Something about the moment felt so right. He was back in the desert at night, at the side of the empty road, his dad snuggling an overlarge coat around him until his teeth stopped chattering. Then Neil hoisted him up for a piggyback ride, and they trudged farther and farther down that empty, dark road, waiting for the next set of lights to appear in the darkness. Tom wasn’t even shivering anymore.
He didn’t feel the smothering arms sweep him, crush him up against a chest. He opened his eyes dully when he realized it was harder to breathe with his face muffled against a thick coat. He felt entombed in something heavy, and a sense of suffocation made him panic and he flailed as much as he could. A clang echoed through the air, and he squinted through burning eyes to see over a shoulder. The door. Someone had brought him to the other side of the door.
Hands stripped off his soaked shirt, the strangling tie, a voice shouting about a “warming blanket.” Other words floated back, and, “We’re in the middle of Antarctica and there’s no warming blanket in the entire building? How about a bathtub? How far away are the staff quarters, then? No, too far. Give me another parka.” Some gruff swearing, and he was hauled back against something solid, a coat snuggled around him.
His brain was a muffled, cloudy thing, and Tom didn’t begin to emerge from the mire until the first electric prickles began in his face, in his nose, then spread into his ears, his lips. They grew sharper and sharper. Painful. So painful. He tried to move away from them, but they kept following, searing him. He was squashed in place beneath a smothering coat, heavy arms.
His eyes hurt, and when he squinted down he could see his hairy legs, quivering like live wires. He couldn’t feel them. His hands were gnarled, prickling claws, his fingers white like porcelain, and someone knelt in front of him kneading them. He squeezed his stinging eyes shut.
“No, leave his hands, Ashwan,” a voice said from right next to his ear.
“What about frostbite?”
“He can survive losing fingers. He can’t survive cardiac arrest if you dilate peripheral blood vessels and shoot cold blood into his chest.”
Tom stirred a bit. Losing fingers? But his brain couldn’t hold on to the thought.
It took him a while to finally peel his eyes open again, and he made out the ashen face, the kid standing near his knee, gazing Tom’s way like he didn’t recognize him. It took Tom a moment to pull the name up. “V-V-Vi?” His voice came out slurred, his throat like sandpaper, his teeth chattering.
“Hi, Tom,” Vik said faintly.
“If you’re going to stay here, make yourself useful,” rumbled a voice from behind Tom. “Get a wet compress for his eyes.”
Vik shuffled off.
Tom’s head flopped back against the person holding the coat around him. He was hiked up a bit farther, the grip around him reaffirmed, warmth soaking into his back. The electrical prickle in his toes and ears and nose grew into a torment, and it was spreading everywhere. He tried to say something, but the words didn’t come out as words. He had a creeping sense there was something he was supposed to be doing. Wasn’t there? He had to do something. He wasn’t safe. Something bad had happened. He wasn’t sure what, but he started pulling at the heavy weight keeping him here, trying to break away.
“Calm down, Raines.”
But he kept struggling against the overpowering bands around him, because he was sure there was something wrong, so he needed to get up, he needed to do something. A mounting sense of urgency gripped him. Fear clutched his throat. He raised his head as far as he could, agitated. He needed . . . He needed . . .
Fingers threaded through his hair and eased his head back, then a palm brushed against his forehead. “You’re okay, Tom. Just relax. I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
“Dad?”
The hand on his forehead stilled an instant. “No,” said Blackburn.
He drifted in and out for a while. He didn’t stir again until Blackburn reached down and lifted up his limp arm. Tom squinted, and saw Blackburn’s thumb brush over his fingers, where the skin appeared a strange, pale blue. Tom realized after a moment that he’d seen the touch, but he couldn’t feel it. He couldn’t feel it at all.
“W-what’s w-w-wrong w-with m-m-my . . .”
Blackburn tucked his arm back under his coat. “Shh. Just close your eyes.”
Tom didn’t want to, but he sagged back, shaking all over, his teeth chattering, and his thoughts became blurred, hazy things as the warmth and almost foreign sense of total safety lulled him into darkness.
VOICES ROUSED TOM.
“. . . the incorruptible James Blackburn.” Vengerov sounded amused. “I’m astonished you left the Pentagonal Spire, what with all the recent security breaches. Anything could happen to that system while you’re here, in my domain, completely cut off from your own server.”
Tom forced his eyelids open, the bright lights of what seemed a small hospital knifing into his eyes. His blurry vision focused upon an IV pole, standing nearby . . . and the two men facing each other at the foot of his bed.
“Oh, I wouldn’t throw around the threats too soon, Joseph.” Blackburn’s voice was harsh. “I took the risk of coming here for one simple reason: your employee intranet. I thought access to your internal company network might be worth the trip to the South Pole. I was right.”
Vengerov’s voice was deadly soft. “You penetrated our systems? That’s illegal.”
“Speaking of illegal”—enjoyment throbbed in Blackburn’s voice—“you should really take a look at something I found while the trainees were on their tour.”
Their hands gripped the rails on either side, though Blackburn’s were ferocious claws like he was ready to rip the bed frame apart, and Vengerov’s were casually skimming the metal. The faint smile on Vengerov’s lips reflected none of the tense hostility on Blackburn’s face, even as he reached into his pocket, pulled out a computer, and began examining the file Blackburn sent him.
Blackburn said, “I had this hunch that it wasn’t a coincidence our combat technology always seems to keep perfect pace with that of the Russo-Chinese . . .”
“A mere conspiracy theory. I thought better of you, James.”
“It’s not a conspiracy theory if it’s an actual, proven conspiracy. Thanks to this perfect opportunity to plunder your systems, I found proof. It’s all there. Bank account numbers, emails, electronic footprints—all the interesting material I need to convince any investigative body that there’s not collusion between Obsidian Corp. and LM Lymer Fleet, you’re outright double-dipping—getting paid to supply war machines to both sides. You might as well be the CEO of LM Lymer Fleet, not just Obsidian Corp.”
Vengerov said nothing. The slight smile had disappeared from his lips as he continued to examine the information Blackburn sent him.
Blackburn folded his arms and leaned back to gloat. “If that gets out, well, you can get away with a lot of it. I know our congressmen are so pathetically corrupt, a few bribes will send them eagerly looking the other way. . . . But there’s a funny thing about the Russians and the Chinese: they’ve both got that pesky national pride thing you can’t seem to drive out of them, and they don’t like being scammed. Let’s say I stick this info on the internet for the eyes of the eager public. That’s gonna lead to an outcry, and those princelings in China might have to make the best of a bad situation and nationalize LM Lymer Fleet’s assets. They’ll take them and hand them out to their kids. . . . What do you think?”