Arctic Rising

31

They flew out of Pleasure Island aboard a Dutch Navy helicopter. Unlike the last pilot, this one flew high over the water, leaving Anika feeling more comfortable.

She preferred it when the water looked like a solid surface far below.

The bench seats behind the pilot and copilot had room for six people. Roo, Anika, and Vy had been joined by an officer, who patiently waited for them to put on large headphones with mics.

Noise cancellation washed over them.

“Hello, I am Albus Van Petersen,” their host told them in precise English. He hadn’t even blinked at their camera-confusing makeup. “I am pleased to be meeting you. I’m an intelligence officer attached to the Standing NATO Naval Response Force Three. I serve aboard the HDMS De Ruyter. I have been assigned to make sure you understand the position in which you are about to place yourselves.”

He pulled out a pad with a long, legal-looking document on it.

“What’s that?” Vy asked.

“Right now the Response Force is blockading Thule. A coordinated, multinational response has demanded that Gaia, Inc., immediately cease releasing its products into the upper atmosphere.” Albus pointed out the window. They were flying over more naval ships steaming north, wakes stretching behind them like long arrows of disturbed ocean. “Ships and troop transports from the G-35 nations are contributing more forces to the blockade of Thule. Gaia, Inc., has had its assets seized in most G-35s, but we have found that a considerable amount of assets, particularly factories, have been moved over the last decade to non–G-35 nations. We’ve moved past demands and into all-out military action.”

“And if Gaia doesn’t stop releasing those devices?” Roo asked.

“If non–G-35s refuse to shut the factories down, there will be airstrikes, which will, of course, cause all sorts of blowback. Sovereignty will be violated, nations upset. And it looks likely the standoff with Thule will turn into conflict at any moment. I think the non–G-35s are basing their decisions on what happens in the next forty-eight hours over Thule. I am guessing that will be a full invasion, the way things are moving.” Albus thrust the pad all the way forward between them all. “That’s why you need to sign this document. All of you. It states that we are not responsible for whatever happens to you as a result of us transporting you into the middle of all this.”

“The Dutch Armed Forces want us to sign a waiver to cover their ass?” Vy asked, amazement tingeing her voice.

“Yes.”

Roo took the pad. “Yeah, man, why not?”

As they signed the pad and passed it around, Anika looked over at Albus. “You think the G-35 nations are really are going to attack Gaia headquarters?”

Albus shrugged. “I don’t know for sure. But look outside the window. I think many of the rules are changing.” He pointed.

Anika craned her neck to look up in the direction Albus pointed.

The sky flashed silver, as if God himself had sprayed a mirror finish on the clouds that normally sheeted the highest part of the sky. She could see that there were still clumps of air in between five different masses of silvered clouds as the spheres were still coagulating over whatever position Gaia was commanding them to slowly move into.

“There must be billions of them,” Anika said.

“And more launching every hour,” Albus said. “Once those five formations join up, they become as powerful as if Gaia had launched a giant mirror into orbit. In fact, more so. A mirror could be shot out of orbit. The spheres cannot be destroyed—an explosion would damage some spheres; the rest would scatter from the concussion. We’re trying to compute how powerful the mirror will be, but until we see it in action it is hard to say. Right now it’s mainly using heat energy to move itself around, we’re not seeing it in full action.”

Anika thought about the flash of light that boiled the water back at the mist boats. It wasn’t just navigating—that cloud had destructive power. But she had another pressing concern: “How will we land at the harbor if Thule is being blockaded? Won’t they refuse to let us land?”

“It’s Thule,” Albus said, sounding puzzled. “Even if you declare war on them, if you pay for the harbor fee and entrance visa, they’ll happily trade with you.”

Someone, somewhere, once realized that the Arctic Circle needed its very own Hong Kong, its very own Singapore. A replication of relatively unfettered laissez-faire mercantilism run amok. A free-trade harbor. Low-tax haven. A place for the edges of Arctic society to experiment and innovate.

It began with offshore oil ships used for storage, rafted together, serving as the hub for cross-polar oil shipping. Several oil multinationals joined their resources and gave birth to a new entity responsible for maintaining the flotilla and storing the oil. It also buffered them against liability in the event of a spill.

And then things went their own direction. The flotilla began serving as a free harbor for not only oil, but any shipping. Floating factories were towed into place so that midsized and pico-sized factories could manufacture on the spot the objects that were being shipped, using raw materials shipping in from other directions.

The flotilla grew. The harbor ossified. Tall buildings grew out of the decks of the ships. Floating derricks the size of skyscrapers were purchased. Anika could see this seed that began Thule as they flew in, a twenty-square-mile area of glittering, floating metal. The harbor side of Thule consisted mainly of barges lashed to other barges to create a miniature Venice at sea here on the edge of the ice. Towering apartment blocks really were encased derricks, their feet stretching out far below to stabilize them.

Thule Corporation leased space to the various entities that grew into being under its larger umbrella, made few rules, and profited. As the old flotilla harbor grew, its board of directors realized that gaining more usable “land” would allow unprecedented profits.

So they decided to save the polar ice cap and move aboard.

