Chapter Twenty-One
ARIS
Civilization is loud. It smells like exhaust fumes and fabric softener. Anxiety hums under everything. And, worst of all, the coffee is complicated.
I'm standing in line at The Frozen Bean, the upscale coffee shop on the edge of the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus. It's a place I used to love, a temple of caffeine and academic gossip.
Today, it feels like a zoo where the animals are wearing North Face jackets they've never actually taken north of a heated parking lot.
"Can I help you?" the barista asks. He's about nineteen, wearing a beanie indoors, and looking at me with the glazed expression of someone whose biggest problem today is running out of oat milk.
"I just want coffee," I say. "Black. Hot. In a cup."
He blinks. "We have the darkly roasted Sumatra blend, the mild Ethiopian Yirgacheffe with notes of blueberry, or the seasonal Snickerdoodle Surprise."
I stare at him. Three days ago, I drank pond water boiled over a camp stove that tasted faintly of unleaded gasoline and spruce needles, and I was grateful for it. I climbed a scree slope to avoid being eaten.
"The dark one," I say slowly. "Large. Please."
"Room for cream?"
"No."
"Flavor shot?"
"No."
"It's a dollar extra for the single-origin bean."
"Take my money," I say, handing over a credit card that feels flimsy and plastic in my hand. "Just give me the caffeine."
I take the cup and thread through a maze of students glued to their laptops. I find a table in the corner and sit down, but the chair feels wrong. It's too soft. I feel like I'm sinking into a marshmallow.
I look at my reflection in the window. I'm wearing the "professional" clothes I packed three weeks ago—a blazer, a silk blouse, clean dark jeans, and boots that have never touched a dead animal. I showered at the lodge. I brushed my hair until it shone. I put on mascara.
But looking at myself, I still feel … feral.
The mascara can't hide the wildness in my eyes. I catch myself scanning the perimeter of the coffee shop for threats. Student with headphones: low threat. Professor with stack of papers: moderate threat of boredom. Barista with steam wand: potential noise hazard.
I'm profiling a coffee shop. I've officially lost my mind.
I check my watch. Ten o'clock. The meeting with Dean Reynolds is in an hour. I have time to kill. I decide to brave the faculty lounge to print my visuals.
When I used to haunt this biology department as Thaddeus's doctoral student, back before Seattle and the remote appointment, the faculty lounge ran on quiet intellectualism. Today, it sounds like a hen house.
Dr. Meade from Marine Biology is standing by the espresso machine, complaining loudly to Dr. Gupta from Botany.
"It's ridiculous," Meade is saying, his face flushed. "They turned down the thermostat two degrees. Two degrees! I can't grade papers in these conditions. My fingers are freezing."
I look at his hands. They are pink, soft, and holding a warm ceramic mug.
I look at my own hands. A healing scab crosses one knuckle from the antenna repair. My cuticles are ragged. A deep bruise circles my wrist where Nash grabbed me on the slope.
"Freezing," I repeat, the word slipping out before I can stop it.
Meade turns, seeing me for the first time. "Aris! You're back! Good god, you look …"
"Wind-burned?" I suggest.
"Intense," he decides. "How was the … camping trip?"
"It wasn't camping," I say, walking over to the printer. "It was fieldwork."
"Right, right. The caribou thing." He waves a dismissive hand. "Did you hear about the parking situation? They're repaving Lot B. I had to walk three blocks from Lot C this morning. In this slush! It's inhumane."
I stare at him. Inhumane.
"Three blocks," I say flatly.
"Uphill," Gupta adds sympathetically. "It's a nightmare."
I think about the box canyon, the scree slope, the six-mile hike back to the snowmobile on legs that were shaking so hard I thought they would snap.
And suddenly, I want to laugh. I want to laugh until I cry.
I think of Thaddeus. His office down the hall, empty now, reorganized for a visiting lecturer who doesn't know what the sticky note on the left drawer means. Progress over pride, kiddo. His handwriting.
He died last January. Alone, on a Saturday, at his desk in the university lab, while I was presenting a paper at a conference in Seattle near my own family that he had pushed me to attend.
I have been carrying that for a year. The timing.
The distance. The idea that I should have known somehow—should have been there.
But he was the one who sent me to that conference. He signed me up for it and told me to stop stalling. He died doing what he loved, which was making sure his work didn't die with him.
The timing wasn't wrong. I was exactly where he put me.
"You know," I say, picking up my printouts of Waldo. "I think you'll survive, Greg. Just … dig your toes in."
"What?"
"Physics," I say, heading for the door. "Use your toes."
