written: August 26th, 2026.
Clara tapped at the desk in quick raps of the fingers. She had no idea why she even agreed to this. It had been two hours since she waved Shriver goodbye through the radiowaves. He was probably a hundred kilometers down the snow now, maybe more. Dressed down with those two freight workers, the only ones willing to follow him out. Should she have learned their names by now? There must be over a hundred people living in McMurdo, she thought to herself. She could count on one hand how many times shes spoken to them, two hands for how many words. Most of the words landed to Shriver anyway, he seemed to be the only one ferrying anything between resource allocation and execution. She rubbed her leg, down where the plasticast hummed lightly, pressing into her thigh with an easy pressure. It was still sore, even with the battery at 80%. She'd already forgotten just how many nerve bundles had been mangled down there, it was a miracle she could still limp around the halls without assistance. So really, there wasn't much in common between her and the laborers. That thoughtline grew dry as the minutes ticked into the next. A creak and a twiddle of the scan knobs, but no transmissions came through. Her headphone bore a staticky baseline, electrons traveling to and fro without an amp of interferance. All signs pointed to a uniform calm, surely some new calamity would have those radiowaves buzzing nonstop. Boredly, she spun the chair around, headphone wires tugging gently as they reached their terminus, back and forth, lazy half rotations. It had been a long night, plugging leaks up and down rows of twisting leafy vines. The whole of it running at full capacity. One small break in the lines could drop that 100 down to 95%. Hardly a thought, except that 5% now dropped down to the rest of the Eastern Plains. From there a 10% decrease in output. That means once divided, the Zuchelli citizens could be 15% hungrier. Hell everyone could be 15% hungrier. maybe 20 to 25% more, depending on how much survived the electric sled race across the ice. But meanwhile McMurdo and Scott would only be 15% hungrier, would everyone else only be 15% more jealous? Or 25% more? Wheres the conversion chart for when jealousy transitions into hatred and by what volume, when does one sublimate into the other and is one unit of jealousy boiled into two of hatred? Or does it lose potency? The numbers danced in front of her eyes vaguely, like her tablet was running out of battery. The layout invaded her mind, the maze of vines vital to survival that never let her rest. Even a hundred meters from the airlocked doors on a completely different assignment. Bokchoy over beans, cabbage after beets, the Eastbay buckwheat experiment fertilizing some of the only couple dozen kilo's of ariable soil left on Earth. The smell of flowering morsels, eagerly expecting bees or hornets or even just a housefly to come and whisk away their pollens to dashing suitors. Unknown mechanical cross pollination, her gloved hand performing the simulacra of that evolutionary dance as her eyelids closed. There was a sunroof over the department now, and it never snowed. The tiles became clovergrass, tingling between her toes. Rabbits and groundhogs and mice bounded across flowery floors, darting into bushes that lined the walls. If she could just move fast enough, maybe she could reach out and feel the fur against their rapid nervous backs. And both of them could relax.
"Clara?" The image broke at the sound. It had maybe only been a minute. An hour? Several? She was back in the comms room again, the headset ajar, sliding forward off her thick curly hair. "Hah, Clara what are you doing here?" James walked in wearing a yellowish buttoned shirt and dark slacks, all freshly laundered. Rectangle glasses perched atop a handsome nose, carefully clean shaven underneath a well kept crop of dirty blonde hair. He even had his ID laminate around his neck, despite the fact that it became useless within a day of the Gray's appearance. No one dressed so formally, even before the clouds were spotted. Every time she saw him, it brought a sense of normalcy to the world. And her heart fluttered for it.
