Arctic Rising

10

The Belladonna, all real fruit juice and rich, expensive rum, settled over Anika like a faint haze. She grabbed Vy by the crook of her arm and guided her to a couch in a niche dominated by tiny palm trees in large plastic tubs.

So Vy had already scanned the news. She rubbed Anika’s shoulder, concern in her eyes. “I’m glad you’re okay. Some of us were worried about you. They’re saying the navy hunted the bastards down, right?”

Here in the niche, in the humid air, silenced from the outer party, Anika relaxed.

“They had me fly out to take a look. The Americans do have the people who fired at us.”

Vy grinned. “U.S.A. for the motherfucking win!” Vy was from somewhere in the southern United States. Anika had heard the accent in her voice the first time they’d met, when Vy had been drunk. Her slurring had strange cadences to it that weren’t there when she was sober and alert.

“But there’s something that doesn’t make sense,” Anika said. “They said these guys were running drugs.”

“Really? What kind?”

Anika leaned forward and buried her face in her hands, frustrated. “Shit, I didn’t think to ask.”

“Well, they’re not moving weed, not by ship. Anywhere in the Canadian Polar Circle, it’s all grown locally. Look at me: I have a license to sell. Pay taxes. I mean, you can think of me as the CEO of a very lucrative series of farms and pharmacies here in North Baffin. No sense in shipping it when you can grow it. The harder stuff, that usually comes smuggled up from the States, via the Midwest. That’s how I got my start, actually.”

“What gets shipped, then?”

Vy frowned. “Not much. Counterfeit pharmaceuticals, sometimes? Opiates from Afghanistan. But they usually ship them with regular shipments. Stick a container in the middle of a crapload of other containers. Smuggling via anonymity. It’s pretty awesome at getting your stuff where it needs to be.”

“So this chartered drug boat stuff, it’s bullshit.”

“I don’t know for sure. But my guess is: yes, it’s bullshit. I mean, I’m not hearing about it. It’s ridiculous, risky, expensive, and totally pointless. Particularly now that the UNPG has such a strong presence.”

Anika finished up the Belladonna and set it on the small table catercorner to the couch. “Okay. Thank you. I guess … I owe you? I’m not good at this sort of thing.” She stood up.

Vy sprang up next to her. “You’re not going to stay, are you?” She sounded disappointed.

Anika looked over at her. “I can’t.”

Vy’s eyes flicked around, and then she smiled ruefully. “You look determined. I won’t press it.” Then she leaned over, grabbed Anika’s hand and kissed the back of it. Anika closed her eyes for a second. “Well, I’d tell you that you know where to find me but it’s been two months since I last said that and you came to visit. Take my card.”

She slipped a piece of actual cardboard with contact information printed on it into one of the pockets of Anika’s jacket. The action reminded Anika of when Vy had slipped her the pass that let her into The Greenhouse.

“Vy. I can’t take your card. It would cause me trouble.”

“Sweetie, you’re out here asking me about how drugs are smuggled. You’re already in trouble.” And with that, Vy slipped back off down toward another niche where a pair of very large men with shaved heads waited for her.

Anika whipped the bike out of town, passing cars tooling their way along too slowly for her. She had a two-thirds charge still left in the batteries. That was plenty to allow her to race back home.

She’d gotten what she’d suspected: proof that things didn’t add up right. But did she have to come all the way out to Arctic Bay?

No. She had to answer that honestly to herself. She’d driven down to see Vy as much as anything. After everything she’d been through, she’d wanted to get back to Vy. To see if she was still at The Greenhouse. To see if she was still … interested in her?

Anika had first come down to The Greenhouse several months ago in a van full of pilots looking to blow off steam. Vy had tracked her down, picking her off from the pack.

There’d been something there. A sparkle in the smile. A knowing glance between them.

But that’s as far as it had gone. Because Anika couldn’t date a dealer. She wasn’t going to risk her pilot’s license.