I leave them gaping at me. I walk down the hallway, my boots clicking on the linoleum. It's a sound of authority. A sound of purpose.
Something clarified back there. I used to be them, complaining about the parking lot, worrying about the thermostat.
I'm not them anymore. I'm not sure what I am, but I know I don't fit in this lounge.
Dean Reynolds' office is designed to intimidate. It has mahogany bookshelves filled with books that have never been opened, a desk the size of an aircraft carrier, and a thermostat set to "tropical."
Reynolds sits behind the desk, looking exactly like I remember: a man whose greatest outdoor achievement was likely mowing a lawn on a riding tractor.
"Dr. Thorne," he says, not standing up. He peers at me over his glasses. "You're … early."
"I took the first flight out of Port Promise," I say, dropping my heavy laptop bag onto his desk with a loud thud.
He flinches. "I see. And the data?"
"It's uploading to the server now," I say, taking a seat without being asked. "But I brought the raw files. And the visuals."
I open the laptop and spin it around. I pull up the image of Waldo in the box canyon, the one I took seconds before the wolf attack. He looks majestic, powerful, and very much alive. The sheer black cliffs rise behind him, framing him like a king in his fortress.
"This is Subject 808," I say. "Waldo. As you can see, his body condition score is a 4.5 out of 5. He has successfully navigated the winter range, despite heavy predation pressure."
Reynolds leans in, squinting. "And the collar?"
"Recovered," I say. "It released yesterday at 13:42 hours. We have three years of continuous movement data, plus the high-resolution interval data from the last two weeks."
Reynolds leans back, steepling his fingers. He looks disappointed that I succeeded. It would have been easier for him if I'd failed, cleaner for the budget.
"That is … fortunate," he says coolly. "However, Dr. Thorne, the issue remains regarding your communication blackout. The safety protocols—"
"The safety protocols were designed for a controlled environment," I interrupt.
Reynolds blinks. His mouth opens slightly. I never interrupt. Old Aris would have sat there, apologized, and written a three-page explanatory memo.
But Old Aris didn't crawl onto a river of ice and save a snowmobile with a shovel. New Aris has zero patience for a man whose biggest predator is the faculty senate.
"I lost the satellite phone in a river crossing," I say, leaning forward.
My voice is calm, dangerous. "My guide and I were executing a tactical retreat from a pack of timber wolves that had flanked our position.
We prioritized the survival of the data, and ourselves, over the weekly conference call. "
Reynolds looks pale. He loosens his tie. "Wolves? You were … attacked?"
"It was a dynamic interspecies interaction," I say, using his own bureaucratic language against him like a weapon. "We observed a localized apex predator population attempting a resource acquisition strategy. We were the resource."
"Good lord." He wipes his forehead. "And the guide? Mr … Hollister?"
"Mr. Hollister performed optimally," I say. "His logistics saved the university a significant liability lawsuit. I trust you will be approving his full invoice? Including the hazard pay I intend to add?"
Reynolds swallows hard. "Well, yes. Of course. If the data is as good as you say …"
"It's better," I promise. "It proves Thaddeus Brine's theory about micro-migration. It's going to get us the National Science Foundation grant, Dean. It's going to put this department on the cover of Nature. It's going to make you look like a visionary for supporting it."
I see the dollar signs flash in his eyes. The fear of wolves is replaced by the greed for prestige.
"Well," he says, his expression going smooth and accommodating. "In that case, I suppose we can overlook the … procedural hiccups. I'll lift the funding freeze immediately."
"Excellent." I stand up. "I also need an advance on the summer budget."
"Summer?" He looks alarmed. "Dr. Thorne, you just got back."
"The collar is off," I say. "But now we need to track the calving grounds. I need to be back in the field by June. And I'll need to retain Mr. Hollister's services exclusively."
"Exclusively?" Reynolds raises an eyebrow. "Is that necessary? There are cheaper outfitters in Fairbanks."
I think of Nash cooking venison steaks, of him holding me on the mountain, of how he looked at me this morning on the dock.
"Logistically imperative," I say with a straight face. "He's the only one who knows the terrain. And frankly, Dean, he's the only one I trust to keep me from becoming wolf chow. Unless you'd like to volunteer to carry the rifle?"
Reynolds recoils. "Heavens, no. Submit the requisition."
"Done."
I walk out of the office feeling lighter than I have in years. I didn't just win. I dominated.
I spend the next four hours in the server room, ensuring the upload completes. It's boring. It's quiet. The hum of the servers is hypnotic and sterile.