"Ah, sorry." She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. "Covering for Nigel today, long story." Yawning, she gave the knobs another cursory scan. Nothing. "Longer night in hydroponics, too." James scrunched his eyes with a confused smile as he walked in. "I hear ya, Same in Meteorology." He pulled a wheely chair off from the side and sat across from her. "Only I've got Scar and Cody pitching in with the scut. I don't know how they expect you to do it all by yourself." His eyes were kind, aged up a few years from hers but still full of a bountiful life. "Neither do I." She sighed. "I really hope more people come to live here, James. People that know botany. I don't know how much longer I can run things by myself." He reached out and put a hand on her shoulders, she leaned into the contact. It was a trick she played, playing up her destitution. One that she hoped James' good heart hadn't picked up on yet. Or if he did, he played along with it anyway. His hand was always so reassuring. "Don't worry, I don't have a lot for you. Just need to let the Italians know theres a storm coming in." She picked up her head. "A storm?" He nodded his head. "Ya, nasty thing. Its the size of kansas, about a kilo high. Will pass right by us though." He wasn't too concerned for it. A feeling that Clara couldn't share. "But, Shriver. He's doing a haul right now." James' brow furrowed. "What? What do you mean? A- He's taking the coastline, right?" A worry was rising in his voice. "I... I don't know. He didn't say." She said sheepishly. He stood up from her. "Jesus! I just came out to tell Zuchelli! NO ONE North of Scott should be outside right now!" His tone carried everything with it. Clara sat up with a start and thumbed through the instruments as a stone grew in her heart, flipping the dials and setting them to Shriver's frequency. Her palm came down on the transmission button, grabbing the mic. "SHRIVES, COME IN. I REPEAT, DO YOU READ ME SHRIVER? DO NOT GO ANYWHERE NEAR THE ICE." She let go, waiting for a response. Grainy, two tones, as if saying "re-peat. re-peat." She palmed the button again. "GET OFF THE PLAINS, GET TO THE COAST. STORM APPROACHING. THE COAST, GET TO THE COAST." She let off again, pressing her ears to the headset. It hummed, pitched up and down sans any audible words. But from the hum of it, it sounded affirmative. Small jumps in the static that could or could not be confirmation. She kept her ear close, waiting for a legible word. But pretty soon it all turned back to a uniform tone. She could only hope that he heard her. Pausing for a minute, she jumped up and grabbed the frequency chart for Zuchelli, almost forgetting about them. Within a minute they too were alerted, much clearer. And she sat back in the chair with a sigh.
"Damnit, he cant keep doing this Clara! Its the second time now." James' tone had dropped into one of annoyance. "He doesn't check in with anybody, he keeps to the maintenance halls all day, doesn't tell anyone what he's up to." Crossing his arms, he continued. "I mean hell what if something happens to him? Its him and those mechanics, they're the only people on this base who know how to ride the ice!" Clara looked to the side, not knowing what to say. "Well what are you gonna do James? Thats just how he is." But James shook his head, unsatisfied. "Its effecting everything else, though. Hell he should be on comms right now, you should be asleep! Why's he thi-" Clara stood up. "James its because I need to talk to Fyodor! Then corale the Argentinians into saving their asses! Yelcho and Palmer are gone and Vernadsky is next!" She had no idea what came over her. James' arms dropped to his side as the last word left her mouth, stunned. Life flittered from his eyes as the words took hold. Quickly, she started to try and mend, to bring that life back. "Wait, James im sorry! I-" But it was too late. The light had been replaced with a worry, a common worn style on base. One illfitting a face so sharp and rallying. "It's fine, No I'm the one who should be sorry." He started. "You're under a lot of stress. Especially..." The news creased into his mind, folding up the gray matter into an ugly wrinkle. "I'm gonna get back to tracking the storm. Don't hesitate to ask meteorology for help, ya? You don't have to do this alone." He tried, but his face told the story. One of fear, uncertainty. "I'll um, see you around Clara." She wanted to say anything, something reassuring or human. But her mouth fell stuck open, James already tapping his feet back down the hall towards his labs. She looked down, at her stomach. At what lay underneath it. Or above it, or below it. Depending on which direction the surgeon took. She sighed, walking to the central transmitter and giving the commwaves one more scan before walking out the door. Hes probably fine, she assured herself. He always ends up fine.
"I yelled at Shriver today. Really really badly. And at James too, from the weather department. That's not like me." Clara sat up on one of the five examination chairs lined up in McMurdo's medical ward, each seperated with a generous plastic divider. Dormant machines of varying applications stood next to her, armed with an array of scanners and lights. A quiet, strangely peaceful place. Well stocked with a surplus of medicine and clean instruments, the disrepair of wayward departments seemed to leave this corner untouched. Dr. Nadine Masters half listened to her, eyes flicking through a tablet behind straight black hair. her chin had a sharp, frustrated angle to it. The holoemitters had gone bust, leaving her to swipe at the tablet screen with her fingers, like a child would. Were it not for their presences, the wing would be functionally abandoned. "Can you check to see if my levels are normal?" Dr. Masters held up a finger as she tapped the screen with a finality. "Clara Zhanovna Beleniuk, born April 19th, 2030, Northeast Union, United States?" She asked as if expecting a different answer this time. James wasn't the only one who enjoyed keeping up appearances. Only with Dr. Masters it struck as more annoying than anything else. "Thats right" She replied, for what must have been the third or fourth time. "Any drinking, smoking, illicit drug use?"
