Arctic Rising

14

She didn’t see another batch of police until she reached the stretch of road where she fought her would-be assassin. They stood around the edge of the road near the track marks of the car she’d stolen from him.

Lights from the ambulance rapidly strobed against the back of her eyeballs as she glanced up in the rearview mirror of the MP’s SUV.

But no one even looked up or back at her, not bothering to wonder why there were no windows in the SUV, why her hair was being blown all over the place. She steered into what felt like a gale, a storm of her own making, but was just the unprotected blast from driving nearly fifty miles an hour. No one wondered why she was shivering and hunched over the wheel.

Ten miles down the mountain from them, Anika slowed and pulled to a stop along the shoulder of the road.

She took a deep breath, as if she were trying to inhale the entire vehicle out of existence, shuddering from the effort. She placed a hand against the door pillar to brace herself.

Well, here it was, she thought. She was on the run for real now. A suspect. Innocent men had been killed.

All because she wanted to double-check the port-of-call clearance on an old freighter.

“Shit!” She punched the wheel with both of her handcuffed hands. Then she punched it even harder, ignoring the stabs of pain from bruises. “Shit! Shit.”

She smacked her head against the back of the headrest. Why hadn’t she listened to Tom? Why bother with a double check if they were already cleared?

Why not just sit up in the sky and take it easy.

Why had she had to push it just that much further?

She let go, then kicked the brake pedal, and the car lurched and stopped again.

She screamed up through the open sunroof at the stars, a yawp of frustration, rage, lost choices, and fear.

Then Anika looked around until she found the phone she’d taken from the dead man’s pocket. It had been put in an evidence bag by the shifter.

“Vy … I’m sorry to call you so early in the morning, but I need your help,” she said in a flat voice, pulling her elbows close to her sides to try and warm herself up, but still shivering.

Vy had her come around to the back of The Greenhouse. A large Russian bouncer, Chernov, let her in through a service door and pointed at an industrial lift in the gloom, surrounded by boxes of alcohol. It was eerie to be in The Greenhouse and not hear music thumping. “Come with me,” he said. He glanced down at the cuffs, but didn’t say anything. None of his business.

The steel floor of the lift shuddered as it rose. Gated doors passed them slowly by as they ascended through to the fifth floor.

Chernov slid the gate aside, and they walked down a corridor. He opened the last door for her, and Anika stepped into Vy’s private office.

Unlike The Greenhouse, Vy’s office was plant-free. Wood panels darkened the whole place, and a large, computer-free desk dominated the center of it. Small leather couches were scattered around, carefully positioned in front of the desk and facing it.

In a meeting in this room, it would be clear who was in charge.

There were no personal effects. No pictures, no motivational posters. What kind of decoration would a semilegal drug dealer choose anyway? Anika wasn’t sure.

“Where’s Vy?” she asked. Chernov had taken up a position near the door, hands folded in front of him, a blank stare on his face.

“Soon,” he grunted. He smiled at her. “Violet, she likes you very much, I think.”

Anika sat on one of the couches, then leaned back into it and sighed. “Why do you say that?”

“You are not buying or selling from her, and she still lets you into the office. And you are very pretty, yes.”

The door opened. “Chernov, be quiet,” Vy said. Anika struggled to stand, but Vy pulled a small ottoman over and sat in front of her. “Jesus on a Popsicle stick, you look like shit.”

“I’m sorry,” Anika said.

Vy reached for the handcuffs and held her hands. “Don’t apologize. Chernov, get the damn bolt cutters, what are you waiting for, a formal invitation?”

Chernov shrugged and walked out the door, hulking his way down the corridor.

“Who did this to you?” Vy asked. “I have a few more Chernovs I can round up. We can fuck whoever did this up, they won’t ever want to lay a hand on you again.”

Anika squeezed Vy’s hands. “He won’t be a problem anymore,” she said. “I killed him.”

Chernov coughed from the door. They both looked at him, and he held up the bolt cutters.

Vy looked back at Anika. “Chernov’ll keep his mouth shut.”

Chernov grinned as he got the bolt cutters’ bottom blade in between Anika’s wrist and the first cuff. “It’s wax in my ears. Violet always yelling at me, yes? Do this. Do that. Don’t you hear what I am telling you, big stupid man.”

The cuff cracked apart, and Chernov grunted in satisfaction. He turned his attention to the other hand.

