Chapter 14 The Albatross #2
Laurel scans the bar. Harry lifts a drink in greeting, his expression strangely avid.
Then he ambles over. She can see that his features had once been handsome, or that they could be, but in their current state, they are difficult to discern.
Harry’s face is terribly bloated: his eyes and mouth recede like fingers pressed in dough.
Laurel wonders if this was the result of a biohacking procedure.
Harry has made no secret of his desire to maintain his empire into childhood.
He’s known to inject the plasma of his eighty-eight-year-old father.
“This is too generous,” says Eli, standing. “I don’t think we’ve ever met.”
“And now we will,” Harry says. “You two are celebrities.”
Laurel laughs. “I think you’ve confused us.”
She hasn’t stood. Harry smiles magnanimously, as if to excuse her mistake.
“I read your article on Antarctica’s forests. Fascinating. And you,” he says to Eli. “You were part of the ANITA team.”
Beneath the table, Laurel nudges Eli’s ankle.
“I’ve read your book. The Duoverse,” Harry continues. “The anomaly must have felt like the find of a lifetime. I would think you’d still be at McMurdo, instead of paying to play like the rest of us.”
Eli spreads his hands. “No proof.”
“Pity. But you know,” Harry says, “it might have been under your nose. If I were you, I wouldn’t give up.”
Someone shouts from the deck—a pod of seals has been spotted—but Harry doesn’t move.
“See how you like the Lagavulin,” he says.
Laurel has resolved not to drink it. “I wish I could,” she says. “Seasick.”
“What a shame.” Harry rubs the pads of his fingers together. His attention drifts to Silas. “Hello, young man. What’s your name?”
Silas looks at Harry shyly.
“No name? Well,” says Harry, teasing, “I’ll have to introduce you to my Pippa. Very few children get to see Antarctica.”
—
In bed that night, Eli whispers, “What the hell was that, with Harry?”
“Clearly, he’s looked into us.” Laurel lied to Harry about feeling seasick, but she’s queasy now.
“Why would Harry Cooke care about the anomaly?”
“You’re being naive. Remember what Mr. Nakamura said? There are people who want to control the pathways between universes,” Laurel says. “The overtakers can’t be the only ones who have that information. Stories travel. Maybe they’ve reached Harry.”
“Well, he can nose around all he wants. In a few days, we’ll be gone.”
His certainty unnerves her. The screening that evening had been a superhero movie.
Laurel was annoyed by the hero, an unmemorable man in a cape.
She was annoyed by the familiar villain—a robot with reptile features—and by the number of plot holes.
She was annoyed that she had once believed in her own far-fetched solution.
“Maybe we aren’t heroes,” she says.
“What do you mean?” asks Eli.
“Well, we’ve both kind of been thinking it, haven’t we? We did this impossible thing. We discovered a portal, and we made it through alive. We found Silas. Until now, almost everything has gone our way.”
“Because we worked for it. We figured it out. We haven’t just been lucky.”
“But we have been lucky. We act like we’re different from other people, like we aren’t subject to the same rules. What if, now that we’re here, we have to live like everyone else? We beat the system once. Maybe we don’t get to do it twice.”
“We have to do it twice,” says Eli.
“There’s so much risk. If Silas panics, we won’t be able to help him. He’ll be stuck in that goddamn case. What if the respirator fails?” Laurel asks. “Doesn’t that scare you?”
“I’m terrified. But the risk is greater if we stay.”
“We don’t know that. Silas was born in this universe. Who knows how he’d react to ours?”
“Look at us. We’ve adapted.”
“We also had a choice. We were adults. We knew what was happening.”
Eli closes his eyes. “What are you saying?”
On the cot, Silas snores lightly.
“His life could be better here,” says Laurel. She has to force the words out.
Eli looks at her now. “You mean we’d leave him here to die.”
“But we wouldn’t leave. We’d wait.”
“That sounds like hell.”
“For us,” says Laurel.
“For Silas, too.”
“But it would be natural, dying that way. It happens to everyone here.” Laurel feels as though she’s pleading, though she doesn’t know with whom. “And this time, we’d be with him until the end.”
“Laurel,” Eli says, and there is something queer in his face, something warped. “Do you know what it is that happens to everyone here?”
Laurel shakes her head. She has avoided that information pathologically. If she knew, ahead of time, what she might have to do, she isn’t sure that she would be able to go through with it.
Eli opens his mouth.
“Please don’t tell me,” she says.
The ship shifts over waves. They stay at this impasse for what feels like minutes.
“Let’s go to sleep,” says Eli, finally. “See what you think tomorrow.”