Not that other flyboys weren’t doing similar things, or worse. But Anika knew it would come down heavier on her if her higher-ups found her involved with a dealer. That’s just how it was. Women didn’t get the same latitude. While boys would be boys, she would lose her airship.

And she wasn’t giving up a lifetime’s dream. Not on a fling. Not after everything she’d been through.

Yet it still hurt to make that decision, to turn away from a path.

There was a car behind her. The lights grew brighter as it pushed closer.

The bike had slipped down to half the speed limit as it groaned up the hillside. Anika moved aside to let the car pass. But as the headlights almost blinded her, she sensed, like a rat about to be hit by a striking snake, that the car was veering off to hit her instead of passing by.

At the last second before it struck, Anika whipped the bike left, crossing the centerline as the car clipped her instead of running her down.

The bulk of the vehicle rushed past, buffeting her and slamming into her leg. The mirror smacked into the small of her back and a wheel caught the back of her tire.

She wobbled, fighting to control the bike, then let it slide as gracefully as she could manage out from underneath her.

Anika hit the road on her left thigh, the bike now sideways and skidding on the asphalt with her. Sparks flew, metal screamed and groaned, but due to her low speed, the slide was manageable.

The bike spun off the road into the shoulder and up the hill, catapulting and smacking into a boulder.

Anika slid to a stop, bouncing into scree and dirt, cursing half-remembered childhood Igbo and Hausa phrases, and then finally English again as she realized she’d scraped to a stop.

Her leathers were ruined. A patch on the left thigh had come clean off; the skin underneath was ripped and shredded. Her left palm ached; she might have sprained the wrist, she thought. But after a second of flexing, she decided it was just badly bruised.

Now she was angry, not scared. She ripped her helmet off and looked at the car. It was a BMW, with tinted windows, that skidded to a stop down the highway.

“What the hell do you think you are doing?” she shouted.

The driver got out. A muscular, tall, dark-haired man in a gray suit. He had a gun, which he raised over the roof of the car and pointed at her.

Anika bolted for the large rocks and scree, using them as a cover.

Three puffs of dirt and cracked rock exploded from the ground around her, near misses, as she zigged her way deeper into the natural maze of large rocks.

She was out here, very alone. And with no sidearm of her own.

That very large guy in the cheap suit was going to hunt her down. She was sure of that. She had a limp, she was tired, and he had the gun.

Anika kept moving, her mind racing, as she scrambled over loose rock and raced for bigger boulders to use as shields. She wasn’t going to be able to keep running much longer, though. She needed a weapon.

She picked up a fist-sized rock, square-ish, with some sharp points. But bashing his head in would require getting close. And with that gun the chances of doing that were low.

She pocketed the rock and doubled back, circling around him as quietly as she could.

Her pockets had nothing but the rock, Vy’s business card, and the phone. No one she could call would get here in time to save her.

Then she felt the rope key fob.

The paracord that made the fob was just six feet of standard parachute cord, thin and strong. It was knotted up into a compact little rectangle that took a few seconds to tug loose as she crouched her way from boulder to boulder.

A long time ago, a cousin of hers taught her to build slingshots to bring down birds on a dusty plain out in the countryside. For a Lagos girl, it was like a foreign land, a slice of her own country that seemed to leap out of the history books.

She never got the hang of making a sling, but she could wrap the rope into quick, half-remembered knots around the rock.

Now, with a crude mace built on the run, she found a spot where she’d make her stand. She walked back along her footprints in the dirt and gravel, letting them look as if they led off behind another large boulder, then she hid behind the other. She grunted as she jumped sideways toward it, trying not to give herself away. Then she waited.

It didn’t take long. She could see her attacker’s elongated shadow cautiously skirting toward her. “Tell you what,” the man shouted in a strong German accent. “It doesn’t have to be like this. Give me the data backup and I’ll leave you be.”

Anika began twirling the rock. Softly at first, as she didn’t want it to make a sound yet. He was lying. If his first move was to try to run her down, he still wanted her dead even if she made the trade.