Vy kept holding Anika’s hands as she looked at the Russian bouncer. “Chernov smuggled himself to Baffin aboard a sealed shipping container with a shitload of scuba tanks to keep him breathing. He was trying to reach Alaska, but he miscalculated; the crew of the ship luckily heard him banging. He jumped overboard a few days later in some survival gear he found and floated to Baffin, where some friends of mine fished him out of the water. He’s been following me around like a puppy ever since.” She ruffled his hair.

“Woof.” Chernov smiled as he freed Anika’s second hand, and held up the mangled pieces of the handcuffs.

“Make those disappear,” Vy ordered, “and come back up with a doctor who’ll work for cash and owes us a favor.”

“There’s med student, um…” Chernov frowned. “Edward. He’s home from Montreal. Yes. He will do.”

And then the Russian ambled off to make arrangements.

Vy had some oxycodone and gave two to Anika with a bottle of water. By the time “Edward the med student” showed up, out of breath and blinking, the worst of the pain had receded into the background. Anika was struggling to stay awake.

Edward, still a bit pale and sweaty, no doubt from only having had left The Greenhouse a few hours before, swallowed. “I really shouldn’t be doing this,” he said as he sat on the ottoman Vy had pulled up to the couch.

Vy sat on her desk, feet folded, watching them. “It’ll be cash.”

Edward licked his lips and looked back at Chernov. “I could get in a lot of trouble practicing without a license…”

“You have bigger trouble if you refuse,” Chernov grumbled, folding his arms. “We solved problem for you. Remember that problem? Now you solve problem for us. This is how it works.”

Edward brushed a stray blond hair back behind an ear and leaned forward. Anika looked at his green eyes as they flicked over her, taking in the bruises. He took her hands in his, examining her torn-up knuckles.

Then he was looking at the scrapes on her thighs. Had her breathe in and out while he listened, ear flat against her back, then her chest.

She hissed when he pushed at her ribs, one by one.

He leaned back. “Bike accident, then a fight?”

Anika nodded.

“I’d hate to see the other girl,” he said.

She didn’t bother correcting the automatic assumption in his statement, but she saw Chernov quirk an uncharacteristic smile.

Edward focused on the marks on her neck. “Someone tried to strangle you, too.” He frowned. “This wasn’t a bar fight, was it?”

“No.” Anika rubbed her neck.

Edward’s demeanor shifted. “Listen, if this is domestic abuse, you need to report it.”

“It wasn’t domestic abuse,” Anika said. She swam in a world of near sleep due to the painkillers. She wished Edward would hurry up.

Edward didn’t believe her, but turned his attention back to her ribs. “I don’t think anything’s broken. Bruising, strains, maybe a slightly cracked rib—either way the advice is the same. I’d take it easy. Get to a doctor as soon as you can, get some X-rays. What painkillers do you have, Violet?”

Vy rattled a fluid list of names and finished with, “She’s already had some oxycodone.”

“That’s more than necessary. Make she sure takes something anti-inflammatory as well. Ice the ribs. Rest. Above all, she needs to take it easy. The abrasions aren’t too bad, I can clean them off. Get some antibiotic cream on them. If there’s anything too deep, bandage it. I don’t see anything that needs stitches.”

“So she’s okay?” Vy asked.

“She’s going to hurt tomorrow, but yes, she seems okay. But she really, really needs to visit a real doctor. Understand?”

“We’ll clean her up.” Vy nodded at Chernov, who grabbed Edward’s shoulder.

“Time for us to leave,” Chernov said, and led Edward out.

The door closed, and Anika heard Vy moving about. But the sludge of painkillers and exhaustion spun the room slowly around her. Anika lay back into the folds of the couch, sinking further and further into it.

Vy crouched next to her, whispering into her ear. Light glinted from a pair of scissors. “You know you’re in a safe place, right?”

Anika nodded.

“Good.”

Vy’s hands slid down the sides of Anika’s leathers, and then she started snipping them with the scissors, avoiding the road injuries, carefully pulling strips of cloth away as Anika fought sleep.

In brief snatches of lucidity, she summarized everything that had happened, unsure how much it was making sense. “I have to get to Greenland,” she said. “I have to find Braffit.”

“Okay,” Vy said. “But for now, just rest.”

Anika’s legs and forearms had been cleaned up, slathered in antibiotic cream. She realized, suddenly shocked, that her jeans had been entirely cut away. But even as she realized that, and looked for the energy to object, Vy draped a large, soft blanket on her.

