Below Zero

36 OUTPOST ZERO, ANTARCTICA ^NOW

Where there had once been a peaceful base, there was now a war zone. The ground was split in two, ragged and terrifying. Crumpled buildings were thrown aside like junk. Smoke filled the air, billowing from the burning aircraft, while flames licked at its carcass, casting an orange hue across the landing strip. The soldiers lay motionless in the snow. The ground was littered with torn metal and smouldering wreckage.

At the back of Storage, lying in a heap with the other men, women and children from Outpost Zero, were Zak’s mum and dad. His sister, May.

Please let them be OK. Please let them be OK.

Fearing the worst but hoping for the best, Zak scrambled across toppled shelving units, scattering supplies in his rush to reach his family. He went to May first, despairing when he saw her skin drained of colour, her black hair dusted with broken glass and powdery snow. Her eyes were shut, and for one unimaginable moment Zak thought she was dead – that they were all dead. He dropped to his knees and put his ear to her chest. With a wash of relief, he heard the faint drum of her heart.

Du-dum. Du-dum. Du-dum.

It was quiet but it was definitely there.

Thank you. He sat back and turned his eyes to the ceiling as he let out his breath.

Zak moved to check on Mum and Dad, relieved that both were in the same state as his sister – their eyes were closed and they were unconscious, but they had heartbeats.

‘Mmm.’ The groan startled him and he sat back in surprise.

‘May?’ When she didn’t respond, Zak shook her gently, but the best she could manage was another quiet groan. He sat with her for a while, but she didn’t stir again. And as he sat, his mind drifted to the world outside Storage. The soldiers.

He left May’s side and went back to the shattered window to look at the soldiers lying sprawled in the snow. He had no idea when they would wake up, but he was sure that when they did, they would be just as dangerous as before.

His family was alive. They had survived this ordeal, and he couldn’t let anything else happen to them. Those soldiers were the biggest threat now. He had to deal with them. Disarm them.

Climbing back through the debris, he went to the door and slammed his fist on the button. Before it was even halfway open, he pushed through and hurried out. At the bottom of the steps, he stopped and looked down to where Sofia lay.

There were no lights – when Outpost Zero disappeared, the power module and its generators had disappeared with it – but the Aurora still rippled in the sky, and the glow of a million stars reflected from the empty insect coverings that lay on the ice around Sofia. She was surrounded by them, just as he had been after the insects had come to him in Storage. Had they come to Sofia too? Had they fixed her too?

Zak knelt beside her and dared to hope for the impossible. He hesitated, afraid to be wrong, and put his hands under her side to turn her over.

He put his ear to her chest and heard the best music in the world.

She was breathing. Sofia was alive. The insects had cured him, and they had given her life.

Zak half carried, half dragged Sofia up the stairs and into the relative warmth of Storage. He checked her heartbeat again, to be sure, and went back outside to hurry across the ice. Heading straight for the woman in black, he tugged the pistol from her holster and threw it as far away as he could. It disappeared into the snow with a crump. The grenade launcher was still clasped in her grip, so Zak forced her fingers apart and prised it from her. He slung it over his shoulder and took it with him as he jogged out towards the next body lying in the snow. Knowing they might wake at any time, Zak scrambled to free the operative of his weapons and continued on to the next soldier.

He went from one to another, and when he had relieved them all of their weapons, he stumbled towards the ravine left by the insects. He inched as close to the edge as he dared, and dropped the rifles, one by one, into the abyss.

What now?

Turning around, Zak looked across the landing strip at Storage, and understood why the insects had controlled the people from Outpost Zero. It had been to keep them safe. They had known what would happen when they finally erupted from the ice. Storage was the only building that was untouched. Everything else was either gone or destroyed; the Hub, the Medical Station, Control—

No comms. The thought jolted through him. They had no way to contact the outside world. Zak was certain that if the base had still been standing, the communications would have returned to normal now the insects were gone, but the base wasn’t still standing. Any chance they had of contacting the outside world had disappeared into the bottomless pit that had opened in the ice.

Zak scanned the area, and his gaze came to rest on the second Osprey sitting on the landing strip.

That would be their escape. There was no other way out of here. Dima would have to fly it.

With the idea set firmly in his mind, Zak broke into a run, crossing the landing strip as fast as he could. He was exhausted, desperate for each breath, but the thought of taking his family to safety, and leaving this place far behind, kept him going. He could even picture it in his mind; waking them up, everybody climbing into the back of the aircraft and flying away. This was it, they were finally going to—

Something grabbed at Zak’s ankle and he went sprawling face first into the snow. He didn’t miss a beat, though. Straight away, he clambered forward on to his hands and knees, scrambling over the ice without looking back. Only when he had crawled a few metres, did he get to his feet and turn to see what had attacked him.