He stepped into a valley between two smaller knee-high rocks. He looked at her trail, and then stepped forward.

Anika gave the rock an extra burst of speed with all her upper body strength. The rope made a whooping sound, and she aimed it right at his head.

He glanced over, at that moment, sensing the movement out of the corner of his eye. He wasn’t quick enough to block her attack, but he instinctively pulled the gun up to aim at her. The large rock just grazed his head and smacked into his gun hand.

“Fuck.” He fired, the bullet kicking up dirt and rock, but the impact knocked the gun out of his hands.

Anika yanked the bloody rock back to her, swung it under her arm, and spun it twice around her head and then let it go again.

He’d instinctively stooped to try and pick the gun up, but now raised his cracked, bloodied hand to block the rock arcing toward his head. He only partially managed that; it hit him hard in the temple, staggering him back.

Anika yanked on the rope, retrieving the rock for another go, but now he charged her. There was blood in his right eye, so it was a clumsy tackle, but when he collided it knocked the air out of her.

She gasped, but didn’t spend any energy trying to fend him off. She could hear the words shitshitshitshit being hissed, and she wasn’t sure if they were in her head or if she was saying them out loud. He punched her in the gut, forcing her to try to double up, but she couldn’t. His weight kept her pinned down, the rocks digging into her back, her ribs creaking from the weight. His hot breath filled the air around her as they grunted and struggled.

Anika freed her arms as he repositioned himself astride her to strike again and swiftly wrapped the paracord twice around his neck, got it looped three times around her hands, and pulled as hard as she could.

His eyes bugged out and he reared back, trying to pull at the thin, slippery cord as she choked him. The bloody rock tied to the one end dangled and slapped her arm as he struggled.

He bucked back again, so hard and far that he lifted her upper body off the rock as she gripped the paracord for all her life.

Then he stopped trying to pull the rope off and fixated on her. He threw her back down against the rock, smacking the back of her head against it.

She didn’t let go. He punched her sides, but lying on top of her, he couldn’t get much of a swing in. It hurt, fuck it hurt, but she was still choking him, and the punches got weaker.

Then he rolled off her, throwing himself around to try to break her wrists free of the rope.

Anika wasn’t having it. As battered as she was, she understood deep down that only one of them was walking away from this encounter. And the only way for it to be her, was for her to keep the cord wrapped around his throat.

He was dragging her along the rock as he tried to pull free, and she managed to get on his back, pulling on the rope from behind like she was a jockey.

For the first time she could take a full breath.

Her sight returned, and she felt dizzy. But she pulled even harder on the rope. They toppled over together.

They were lying side by side in the dirt, moss, and scree, like spooning lovers. She had her knee in the small of his back, pushing herself out away from him, her rope-knotted hands just behind his neck, her triceps straining from pulling so hard. Blood stained the sides of the rope and skin peeled off her palms.

It was as if she were trying to pull the rope through his neck.

The man had one last burst of energy in him. He stood up again, yanking Anika along with him on his back. He staggered toward a rock, then spun and threw his back, and Anika, at it with all his strength.

Pain burst through her spine and up her skull, and she screamed but held on, wrapping her legs around his waist and pulling tight with every bit of strength left to her as he did it again.

But this time, after throwing himself against the rock in reverse, he slumped forward.

Anika, wrapped around him, rope pulled tight, just hung on and waited.

She could feel the bruises and throbbing pain slowly washing over her. There wasn’t a limb, a muscle, or any part of her that didn’t scream for mercy.

There were tears of fear and relief to be alive coursing down her cheek and onto his neck. The sweat on her skin began to cool, and the cold air made her shiver.

For another ten minutes she lay there, making absolutely sure her attacker would not move again, and then she let go and flopped onto her back.

There were rope burns on the palms of her hands. The red lines and blood ran from the chewed-up brown of the back of her hands to the pale of the front.

She held them up in the air in front of her face and stared at them, and then at a single star up in the twilight summer sky of the Arctic.