Anika woke up and found Chernov sitting in a chair by the door watching a movie on his phone with earphones turned up loud enough she could hear mosquito-like explosions and screaming.

He saw her moving and turned it off. “Dobry ’veche,” he said.

“What?” Anika fumbled around, and Chernov rushed forward, handing her a handful pills and a bottle of water.

“Here is more oxy,” he said, “and for inflammation, take as well.”

Anika downed everything, wrapped the blanket around her, and limped toward a door in the back behind the desk. She needed to pee so badly. “Please, is that a bathroom?”

Chernov nodded.

After washing her hands, Anika filled the sink and plunged her face in. Invigorating. But mostly painful.

She dried herself off with a wad of paper towels, and found that Vy waited for her outside when she opened the door.

“You may not remember, but we had quite a chat last night while I was cleaning you up,” Vy said.

“I told you what happened,” Anika recalled. “I told you what Commander Claude found. I need to get to Greenland, to find Braffit.”

“Yes, and I can help you get to Greenland.…”

Anika, standing by Vy’s desk with the blanket wrapped around her waist and legs, her hair flying every which way, a halo of brown around her face, interrupted. “Why?”

“Why am I helping you?”

“Yes.” Anika stared at her.

“Jesus. You have to ask that?” Vy looked hurt.

“Do you want a pet Polar Guard pilot? Another person who owes you a big debt? I have to understand what I’m getting into, Vy. Because there’s a lot that’s happened to me lately.”

Vy softened. Somewhat. She sat down in her chair and put her legs up on her desk. “Chernov?”

“Yah?”

“Will Anika owe me anything for my getting her to Greenland?”

“No. This is not business,” Chernov said. “This is personal favor. This is because we like you. This is because, when we were in The Greenhouse that night, Vy thought you looked interesting. She wanted to get to know you better.”

Anika shuffled her way over. “I don’t know how to repay you.…”

“Just let it be,” Vy said softly. “I can’t get you all the way down to the Polar Guard station in Nuuk. That’s where you told me you wanted to get to, this morning. But I can get you to Upernavik; it’s up the coast a ways. And you’ll need to avoid getting picked up.”

“Because I’m wanted?” Anika asked, grateful to be talking about something else.

“Greenland’s got this guest worker obsession. You can fly into Greenland and automatically get a monthlong pass to wander around the island and even do temporary work. The diamond and ruby mines are always hiring, and the more the ice melts, the more they can drill. Greenland doesn’t have enough workers for the interior, so the state-run concessions are always bringing in guest workers.”

“Oh, yeah. Right.” The Greenlanders were mostly First Nations people, with some Danish background. They’d encouraged First Nations peoples to emigrate from Northern Canada, Alaska, and Russia. But as the glaciers receded and Greenland’s interior released a bounty of natural resources, there was more work than people in Greenland. Companies had to reach out to find workers, and they trickled in from Africa, the United States, and Northern Europe.

There had been protests and some strikes by international workers who ran out of their three-month stays, demanding to be treated fairly and given a chance to apply to become Greenlanders, but the Greenlanders didn’t want to become minorities in their own country. And they were First Nations peoples. They’d seen the rush to Northern Canada’s newly opened and ice-free land displace enough Inuit there. They knew history. They were nervous, and as a result, Greenland remained obstinate about the three-month stay.

Pay was generous enough, they noted, that one could work for three months, then come back the next year, and still make a yearly salary.

“They spend good money to run background checks on everyone’s ID who enters the major ports,” Vy said. “And have the best counterfeit detection systems I’ve come across. So it’s less risky to smuggle you into Upernavik. We’ll give you a fake passport to flash once you’re inside Greenland, but if they pick you up and actually run it, chances are you’re in trouble.”

“I understand,” Anika said. “But I have to go.”

“I’ll make the arrangements,” Vy said. Then added, “And get you some track pants. There’s a convenience store at the end of the block, if you give me your measurements, I can have Chernov get you some replacement clothes.”

Anika shook her head. “Let me borrow his jacket, if I can do it. I don’t want to be a bother.”

“No bother,” Chernov said.

“You don’t want to run into any cops,” Vy said.

But Anika pressed on. “No, I need to do something. I can’t just sit here while everyone does all this for me.”

Vy nodded, opened a drawer, and tossed Anika a thick roll of cash held together with a rubber band.

“Don’t trust Chernov’s sense of style?” she asked.

For the first time in several days, Anika laughed.

It was just a small chuckle. And it hurt: her ribs shot pain up her sides.

But it felt good.