The soldier was propped on his elbows, watching Zak like he couldn’t work out who he was or what he was doing there. He blinked hard and shook his head, trying to get to his feet but failing. Around him, the other soldiers were beginning to stir.

‘Boy.’ The voice came from behind him. Quiet and muffled, but commanding. ‘Boy.’

Zak spun around to see the woman in black on one knee, between him and Storage. Both her hands were on the ground as she tried to push to her feet.

‘Stay where you are,’ she said.

‘Get lost.’ Zak rushed forward as the woman tried to stand. He slammed into her as hard as he could, barging her with his shoulder, sending her sprawling. The impact of it rattled his teeth, but he didn’t waste time trying to recover. If the soldiers were starting to come round, it meant everyone inside Storage probably was too. He had to get to them. He had to tell them the soldiers were unarmed. A group of nerdy scientists against highly trained soldiers didn’t have the best chance, but they were smart; if they all worked together, they might be able to overcome them.

As he came close to the edge of the landing strip, though, Zak spotted something from the corner of his eye, and he twisted to see someone tumble out of the Osprey’s side door.

The pilot! I forgot about the pilot!

The man struggled to his feet. He used one hand to support himself against the fuselage, while the other reached to draw the pistol from the holster secured to his thigh.

‘Stop him.’ The woman in black spoke again. ‘Bring him down.’

Zak lowered his head and sprinted as hard as he could but managed only four long strides before something ripped through the side of his coat, below his armpit. A fraction of a second later he heard the report of a gunshot from behind him.

Blam!

He’s shooting at me! Zak’s mind screamed, and his body shifted into overdrive. Everything was working at once – heart and lungs, arms and legs. He was running for his life now, adrenaline flooding his body.

Blam!

This time the bullet slammed through the padding on the shoulder of his coat, grazing the surface of his skin as it passed through. The shock of it jarred Zak to the left. His legs tangled beneath him and he tripped over his own feet, sprawling on to the compacted ice of the landing strip. Shoulder burning, he crawled on as shots punched into the ground around him. He was desperate. Terrified. The pilot was disorientated, but he was starting to recover. His shots were better placed, and soon his senses would return completely. Any second now, one of those bullets was going to slam through his back, or hit his head.

Keep moving! Zak had to get into Storage before that happened. He had to keep moving.

Staying on his hands and knees, he clambered across the landing strip and into the deeper snow on the other side. The pilot had stopped firing, so Zak guessed he must have used his full magazine and was reloading the pistol. This was his chance to make a final run for it.

Ignoring the burning sensation in his right shoulder, Zak stood and risked a look back. But the pilot wasn’t reloading his weapon. Instead, he was leaning into the cockpit of the aircraft. Zak had a second to register that the pilot was retrieving an assault rifle, then something hit him hard from the left.

Zak’s boots left the ground and he went sprawling, snow filling his mouth and burning in his eyes. Trying to recover, he pushed to his knees, but before he could stand, an arm wrapped around his neck and dragged him hard to his feet. His head twisted, his neck strained, and he heard the woman in black speak into his ear. ‘Nice try, kid.’

Footsteps crunched the ice and snow as the Osprey pilot came to meet them. The woman in black pushed Zak away, grabbed the rifle from the pilot’s hands, and tucked the weapon against her shoulder. She raised it so Zak was looking up into the barrel.

‘No!’ He put his hands up to cover his face. ‘Stop!’ he pleaded. ‘Don’t shoot!’

So she stopped.

Zak knelt in the ice, hands covering his face, but nothing happened. No gunshot.

He lowered his hands and looked up at her.

‘Leader?’ The pilot looked at the woman, her face hidden by the battle helmet. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘I…’ She leant forward, pointing the rifle. Zak flinched, but still she didn’t shoot. ‘I can’t,’ she said.

‘Can’t?’ the pilot asked.

‘No.’

Could it be? Zak thought. Could it be that the insects had given him something unexpected? In those moments before they left, when they smothered him, and filled him with life, maybe they had done more than just cure him. Maybe they had taken the sickness from his brain, and in its place they had given him a way to connect with other minds, the way they had connected with his. The way they had controlled the red-jackets.

So Zak concentrated like he had concentrated when he was in the wreckage of the plane, misleading the red-jackets. He stared at the woman in black, trying to put an image in her head. An image of her doing everything he told her to do. ‘You won’t shoot,’ he said.

The woman in black paused. ‘I won’t shoot.’

It worked! It actually worked!

‘You’re going to put that down,’ he said.

‘No, I’m not,’ she replied. ‘I’m going to—’

‘You’re going to put that down,’ Zak tried again, concentrating harder, imagining her obeying him.

This time, the woman in black shifted the weight of the rifle and lowered it with both hands. ‘I’m going to put this down.’ She dropped it into the snow.

