Chapter 13
thirteen
“So there I was,” Tyler announced, fork waving dangerously close to Mia’s face, “plummeting into this endless abyss of ice?—”
“Fifteen feet,” Rue corrected dryly, sipping her coffee. “You fell fifteen feet.”
“It felt like a hundred,” Tyler insisted, not missing a beat. “Time slows down when you’re facing death. I saw my life flash before my eyes.”
Koos leaned forward, elbows on the table, his weathered face creased with genuine amusement. “And what did you see in this life flash, young man?”
“Mostly, I saw all the bad choices that led me to this moment. Like saying yes to this internship. And not sliding into Zendaya’s DMs when I had the chance.”
The table erupted in laughter. Even Noah, who had maintained his stoic demeanor throughout the day, cracked a smile. Rue noted how the tension from earlier had melted away, replaced by the peculiar bond that forms when a group survives a shared danger.
Tyler’s near-death experience had transformed him from the team’s liability into its entertainment, his arms windmilling as he described his fall into the crevasse for the third time since dinner began.
With each retelling, the crevasse grew deeper, the danger more severe, and his composure more heroic.
“When exactly did you have a chance with Zendaya?” Mia asked, rolling her eyes but unable to hide her smile. “Weren’t you a baby when she was popular?”
“Age is just a number,” Tyler said. “And delusion is free.”
Jess snorted from her seat at the end of the table, her green hair catching the fluorescent light as she shook her head. “I give you three days before you fall into something else. Any takers for the betting pool?”
“Where’s the princess?” Koos asked, scanning the room. “She’s the only one of us who actually has money.”
“I don’t think Camille’s finding Antarctica to her liking,” Jess said with a smirk. “She’s probably holed up in her room with the heater on max.”
“I’ll put twenty on two days,” Noah said unexpectedly. It was the first time he’d volunteered anything beyond professional communication all day.
Rue exchanged a surprised glance with Elliot, who sat beside her, close enough that their shoulders occasionally brushed.
That lingering awareness of him hadn’t faded.
If anything, it had gotten worse. She was aware of every breath, every smile, and especially every time he looked at her when he thought she wasn’t paying attention.
“Make it thirty on tomorrow,” Elliot added, his mouth quirking at the corner in that almost-smile that made Rue’s stomach do a little flip. “He seems eager to find new ways to test gravity.”
“Et tu, Elliot?” Tyler clutched his chest in mock betrayal. “And here I thought you were the nice one.”
“I’m plenty nice,” Elliot replied. “I’m just also realistic about your relationship with stable surfaces.”
More laughter rippled around the table. Rue found herself smiling despite the nagging unease that had settled in her chest since they’d returned to the station.
The black substance from the ice remained unexplained—she’d mentioned it to Dr. Keene, who had dismissed it as “probably mineral deposits” without even looking up from his microscope.
The mess hall door swung open, and Koos jumped up to help a snow-dusted figure with an armful of equipment bags. Dr. Keene shuffled in, his glasses fogged from the temperature change, followed by Dr. Moretti, looking more gaunt than usual.
“Ah, the adventurers return,” Moretti muttered, dropping his bags by the door. “Sounds like quite the expedition.”
“Did you get the ice cores?” Dr. Keene asked distractedly as he peeled off his winter gear.
“One. But then Tyler fell into a hole,” Mia said.
Moretti’s eyebrows rose slightly as he helped himself to coffee from the stained pot. “Injuries?”
“Nothing serious,” Rue answered. “But we lost a camera. It’s wedged about twenty feet down a crevasse.”
“Unfortunate,” Moretti replied, though he didn’t sound particularly concerned. “But the equipment is replaceable. People aren’t.”
It was the most human thing Rue had heard him say, and she nodded in acknowledgment. “We did notice something interesting, though. There was a dark substance in the ice where we were drilling. Almost looked like oil.”
Moretti’s hand paused midway to his mouth, coffee cup hovering. “Oil?”
“Probably just mineral runoff,” Rue said, echoing her earlier assessment. “But it had an unusual consistency.”
“Did you retrieve a sample?” Dr. Keene asked.
“No, I thought it was more important to get Tyler back here for a medical evaluation.”
“Of course. Of course,” Dr. Keene said quickly. “Sorry, I get so focused on the science that I sometimes forget everything else. Tyler, are you okay?”
Tyler nodded, though his earlier bravado had dimmed. “Yeah, just bruised and embarrassed. But hey, at least I provided dinner entertainment.”
“Dr Volkova cleared him.” Rue realized then that she hadn’t seen Volkova since the woman had examined Tyler. “Speaking of, where is Irina?”
“Probably still in the lab,” Noah said. “I saw her in there on my way back from the showers.”