"Yes, yes, no." Dr. Masters smiled above her sharp jaw as she tapped away, closing the patient intake tab. "Your last visit was in December." She said as she opened up a nearby drawer, retrieving a blood kit. "But hormone levels? We haven't checked those at all." She said in an excited tone, like she was jumping at the opportunity all day. A pair of nitrile gloves with a snap, a syringe prepped for insertion. Without asking, she took her hand, pressing at the forearm. "Oh you have great veins." Clara didn't respond, just sat still as the prop in someone else's play. The thin metal jab sailed clean through her skin, filling the clear plastic tube with a good few spoonfuls of blood. "Here, hold this." As quickly as it started, Dr. Masters had already plugged the arm with a cotton strip, tossing the needle for meltdown and spinning around with the sample to a nearby gadget. She moved with an electricity running through her, each movement that of a machine so longfully abandoned but so eager to flip right back on like it hadn't missed a day. Clara waited patiently, the gizmo fluttering and whizzing as it spun the sample around at mach revs. Ding like an oven bell, Dr. Masters was hungry. She flicked the gloves off her hands and greedily grabbed the spindle chart rolling out of the micro printer. Clara watched as hazel fluttering eyes zipped over the letters. "Well!" She said definitively.
"Estrogen is in range, Lipid panel is good, thyroid function, CBC, BMP, all. In. Range." Her voice became lower, dissapointed as it seemed everything was typical. But then her eyes lit back up. "Your progesterone is elevated. Very elevated." And so the culprit was caught. Dr. Masters slipped on another glove and began to prod her belly, pressing in near her hips and across below her bellybutton. "You went to Mount Sinai for the surgery right?" She asked. "No, they just handled the paperwork. I got it done in Veracruz." Dr. Masters jumped a little in her seat. "Mexico? Thats almost three hours from New York!" She ceased the inspection, returning back to the tablet. "Why so far?"
"I had a friend who got it done there." Dr. Masters didn't respond, continuing instead to log the chart results into the tablet, one fingertap at a time. She snapped her neck back up at her. "The ovaries they transplanted. they're acting like you're pregnant. Are you?" Shameful thoughts about James flooded her mind. Red blushing thoughts. Oh Clara, let me make you feel like a woman, like no one else has. You've been so mistreated, shh shh now. Sweaty sheets, empty bottles of crown royal. His glasses tossed down to the dormitory floor without a care. Strong, toned back. A confident smirk above his well kept arms. "No." she said with a gulp. "No sexual activity. At all."
"Better for it." Dr. Masters spun around in her chair, tapping at a keypad. "If you HAD gotten pregnant, it would require a C-section. And the surgical outfit here is NOT loaded with that in its databanks." Clara said nothing. She continued. "Your birth canal may be bioidentical to normal females, but your skeleton is still too narrow to deliver normally." Dr. Masters told her in facts of cold reality. As far as medicine could reach from old earth, skeletal manipulation was still a hundred years away. With the calamity added on, now maybe several. If it was ever going to be a priority again, that is. "They did tell you that, right?" She tacked on. "Ofcourse." Clara said, silently coming to grips with the new information. The two sat in silence for a short while, as if Dr. Masters completely forgot she was there. Sensing her coldness, she changed the subject. "Hows the leg, Clara?"
"Oh, it still hurts." Dr. Masters nodded. "It'll be like that for a few more months I'm afraid. I'm sorry, this whole ward is 20 years behind the rest of the world. If we were back at my office in Minneapolis I could have you running marathons in a week." she hummed resignatedly. A shelf beside the keypad began to hum, emitting a soft teal glow in between panels. "Are you still angry at him?"
"Who, Shriver? No, I mean it wasn't even his fault. Not really." Her eyes floated around the ward, disinterestedly. Dr. Masters gave her an inquisitive look, before breaking and giving up. "Mmm, well its the most interesting thing to happen on the ice in years. I can tell you that."
