her other foot toward it.
Her right sneaker slipped again. She yelped. Her fingers clutched the bar so tightly her knuckles turned white.
Rupert didn't move a muscle. He continued to support her weight with relative ease. Quickly, she placed her right sneaker back on the rung. She pressed down on it. It didn't slip.
Holly clambered down the rest of the ladder. As she stepped off it, fear filled her chest. She turned on her flashlight and raced across the room. She stopped just short of the middle cryocontainer. Her hand drifted to its cool, metal surface. An image flashed before her eyes.
She saw him lying in that cursed hospital bed. He was sixty-six years old. His cheeks were gaunt and scruffy. His salt-and-pepper hair was plastered to his sweaty forehead. His body, covered in several blankets, was heartbreakingly slim.
Holly remembered lifted the breathing apparatus from his nose and mouth. She recalled leaning her head across his lips. She could still feel his breath, soft and raspy, touching her ear.
She stared at the computer monitors. Ordinarily, they were full of life. Lights flashed. Electricity buzzed. Beeps, soft and reassuring, filled the air. But now, the machines were dark and quiet.
She felt a presence behind her. "What happened to the generator?"
"I don't know," Rupert said. "This is the first time it's failed on us."
Her heart thumped against her chest. "Can you fix it?"
He switched on his flashlight and hustled to the far corner. Tools rattled. Metal clanked.
Holly closed her eyes again. Gently, she stroked the cryocontainer. She recalled running her hand through his hair. She remembered trying to comfort him, as he'd done so many times for her.
She searched her mind, trying to recollect her earliest memories of her father. He'd played with her when she was an infant. He'd walked her to the bus on her first day of kindergarten. He'd smiled upon meeting her first boyfriend and wiped her tears when the romance dissolved two weeks later.
Unconditional love was a rare thing in the world. Holly had tried to embrace it in her own life, often with mixed results. But eventually, she'd found success with Rupert, thanks largely to her father's example.
She'd never known her mother. Her father refused to talk about the woman. But he'd worked hard to make up for her absence. To the best of Holly's knowledge, he'd never dated during the entire length of her childhood. That wasn't to say he didn't have admirers. But Holly had managed to keep them at bay. Every time a new woman showed the slightest interest in him, Holly would insert herself into the mix. She'd force him to choose between her and the woman. He'd always chosen her.
Until Susan.
"What's taking so long?" Holly breathed softly. "Do you need help?"
"It's this damn filter." Liquid glugged. The odor of diesel gas permeated the room. "I'll be done in a moment."
Her fingers traced the metallic surface. Carefully, she wiped beads of condensation away from the container. "It's okay," she whispered. "Rupert and I are here. Just hold on a little longer."
Susan Rochelle was different than the other women. She was a first-class harpy and a flirt of epic proportions. While Holly was across the country attending school, Susan had managed to wriggle into her father's life. Holly had tried her usual tricks to break them up, but the long distance impeded her efforts.
A few months later, Holly had watched him walk down the aisle. He'd grasped Susan's hands. They'd said their vows. A union was born.
But Susan hadn't stuck around for long. When he'd fallen sick, she'd packed her bags and exited the picture. A few months later, she'd quietly obtained a divorce and moved on with her life.
It had been up to Holly to support her father. She'd done everything in her power to do so. She'd rushed to his side. She and Rupert had spent every waking hour at the hospital, talking to him, pumping him full of hope. It was the least she could do and frankly, she wished she could do so much more.
Unfortunately, his health deteriorated. Holly doubled her efforts. But things continued to get worse. Eventually, he'd slipped into a coma.
The hospital bills had piled up. Holly took over his care and moved him to her own facility. But he'd continued to worsen.
Just when things had seemed their darkest, a light had shone into her life. Out of the blue, a private foundation named Rabe had called her up. They'd offered her an astonishing amount of grant money to move her lab to Antarctica and refocus her research on a recently discovered collapsed colony of tardigrades. All they demanded was total access to her research and complete anonymity. They didn't want credit for anything, not even for discovering the collapsed colony in the first place.
Holly had jumped at the offer. She'd moved her little family to Antarctica and thrown herself into her work. At nights, she cared for her father. There was no hope of reversing his condition, at least not with today's technology. But by keeping him in a state of suspended animation, there was a chance she'd be able to revive him in the future.
Everything she'd done in her spare time — building the secret lab, the late nights of research, putting those two men on ice, the cryocontainers — was for him. She wouldn't let him die. She couldn't let him die.
The generator burst to life. The lights blazed. The machinery started to buzz and beep. A sigh of relief escaped her mouth. She pressed her lips against the cryocontainer just as she'd done so many times in the past.
Rupert appeared at her side. He didn't say a word. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close.
Holly leaned into his shoulder. Tears welled up in her eyes.
Then she started to cry.
Chapter 52
"Where is he?" Baxter strode through the open door. He stopped in the middle of the vehicle shed. "I want to see him."
I nodded at the far end of the shed.
Baxter crossed the room. Kneeling down, he studied the corpse. A frown appeared on his face. "This was murder."
"Yes."
"Who did it?"
"I'm still trying to figure that out." I paused. "I need to ask you something."
"I don't have time for questions."
"I went inside the power plant."
An alarmed look came over his face.
"I was looking for Ted," I said. "But I found something else."
"I can explain."
"You can explain a diesel generator?"
"Yeah," Graham said. "What happened to all that nonsense about saving the environment?"
Baxter stared at the ceiling. "Do you know how difficult it is to run a zero emissions base?"
"I'm guessing it’s more difficult than pretending to run one," I replied.
"It's impossible. The wind is too intermittent."
"Can't you store energy?" Graham asked. "You know, save up some extra solar power for a snowy day?"
"Unfortunately, no. We'd need large-scale batteries to do that. And at the moment, they don't exist." He was silent for a few seconds. "Can't say I'm proud of the subterfuge. But Kirby's got to have heat."
Secrets. Half-truths. Downright lies. A cloak of deception seemed to surround everything at Kirby. It annoyed me to no end. "Why the elaborate scheme?" I asked. "Why not just tell the truth?"
"The National Science Board wanted to bolster its credentials with the green lobby. So, they asked me to build a zero emissions base. I told them it was a tall order but they wouldn't listen. They threatened our funding, Cy. Our funding." Baxter spoke with conviction, with moral certitude. There was no question about it. In his mind, he'd done the right thing. The lies and secrecy were necessary evils in order to get a spot at the public trough.