Who was going to complain? After all, the rest of the world was resigned to just letting it slowly … melt away.

That part of Thule stretched out past the industrial metal grime of the harbor and its swinging walkways and long piers. Fresh, pristine ice architecture radiated away from the blotch of the harbor. The size of this salvaged ice-island was famously compared to roughly that of Rhode Island. Underneath the igloos and ice apartments, burrowed in and insulated, Thule’s explosive growth continued on, reaching icy fingers out until it reached the North Pole Arctic Preserve.

Massive snow machines, just like the ones usually seen at ski resorts but scaled up an extra magnitude, spat snow out from the tops of buildings and artificial hills, constantly laying down inches of new snowpack to compensate for the continuous ablation of warmer water.

Fields of solar panels glinted in the harsh, cold air. Massive wind turbines poked their superstructures out from between buildings; several even had buildings on their bases. Offshore, away from the ice pack, even larger wind farms floated, tethered in place by anchors, blades spinning slowly and patiently. Oil might have fueled the rush to the North, but Thule’s constituents had a radical commitment to power independence that was visible right from the air.

They circled the harbor, passing through a hail of small midge-like insects that rattled against the outside of the helicopter. The pilot landed at the margin of the airport on the edge of a disk of asphalt raised over the snowpack.

Welcome to the tip-top of the world, Anika thought as the blades began slowing, the pitched whine drawing down. It was a relief to get out and stretch after several hours in the bumpy helicopter.

And then she thought: I’m carrying a pistol in my waistband into an international airport. She leaned over. “Roo, we’re all armed and this is an international airport.”

“It’s Thule,” Roo said. “The wild, wild North. You have to use it to do something stupid before they jump at you, and it’s just as likely everyone else is armed.”

A customs official, looking just like any other cold-weather citizen in a heavy parka and hood with faux-fur lining, waited for them outside as the kicked-up snow blew away.

He held up a phone and took a picture of each of them as they stepped out of the helicopter. “Welcome to Thule,” he said, shaking Roo’s gloved hand. “The picture is a public-record file of your arrival. The Dutch Navy already paid your entrance fee, so you’re welcome to travel where you wish. The fee paid for two weeks of temporary Thule citizenship. As a citizen of Thule you have the following right:

“The right to travel anywhere in Thule you wish, or to leave Thule whenever you wish. Hindrance of free movement of any other person is prohibited.

“All other rights and laws are determined by the demesne you are physically in.” The various entities that made up Thule were called demesnes, each allowed to create its own legal and political system. Last count, Anika recalled there being some forty mini-countries within Thule, each an experiment in whatever its founders considered the most optimal way to thrive. “Violation of any law that doesn’t involve physical bodily harm to the victim results in demesne expulsion. Violating a standing demesne restraining order results in revocation of Thule citizenship and banishment. Do you accept and understand your rights?”

They all nodded.

“One last thing,” the customs official said. “All of Thule is in full little brother protocol mode due to the blockade by the G-35 nations. Just so you’re aware.”

“And what is that?” Vy asked.

“One hundred percent two-way surveillance,” Roo cut in, smiling. “All public camera feeds and monitoring services are open to the outside world to peruse. All outgoing phone calls, even the meetings by the leaders of the demesnes, are broadcast out. Nothing is secret, anything that happens next will be seen live by the entire world.”

“Right,” the customs official said. “Radical public transparency, or sousveillance, if you will. All of our drones are broadcasting what they see. We have mites in the air and in the water, and they’re broadcasting the location and shape of whatever they’re sticking to by networking to each other and passing the data back however they can to Thule’s servers. Anything we know about military action around Thule, the world is witness to.”

Albus Petersen smiled thinly and turned back to scrape one of the midges off the helicopter. He held it up between his fingers, and Anika could see that it glinted where it wasn’t covered in some sort of goo. “Well, you have just made my return trip that much more complicated,” he said, thoughtfully. “These are everywhere?”

“You will find a declaration and the codes to access what information we’re gathering on our public pages,” the official said.

Albus sighed. “I have to figure out what they are going to want me to do for the return trip.” He nodded at everyone. “Good luck.”

He got back in and shut the door and started talking to the pilot. A heated conference between them began on the other side of the window.

“You’re here to find the missing nuke?” the official asked, almost casually, pointedly ignoring the commotion between Albus and his pilot.

The engine began to whine behind them. The rotors slowly began to turn.

Anika turned to stare at him. He smiled back. “Little brother protocol. You came in on a military copter with intelligence agencies covering your entry fee and request to land. And when intelligence officials gave the leaders of our demesnes information, they shared it with everyone. Pytheas’s dictator is waiting to meet you. I guess you’re expected. In other countries they might get annoyed by outsiders coming in to muck around, but we welcome any and all help in resolving this fucking mess. You’ll find we do things a bit differently in Thule.”

Yeah, thought Anika.

Very differently.

The words “Pytheas’s dictator” sunk in, but she ignored them as the helicopter’s blades kicked snow and cold air at them in a miniature gale. They hurried away from the landing pad and into the warmth of the Thule airport’s swooping glass and steel embrace.