"People dont get sick on the ice?" Clara asked. "Suprisingly no." The shelf stopped glowing, Dr. Masters opened the door and took a blank bottle from the center of it. "Not since that whole thing with Eliza, god that was a nightmare." She spun back around to her tablet, waiting for the microprinter to respond. "McMurdo's systems are state of the art. Well oiled, well resourced. Keeps anything catastrophic from happening. People aren't even getting frostbite since Shriver's lockdown order." She sighed. "Now its mostly cabin fever, or people wanting to talk about the fog." The microprinter buzzed and spit out a tricolored label, which Dr. Masters slapped onto the bottle. "But I'm no psychiatrist. I just turn them to the chatbot and hope for the best." Clara hummed in acknowledgement as Dr. Masters handed her the plastic bottle.
"Here, these should nullify your prog levels. Bring them back to normal. Follow the instructions on the label."
Prescriber: N. MASTERS
Rx#: 5235505
BELENIUK, CLARA Z.
N.E. UNION, UNITED STATES
MISOPROLAZE, 20MG
TAKE ONE CAPSULE BY MOUTH PER DAY
Qty. 30. 1 refills before 02/15/2050
"Come back in a month and we'll take another sample, see if its working." Clara stared at the bottle for a little while. Memories of the pharmacy, if it weren't for the printed black plastic it would look exactly like the tablets she would take all the time before Veracruz. Memories, problems slotted firmly in the past. For new problems to take their place. "Got it, Thanks Dr. Masters." She said, standing up and getting her jacket. "Expect nausea and vaginal bleeding!" Dr. Masters shouted as she left the department. Clara groaned. Ofcourse it wouldn't have been that easy.
Meandering, she wandered around the halls of McMurdo station with no particular purpose, avoiding her responsibilities. What was worse, Going back to the comms room, sitting there waiting for nothing? Hammering the transmission button over and over, hoping Shriver would pick up through a 20 hour storm? Or just lying in bed, hoping the gnawing anxiety over his safety would subside long enough to fall asleep. Falling asleep just to wake up tomorrow to some new wrong-going. She let the heated walkways of McMurdo guide her through a snaking path. Past meteorology, over the tunnels to vehicle maintenance, before finally landing in the dormitories, stopping in front of her room. She stared at the plain brown door. "CLARA!" written cheerfully on a pastel note. It was June of last year when she first taped it up. She stared at it a while. Stepping onto the plane in Christchurch, Scott base winterteam alongside her. Tacking it up after she threw her duffels into the dorm. She thought it strange no one else had their names on their rooms. It stood there as a reminder. The difference eight months could make. How much would change in eight more months?
И я не знаю точно, кто из нас прав
Меня ждёт на улице дождь
Их ждёт дома обед
Oh god, she sighed to herself. A melody winded down the hallway, several doors down. She closed in just to make sure the source was as she anticipated. Sure enough, Nigel's door was slightly ajar. Lyrics trickling out softly from his speakers.
Закрой за мной дверь, я ухожу
Закрой за мной дверь, я ухожу
A complete wreck, no doubt about it. No one is listening to that particular song unless they're gonna be in bed for another several hours. In that moment she regretted ever giving him her Viktor Tsoi mp3's. Something for him and Fyodor to bond over, now keeping him as far from the comms as a heart could allow. He'll be in there for atleast half the day, sulking about his loverboy on the other side of the ice. Thats right, she remembered regretably. Fyodor. Son of a bitch. She marched out and away from the dorms, the entire damn point of her taking over comms today. Lie to Fyodor, get him to trust the Argentinians to ferry him and his crew to safety. Then what? It would be another week before McMurdo could get a refueling plane across to Belgrano, along with enough food for the starving Argentinians. Plus a pilot to take their plane over to the peninsula, one that could actually land to pick up the Ukrainians. Afterall Shriver said their last pilot had succumbed to the elements months ago. She ran through it as she stepped through the fully lit halls, carpeted floor leading back into clickclacking tiles against her boots. Fyodor would need proof of any bogus weather data, she thought. Otherwise he'd just wave it off; tell her he's fine.
She closed in to the comms rooms, passing by a few other researchers. But she was too lost in her own thoughts to greet them. First Fyodor, and then what, lie to the Argentine junta too? Drop the news at the last second that they need a pickup at Vernadsky once the goods are already at Belgrano? That would be so impolite, she thought. And more over it hurt her head, trying to orchestrate something of such grand rhetorical design. At any rate, she would let Shriver handle that. He only asked her to talk to Fyodor, anyway. She finally decided: Call Fyodor, talk to him for a little bit, then go back to sleep and have Nigel call Shriver in the morning.