—
With its simple shape and primary colors, the dive hut looks like a children’s playhouse.
Laurel drags her equipment from the PistenBully: dry suit and tank, buoyancy device, face mask, harness, fins.
As soon as she opens the door, she knows that something is wrong.
A tarp lies over the stove. The walls bear a thick crust of ice, and the hole has frozen over.
“Mama?”
Laurel feels a hand on her shoulder.
“Yes, sweetheart?” she asks, dragging herself out of the dream.
“Where you want to take me?”
She opens her eyes. “What’s that?”
“You and Papa want to take me somewhere. Where?”
Silas looms beside her, looking down. His forehead is tense with concern. Laurel bites her own cheek. He must not have been asleep while she and Eli talked.
“Come with me,” she says, thinking quickly.
To the right of Silas’s cot is a rectangular room with just enough space for a small sofa. Laurel and Eli use it to store their bulky outdoor clothing. Laurel lifts their coats from the couch and gestures for Silas to join her. When he settles, she spreads the coats on top of them like blankets.
“You heard me and Papa talking?”
Silas averts his eyes.
“Not supposed to,” he admits.
“That’s okay. I’m glad you told me.” Laurel takes his hand. “We want to bring you to the place where we were born.”
“Cemetery?”
“Well. No,” says Laurel. “You know how, when someone is ready to be born, Mr. Nakamura takes them out of the ground?”
Silas nods. He knows Kenji from their walks.
Laurel says, “The ground that Papa and I came from is very far away.”
Silas looks at her solemnly. “Want to see.”
Laurel swallows. “You do?”
“Want to go to the place with the Pokémon.”
“Oh.” When she laughs, a tear spills over. “Is that the only reason?”
“Want to go with you,” Silas adds, sliding down under the coats.
“Oh, honey.” Laurel ducks below them, too, and wraps her arms around him. “Papa and I will never leave you. Wherever you go, I’ll go, my love. And wherever you’ll be, I’ll be.”
As she touches her forehead to his, her doubts about tomorrow dissipate. How can she choose not to try? Laurel is Silas’s mother. She must give him every chance to survive.
—
For most of the twenty-first century, McMurdo Station was comprised of sixteen sleek, high-tech buildings.
In the 2030s, though, the US divested from Antarctic research.
To recover expensive materials, the buildings were dismantled and replaced by low-tech, prefabricated units: the McMurdo Laurel knew.
Today, rubble lines the roads, and fuel tanks loll in the dirt. Still, she’s moved to see it, five years later: the Big Reds and cryptic signage; the peeling, bright blue paint. Someone has dragged a couch onto the snow and sits there, reading.
Only the Arc is missing.
The Astralis passengers stand in a huddle. Harry Cooke checks his watch; the travel influencer sets up her tripod. Laurel finds herself standing next to Pippa, who says, “I like your hat.”
“Oh,” says Laurel. “Thank you.”
They’ve never spoken before. The hat is red and white, with a pom-pom on top.
A crew member blows a whistle. The group walks toward the Chalet. This is where Laurel and Eli will diverge: he and Silas will tour McMurdo, and she will set out on her own.
“All right?” Eli murmurs.
She nods. His face is gaunt. When he opens his mouth, Laurel knows that he will give her an out and shakes her head to stop him. She kisses him, and he puts his hand to the back of her head. She understands that he is thanking her, and that he is afraid.
“Hey, buddy,” she says, crouching to Silas’s eye level. “How much do I love you?”
Silas leans into her. “Bigger than the world.”
It was what Pete used to tell Laurel. He signed his emails to her BTTW.
—
Laurel knows better than to stop and think.
She hefts her backpack and case to the coffeehouse.
On the Astralis, she sent a message to Louis with her arrival time, but he didn’t respond.
She prepares herself for the fact that he may not be there—but as the Quonset hut comes into view, she sees him by the door.
Approaching from the side, she taps his shoulder.
He hesitates, looking cross, before he puts his arms around her.
“You’ve become a hugger,” she says, laughing. The Astralis’s chief mate glances over while herding a straggler from the pier. “Now act professional. I told them I’m meeting a colleague.”
“Let’s get to work,” says Louis, loudly.
He opens the door to the coffeehouse. She lugs the case inside.
Sleds are affixed to the ceiling, and the wooden walls are warmed by lamplight.
While they share a pot of coffee, Louis updates her on old gossip and new storylines.
The cadence of his voice is a comfort. Laurel didn’t know how much she’s missed them, Louis One and Two both.
“I’m sorry that I never wrote,” she says. “So much has happened since I left the station.”
Louis turns his mug in his hands. “I heard you were on TV. I figured you’d gotten too posh.”