Behind her, the other soldiers glanced at one another in confusion.

It’s like a Jedi mind trick! As crazy as it seemed, that’s what it was like. Zak was Obi-Wan, waving his hand and saying, ‘These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.’

No, it’s more like when Rey tells the stormtrooper to remove her restraints and drop the gun. When she’s just beginning to realize what she can do.

Zak tried not to let the mixture of excitement and confusion overwhelm him. Instead, he fixed his mind on what he wanted the woman to do.

‘You’re going to sit on the ground,’ he said.

‘I’m going to sit on the ground.’ The woman in black did exactly as she was told.

‘All of you.’ Zak imagined them all sitting down, and when he spoke the words, they all did exactly as he pictured it. They all sat down, and he turned to see Mum and Dad and May coming out of Storage, followed by Dima and all the others from Outpost Zero. Even Sofia was on her feet, flanked by her mama and papa.

‘You’re OK.’ Zak couldn’t hide his relief.

‘Zak?’ May asked as she ran over to him. ‘What’s going on? What happened?’

‘I’m not completely sure.’ He was overwhelmed to see them all, but didn’t dare break his concentration. ‘But I don’t know how long this is going to last.’

‘How long what’s going to last?’ May asked, but Mum and Dad were close on her heels, trying to wrap their arms around Zak as soon as they reached him.

He pushed them away and spoke to Dima. ‘Can you fly that thing?’

Dima cast his eyes over the Osprey. ‘Where did it come from? What happened to my plane?’

‘Can you fly it?’ Zak asked again.

Dima shrugged. ‘I can fly anything.’

‘Good. Get in and wait for me. All of you.’

‘What on earth is going on?’ Mum said. ‘We’re—’

‘Just get in the plane. Please. All of you.’

Mum’s face dropped and she blinked once. ‘Of course, sweetheart, whatever you say.’

Zak didn’t watch as the group made their way to the Osprey and climbed on board; he kept his eyes on the woman in black. ‘You,’ he said. ‘Take off your helmet.’

She placed her hands on either side of the helmet and lifted it from her head. She placed it carefully on the ice beside her and stared at Zak.

She was blonde, with short hair, and an average face. She had no distinguishing features and nothing about her appearance was remarkable. She certainly didn’t look like a monster. Didn’t look extraordinary in any way. She was the kind of person Zak would pass on the street and not take any notice of at all.

‘Where did you come from?’ Zak asked her.

‘November Island. Indian Ocean.’

‘Why?’

‘To secure the base, secure whatever is under the ice, eliminate everyone, await further instruction.’

‘Eliminate everyone?’

‘Yes. No loose ends.’

Zak took a deep breath. ‘Who sent you?’

‘Phoenix.’

‘What’s Phoenix?’

‘I don’t know. I receive a message and that’s it.’

Zak didn’t want to hear any more. He wanted to get out of there, to get as far away as possible from these people and from Outpost Zero. ‘Do you have some way to communicate with wherever you came from?’

‘Yes.’

‘OK.’ He thought about what to tell her. ‘Right. When we’ve gone, I want you and your men to wait five minutes,’ he said. ‘Actually, make that ten minutes… then you can go to Storage. It should be warm enough for you in there. Huddle together or something. I want you to wait ten hours before you tell anyone you’re here, do you understand?’

‘I understand.’

‘Good.’ Zak stepped back, wondering if he would still have control when he moved away from her. How did this work? Was there a limit? How long would it last? He had a million questions, but now wasn’t the time to think about them. He had to concentrate. Keep everyone safe.

‘One other thing,’ he said.

‘Yes?’

Zak raised his voice to all the soldiers. ‘When you leave here, you will all forget us. You’ll forget this place. You’ll forget everything that happened. You’ve never been here, do you understand?’

They replied as one. ‘Yes. We understand.’

‘Good.’ Zak walked backwards a few paces, and turned around, cringing, waiting for a sudden shout, an attack or… but nothing happened.

As Zak climbed on board the Osprey, he looked back to see the woman in black still sitting on the ice with the rest of her surviving soldiers.

‘What’s going on?’ Dima asked as he closed the door behind them.

‘I’ll explain it all later,’ Zak said. ‘For now, just get us out of here.’

‘As you wish.’ Dima secured the door and went straight to the cockpit to begin preparations for take-off.

Inside, the Osprey was packed full with the people from Outpost Zero. Stunned and confused, they were talking among themselves, trying to remember what had happened to them. Zak pushed past them and went to his mum and dad. He threw his arms around them and hugged them tight.

‘What happened?’ Dad asked. ‘Are you all right? What’s—’

‘I’m fine,’ Zak said. ‘Actually, no, I’m better than fine.’ He put a hand to the side of his head. ‘I’m perfect.’

Then he turned to his sister. ‘Let’s go home.’