A notification was waiting for her on the logscreen. She could see it from the doorway, a little red exclamation point on the lefthand side. Shriver? She thought as she rushed to the terminal and clicked it through: But no, it was a text message. S.O.S. in plain letters. Autotranscribed from Morse code. No statement of origin, no time of reception. As if a ghost had come down and arranged blips in the atoms, ouija boarding its way into the comms system. Clara stared at it confused. Who's still using Morse code? It couldn't be Shriver, he has the tech to atleast leave a voice message. Zuchelli maybe? That wouldn't make sense either, she thought. They have a full comms station there, the storm would stiffle anything trying to come through anyway. Its someone who's in trouble though, clearly. Deep trouble. She flipped through a chart on the wall, lining up the letters to respond. But before she could punch them in, another line appeared.
"O. H. I. G. G. I. N. S."
O'Higgins? The Chilean base? The Argentinians evacuated them months ago. Atleast according to Shriver. As if on cue, another line appeared. She clicked it too.
"A. R. G. E. N. T. I. N. O. S." "M. E. N. T. I. R. O. S. O. S."
She stared at the transcript, focused on the last word. Her heart dropped an inch, reaching into her pocket for her phone and starting up the translator program. One letter after the other, she swiped the keys in and pressed enter. "LIARS." Plain and dull on the screen. Something heavy had been dropped in her lap. In less than a minute, she had stumbled into something that she was not at all equipped to deal with. The dread built up with every second, more notifications on the screen.
"P. O. R. F. A. V. O. R."
"S. O. S."
And then they stopped. The screen went still like it had frozen. She didn't need her phone anymore for this. The last message stayed blown up: S.O.S. They needed help, that much she could gleam. But help how? The Argentinians lied, why? How could they possibly help them all the way out there, deep into the Peninsula? That was the Argentinians job, or atleast it was. With a worried groan, she shook herself back to reality. Thumbing the dials, following the transmission codes. First for Shriver, for the only person qualified enough to bail her out of this situation entirely. Daisychain his call back into O'Higgins, selfishly let him deal with all of this so she would have nothing to do with it. So she could blow it all off and fall asleep in her own bed again. She tried her best to triangulate the signal in the last direction he was headed. Her stomach bubbled, send after send of blank static that went no where. He was out of range, and so was she; foot tapping leg restlessly shaking as she dreaded whatever her next step would be. After a few minutes of blank static and unresponded Come In's, she gave up. Sitting in the comms room, it was only her to patch up whatever was to be revealed. To run away now would be plain cruel. So she checked the codes again, and set comms course for O'Higgins. Running wide, all available channels, full power. She cleared her throat, clearing away her cowardess as best she could, building up as professional a tone as she could muster: "Citizens of O'Higgins, This is McMurdo Research Station of the United States of America. We are aware of your situation with the Argentinian Army. Make contact to confirm, I repeat McMurdo Station is aware of the situation at O'Higgins. Please respond."
Awareness, thats all she could promise. Vernadsky heard it. Belgrano hopefully didn't hear it, and hopefully whoever is left at O'Higgins had heard it too. Heard it in English, of course. She cursed herself, nerves having given to shortsightedness. Pulling out her phone, the translator program swiped back open. They would hopefully understand a machine translation, she thought. One word after the other until the alert was complete. She practiced a few times, a language she had barely any grasp of, listening to the text to speech say it back before trying it herself. She steadied to try again, when suddenly something shrill hit her headset. "The hell is that supposed to mean, huh? The hell do you know American??" English. Accusatory. Angry. Defensive. The voice stabbed into her headphones without mercy. Annoying and annoyed. She couldn't recognize it, but the source was clear: O'Higgins Station. Only this was clearly no desperate Chilean. "Who is this?" She asked confusedly.
"I'm asking the questions here, YOU answer them." Two sentences in, Clara was already growing frustrated with the voice. "You aren't Chilean, are you?" She asked. The silence made it seem like the voice was contemplating, turning a lie over in its brain to get all possible angles. With a growl, it spoke again.
"First Lieutenant Emilia Vespucci of the Argentine Infantry, 5th Battalion Icewalkers. Whats your rank, American?" It finally said. She had reason to believe it, something about its abrasiveness. "Clara Beleniuk. No rank. I run the hydroponics department." She heard a scoff on the other side of the line. "Of course." She had no idea what to make of that. "Emilia, what are you doing at O'Higgins?"
"That doesn't concern you civilian, put your leader on the line I don't have time for this."
"He's out on a mission. What. Are you doing. At O'Higgins."