Doing what? Rue wanted to ask, but kept her mouth shut. Her gaze drifted to Elliot, and she read the same question in his eyes. Irina was a medical doctor. She was here to ensure everyone’s health and well-being, so she shouldn’t have any research concerns keeping her in the lab at all hours.
Rue’s attention drifted back to Dr. Moretti. The man had recovered from his momentary pause, but his shoulders remained tense. He held his coffee cup like a shield, and his eyes kept darting toward the door as if calculating an escape route.
“This... substance?” he asked, his tone carefully casual. “Where did you find it?”
“About fifteen miles southeast of here,” Tyler answered, completely oblivious to Moretti’s tension.
The man’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, and she filed that detail away for later examination.
“I’d be very interested in seeing that spot and taking some samples,” Keene said. “Perhaps we could go back out tomorrow, if the weather allows.”
“Nah, that won’t be happening,” Jess interjected. “Weather’s taking a turn tonight. Visibility will be close to zero tomorrow, so no outside work.”
A collective groan rose from the table, loudest from Tyler. “Stuck inside? But we just got here!”
“Antarctic reality.” Jess shrugged. “You spend more time waiting for the weather than actually doing anything. Welcome to our lives for the past four months.”
“Which is why I’m more than ready to leave,” Moretti said, and suddenly looked exhausted.
“Ah.” Koos waved his big hand. “Nothing back home for me. I’d happily overwinter here, but I wasn’t selected for the winter shift this season. I’m still trying to sneak onto a crew at another base.”
Mia stared at him, wide-eyed. “You love it that much here?”
“Antarctica gets in your blood,” Koos answered with a wistful smile. “The silence. The isolation. The purity of it all. Once you’ve experienced a winter here, nowhere else feels quite right.”
Rue watched the genuine passion on his weathered face, understanding it better than most. She’d fallen for extreme environments early in her career—the places that tested your limits, that demanded respect and caution with every breath.
Places where a single mistake could kill you, but where survival brought a clarity unmatched anywhere else.
But even she wasn’t sure about spending six months in perpetual darkness.
The conversation shifted to what they’d do during the weather delay, with Tyler suggesting an elaborate tournament of card games and Mia countering with the more practical option of reviewing their data.
Through it all, Rue kept thinking about that black substance and Moretti’s momentary slip when she’d mentioned it.
Elliot leaned closer, his voice pitched for her ears only. “You’re still thinking about it.”
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Something’s off. Moretti’s reaction... it was weird.”
“I noticed.” His eyes scanned the room, ever vigilant. “What’s your gut telling you?”
“That whatever’s in that ice isn’t just mineral deposits.” She sipped her coffee, using the mug to hide her lips. “And they”—she nodded toward Moretti, Jess, and Koos— “know it.”
The station creaked around them as a particularly strong gust of wind hit the exterior walls, and the lights momentarily flickered. It was a stark reminder of how isolated they were, how dependent they were on the metal shell that protected them from the killing cold outside.
The sound momentarily silenced the room.
“Sounds like the real Antarctica is finally introducing herself,” Koos said. “That’s her knocking to remind us who’s boss down here.”
“Does she always knock so loudly?” Mia asked, hugging her arms around herself.
“Only when she’s feeling friendly,” Koos replied with a wink. “When she’s angry, you don’t hear her coming at all. She just freezes everything she touches.”
The conversation resumed, but Rue noticed the slightly nervous edge to the laughter that followed.
Everyone at the table, regardless of their experience level, understood the fundamental truth of their situation: they were visitors in one of the most hostile environments on Earth, tolerated rather than welcomed by the frozen continent.
Tyler launched into another story, this one about a mishap during undergraduate field research that involved a snake, a professor’s toupee, and a campus security golf cart.
The details grew more outlandish with each sentence, but the effect was exactly what was needed—tension bleeding away as laughter filled the common room.
Rue felt herself relaxing despite her lingering concerns.
Whatever was happening at Thwaites Station—whatever secrets lurked behind biometric doors or seeped from ancient ice—it would still be there tomorrow.
For tonight, she could appreciate this: the simple human connection forming among her team, the warmth of the mess hall against the howling storm, the way Elliot’s shoulder pressed against hers when he laughed.
She caught his eye as Tyler reached the climax of his story, something unspoken passing between them in that brief glance.
They both knew there were questions to be answered, dangers to be assessed.
But they also understood the value of moments like these—islands of normalcy in a sea of uncertainty.
Outside, the wind screamed across the Antarctic wasteland, driving snow and ice against the station walls like tiny bullets. Inside, surrounded by laughter and the smell of mediocre coffee, Rue allowed herself to set aside her worries, just for tonight.
Tomorrow would bring its own challenges. Tomorrow, they would face whatever secrets the ice was hiding. But tonight, she would let herself enjoy the sound of her team feeling like a team.