Chapter 2
ANGIE
My fingers are half-frozen, but I refuse to admit defeat.
The wind keeps shoving my curls across my face, tangling them in my scarf, but I grit my teeth and keep fiddling with the drone’s stabilizer.
The little machine wobbles on the ice like it’s drunk, its tiny blinking lights making it look like a stubborn firefly lost in a snowstorm.
“Okay, baby, stay with me,” I mutter, tightening a screw with numb fingers. “You are going to fly, you are going to capture the most stunning footage National Geographic wishes they had, and you are going to make me famous. Or at least keep me from getting fired. No pressure.”
The recorder clipped to my jacket blinks red, catching every word.
I talk to it because silence makes me itch, and because somewhere down the line, an editor might find my rambling charming.
Or maybe they’ll cut it all and leave me looking like a stoic professional who never swears at faulty equipment. Either way, the recorder stays on.
I step back, boots crunching in the snow, and hold the remote higher.
The drone lifts with a soft whir, climbing shakily into the pale Arctic sky.
I whoop, clapping my gloved hands together.
“Yes! That’s what I’m talking about. See, persistence always pays off.
My grandmother would be proud, except she always told me I should’ve gone to law school, so maybe not. Still. Victory!”
The dogs in their harnesses behind me perk up, ears twitching. Skipper, the lead, gives a soft huff as if to say, Finally, now we can stop freezing while you talk to toys.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I call back to him. “You’ll thank me when I sell this footage and can afford to buy you better booties. Prada for sled dogs, huh? Bet you’d like that.”
He blinks at me with patient canine disdain, and I grin, teeth aching from the cold.
The drone is already sweeping out toward the floes, its camera sending back shaky but glorious footage of ice ridges catching the weak sun, a jagged blue-white landscape stretching forever.
I shift my mittens and focus, keeping the horizon steady in the frame.
The earpiece crackles. “Angie,” a sharp voice barks, “tell me you’re getting something usable and not just another snowpile.”
I roll my eyes so hard it hurts. “Good evening to you too, Gordon,” I chirp. “And yes, I am currently recording ice, snow, frozen water, and oh—wait for it—more ice. You’re welcome.”
“Angie,” he sighs, like he’s already aged ten years since hiring me. “We need something marketable. Drama. A story. People don’t want endless sheets of frozen wasteland. They want danger, they want human connection, they want the kind of footage that makes them gasp.”
“You mean you want me to find a polar bear mauling a seal, zoom in real close, and put dramatic music over it?” I say, my voice dry as kindling.
“If you can manage it, sure,” Gordon shoots back.
I laugh, sharp and loud, the sound bouncing off the ice. “You’re unbelievable. You know the rules, right? Ethical filming? No staging, no provoking, no baiting predators like some hack from cable TV.”
“Don’t get self-righteous with me, Angie. You signed a contract. Deliver something that’ll keep investors interested or this project is over. No more funding, no more dogs, no more cozy little tents. You’ll be on the next flight home with nothing but debt to keep you company.”
The line clicks dead before I can argue, which is probably for the best, because I have a talent for cursing that would’ve made the recording unfit for broadcast. I tug my scarf down and mutter, “Well, wasn’t that motivational.”
The drone banks, tilting with the wind, and I lean forward, narrowing my eyes at the monitor.
For a moment, I forget Gordon’s voice. There’s something about the way the ice stretches here, sculpted into spires by centuries of storms, light filtering through the ridges until they glow faintly green and blue.
It’s alien and breathtaking and humbling, and I can’t stop smiling even though my teeth are chattering.
“This is a story,” I tell the recorder softly.
“Not the kind Gordon wants, but a real one. Climate shifts changing the very bones of the world, creatures forced to adapt, the silence of ice holding secrets older than us all.” My throat tightens, not with cold, but with something like reverence.
“If I can just capture it right, maybe someone will finally look and understand.”
The drone dips lower, shadow skating across the floes, and that’s when I see them.
Tracks. Not the delicate pads of a fox, not the wide splay of a polar bear, but something…
strange. Massive. Almost human in shape, if a human foot were twice the size and dragged across the snow with a weight no man could carry. I frown, leaning closer.
“Well, that’s new,” I murmur. The recorder catches the smile in my voice even though unease prickles down my spine. “Note to self: either frostbite is making me hallucinate, or Bigfoot decided to relocate north.”
The tracks vanish where the ice cracks open to sea. The camera catches a faint shadow moving under the floe, but it might be nothing. Might be a seal. Might be a trick of light. I chew my lip, fingers tight on the controls.
The wind gusts harder, and the drone wobbles. I correct quickly, dragging it higher before the feed cuts. Heart hammering, I guide it back toward camp, landing it with a graceless thump on the snow. My gloves shake as I grab it, but I laugh, breath spilling in a cloud.
“Well, sweetheart,” I say to the drone, “either we just filmed the biggest seal track in history or we stumbled onto the set of a horror movie. Congratulations.”
The recorder blinks steady as I drag everything back to camp, dogs padding patiently at my side.
My tent glows faintly with lamplight, canvas flapping like a heartbeat.
Inside, the little propane stove fights valiantly against the cold.
I huddle by it, rubbing my hands, then slip the memory card into my battered laptop.
The footage crackles to life, grainy in places but good enough. I scroll past the usual snow shots, muttering commentary into the recorder. “Ice floe angle six, gorgeous. Wind shear on ridge five, dramatic. Gordon can shove it.”
Then the screen freezes. I blink.
There it is. Frame by frame, blurred and shaky, but unmistakable.
The outline of a figure half-hidden in mist, massive shoulders hunched.
The camera wobbles, and for the briefest instant, it catches both man and bear.
Not side by side. Not one after the other.
The same. Intertwined. A body too large to be human, but standing upright.
A muzzle caught mid-shift. Eyes that glow faintly against the white.
My mouth goes dry. My heart pounds.
I rewind. Play it again. Freeze the frame. Enhance the contrast until the pixels smear, but the shape remains.
“That’s…” I whisper, and can’t finish the sentence. My brain refuses to form the words, because there are no words that make sense.
I sit back hard, chair creaking, breath fogging the screen. Every rational part of me screams that it’s a glitch, a blur, maybe an overlap of light and shadow. But my gut says otherwise. My gut says I just caught something I shouldn’t have seen, something no one will believe without proof.
Gordon’s voice echoes in my head, smug and demanding. A story. Something marketable. Drama.
I should delete it. Erase the evidence before it crawls into my bones and takes root.
But my hand doesn’t move.
Instead, I save the file to three different folders, tuck a copy onto a hidden drive, and stare at the frozen image until my eyes burn.
“Whatever you are,” I whisper to the screen, voice trembling but steady at once, “I’m not deleting you. Not yet.”
The lamp sputters, the wind howls, and the Arctic silence presses in, thicker than ever.