“Go!” I orderedGazzy, who was staring at the water. There were splotches of darkness in the water, and the ice at the opening was faintly tinged with pink. “Go! And the rest of you, get back to the station!”
Immediately, without question,Gazzy grabbedIggy, and they, Nudge, and Angel started slipping and running over the snow back to the station. I heardGazzy yelling for help.
“It’ll thrash her around in the water till she’s dead!” Brian cried, leaning over the sharp edge of the ice. “Sue! Hang on!” He looked back toward the station helplessly, and then shouted and waved his arms as the seal surfaced again.
He couldn’t jump in- he’d get sucked beneath the ice and never find his way out. Or the leopard seal would gethim.
“Come on!” I told Fang, and ran to a quick takeoff. He was right behind me, and we stayed low, swooping over the water, trying to see. A dark shadow almost ten feet long showed that the seal was still close to the surface.
“Grab her as soon as it comes up again,” I shouted, and Fang nodded, grimly determined. Together we flew low, six feet above the water, in tight circles, ready to pounce in a second. Already a rescue team was rushing toward us. Paul was carrying a harpoon.
“There!” I said, pointing. The shadow was growing darker, then, sure enough, the seal surfaced again, Sue-Ann still gripped in its jaws. She was limp, her eyes closed, but instantly Fang and I swooped down, dropping toward the water like hail.
Fang kicked the seal’s eel-like head as hard as he could with his heavy boot, and I brought both feet down on its sleek, arched back. It recoiled in surprise, opening its jaws for a split second, rearing to look at us. It gave a huge, awful roar, looking like a sea monster, but Fang and I had already grabbed Sue-Ann’s jacket and one arm, and we were stroking our wings downward with great effort, trying to get aloft. The seal roared again and snapped, narrowly missing my feet, and I pulled them up.
Then we were out of danger’s range and flying over land. We held Sue-Ann tightly, bypassing the astonished rescue team and heading straight to the infirmary building. We skidded to a clumsy landing, sliding on the ice, Sue-Ann’s wet jacket already frosting over with ice crystals. I didn’t even know if she was still alive, or if we had just rescued a body. Her pants were torn and blood soaked.
Two men rushed out of the infirmary with a stretcher and placed it on the ice next to Sue-Ann. One placed his fingers on her neck, feeling for a pulse, while the other prepared to lift her carefully onto the stretcher. Then he frowned. “What- what’s that?”
By this time, some of the others had circled around us. One of the infirmary guys gently touched Sue-Ann’s leg where it had been shredded by the seal. He moved her torn pants aside, and then Paul sucked in his breath. My eyes narrowed. Beneath the torn and bloody flesh, we saw a collection of wires and fiber-optic cables embedded deep within Sue-Ann’s leg.
“What the heck is that?” Paul demanded. “Does anyone know about this?”
The other infirmary guy looked up. “I got no pulse here, chief. She’s gone.”
Then the other scientists ran up, out of breath.
“Is she alive?”
“I can’t believe what you did!”
“That was amazing! Thank you so much!”
Their faces fell as they saw our expressions, and we stepped back so they could see Sue-Ann. I saw confusion and shock on each face. Unless they were dang good actors, none of them had known that Sue-Ann had been modified. That instead of being one of us, she’d probably been one of Them.
Paul looked up at us, dismay in his eyes. He nodded over at the other members of his team. “Brian. Get Sue-Ann’s computer. Search her quarters.”
“Oh, no,” said Melanie, tears forming in her eyes.
“You all,” Paul said, gesturing to us, “get inside, out of sight. You others- search the rest of theWendy K., the guest quarters here, the mess hall, anywhere there might be hidden cameras. We’ve had a traitor among us.”
44
AS EXPECTED, the antifreeze additive to their joint lubrication proved effective.Gozen gave the signal for the rest of the troops to offload, telling his internal counting program to register whether they were all here.
One by one, the soldiers stepped evenly down the metal ramp that led from the plane’s belly to the hard-packed snow. Their feet adjusted to the new surface instantly, springs and weights compensating for the slipperiness and slight give of the icy land cover.
All the troops were accounted for.
First, a small shelter. The plane’s crew had thrown their supplies out onto the ice, and now the ramp closed, and the plane’s engines whined.
“Find the shelter,”Gozen ordered three of the soldiers. “Erect it.”
They responded instantly, locating the large crate strapped with plastic rope. Untying the rope, they pulled the self-inflating, insulatingTempHut from the crate. With a couple of cord pulls, theTempHut unfolded and sprang almost comically into a fully inflated shelter, like a jack-in-the-box.
Without a sound, the soldiers found the three-foot screws that would tether the shelter to the ice, to keep the structure from blowing away in the intermittent gale-force winds. It had no heat, no windows, no beds. Which was fine. Since the soldiers weren’t human, weren’t even alive, that was no problem.
The first pair of recon scouts were ready to report.
“Yes?”Gozen’s voice wasn’t nearly as mechanical as those of Generation K- it had some inflection and a more normal tone.
“There’s a problem,” a scout reported. “One of our contacts has been damaged. She has sent no signal for the past five hours. Surveillance tapes show that she was attacked. She is presumed dead.”
Gozenconsidered. In all likelihood, the plan could continue. First, a report to theUber -Director, detailing what he could find out about their contact. Then he would sit back and wait for the right opportunity. It shouldn’t take long.
His job was to eliminate the dangerous mutants. TheUber -Director hadn’t specified how. Or how long he could take doing it. Or how much pleasure he could get from it.
All those things were up to him.
“Get into the shelter,”Gozen told his troops.
45
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Today’s theme: Weirdness at the bottom of the world.
Our lives are pretty freaking weird already- what with the wings, the fleeing for our lives, etc. And yet we can still be amazed when things get even weirder. Cool.
Some stuff has kept life interesting for us lately: (1)Iggy can see, off and on. He needs to be practically snow-blinded for it to kick in, but he’s actually seen stuff. Made Max wish she’d brushed her hair sometime in the last month. (2) We’ve flown with snow petrels. They’re beautiful white birds, about pigeon size, that are all over the place here. They’re like flying pureness, to sound stupid and goofy. If Angel were an actual 100 percent bird, she’d be a snow petrel. The Gasman would be anemu. (3) There have been some penguin incidents, caused byuncautious belly-sliding down packed-snow slopes. Did you know that a penguin, if startled, might suddenly barf on you? We didn’t either. Did you know how revolting regurgitated, half-digested krill and squid is? I do now. (4) We performed a daring rescue at sea, made possible by Max and yoursfeatherly. Unfortunately, the person we rescued turned out to be a mole who’s probably been spying on us for the past week. So now we’re most likely in mortal danger, as per usual.
Fortunately, the person we rescued didn’t make it. So I’m guessing her reports have slowed way down. In the meantime, whoever’s out there planning God knows what, we’re onto you. We see you coming. We’re not going to take it well.