"Why do you think you're entitled to know? The Chileans are our brothers, our people. And you think you can just blast the airwaves with some piddling scare tactic? When we're already so few in number, you want to split us even more is that it! I should have you-"
More codes popped up on the screen as Emilia rattled off more stonewall statements. Clara tapped away on the translator, letter by letter.
"F. L. Y."
"F.O.G."
She put two and two together. Or whatever sticks she could scavenge that the Chileans were throwing over the walls. Silently, Clara thanked whatever rat had its ears to wire. She would make her thanks known if she knew the irate lieutenant wouldn't intercept it immediately. The less she knew, the better. Clara's heart slowed, she allowed Emilia's ranting to wash off her like a raincoat as she waited for her chance. "-Now answer me: What do you know?" She finally gave it a rest. The combination of drowsiness and physical exhaustion had made for a smoothing stone to her thoughts, eyelids half open for blinders to the passing world. She took a breath, setting the gambit. "Everything, Emilia." She said flatly. "We know everything." She raised the tone of the last word, shielding it with definitiveness. There was a fine line to walk between bluffing and getting caught. Her slowness let her balance on that line, keeping it steady. Much like the line became between her and Emilia. "Bullshit, you don't know a damn thing".
"You lied to us Emilia. The Argentinians evac'd O'Higgins months ago. Thats why you're out of fuel. And yet there you are, and there they are." She scoffed again. "I don't know what you're talking about, civilian. O'Higgins is completely empty save for me and one of our last pilots, I have no idea where you're getting your intel from." Her voice was nasally, quick and hollow in its orchestration. "I'm the only one here and I'm on classified business. And we found more fuel, no thanks to you." Emilia finished, trying to tie together some kind of new reality. But Clara continued. "Belgrano has no food, Belgrano has no fuel, Belgrano has no pilots. And yet here you are, you've got enough of everything to go play in the fog." She heard a sharp inhale from the other end. She could see eyes shoot open, gone cold from whatever office the lieutenant had occupied them in. Her lips curled up, the invisible grip of her hands clenching the wire. It had gone silent. She took that as an invitation to continue.
"Are you even aware of how much jetfuel we have left? You know, we would have given you every last drop if you were telling the truth. Shriver says we need to do everything to get the Northern hemisphere to safety. But he said that assuming you weren't liars." She let the story flow out of her mouth, believing it so that Emilia would believe it too. The time for calculated well oiled statements was well past its relevance. Dancing in the caged lion's den, words flowing as arms and ankles. "You lied about your fuel, clearly you lied about your pilot. I would bet you're lying about your food as well."
"Now hold on, this is all a misunderstanding" Emilia piped in, finally. "A misunderstanding that you're taking WAY too far. Our food IS running out, Clara. You don't have the authority to throw accusations at us! We have families at Belgrano, at O'Higgins too! You clearly-"
"I need to make a call. Standby, lieutenant." She cut the line, interrupting her as a verse of desperate Wait Wait Wait's blipped off in a click. She sat back, giggling to herself a little in breathy exhales as she let the lieutenant stew. It almost didn't feel real, like she was playing computer games back in her new jersey home on summer vacation. After a few minutes, she wiped the smile off her face, getting back into character. "I assume you're still there, Lieutenant?" The line gave back a staticy ambience, her confirmation. "Shriver is still indisposed, lucky you. When he comes back I'll tell him what I know. After that, I doubt he'll even send you a single cabbage." She spoke coldly.
"Jesus whats with you people!? She finally shrieked. "Fine! Just what the hell do you want, Clara?" Spitting into the microphone, spiteful and yielding. Clara paused, preparing for one final strike.
"I want you to take the Chileans to safety, Emilia. Get them off that damn rock once and for all. And on the way back to Belgrano, you're going to stop at Vernadsky research base. You have until tomorrow to pick up the Ukrainians. We'll know if you haven't." She tried to protest, tell her that they don't have time or resources or any other vein of excuses. But Clara cut her short. "Do as I say and Shriver will still send you food, none the wiser. We'll be keeping in touch, lieutenant." Screaming erupted from the headphones, but they were already back on the desk, harmlessly bouncing into the open air. Clara didn't need confirmation, her eyes were too tired to care for it. Content, she leaned back and closed her eyes with a smile. The hard part done.
"A te pomnesh Darnitsu?" She asked Fyodor, who chuckled at her anglicized accent. It had been a few hours since making contact with the Argentine. After waking up it was a quick lunch, then back on the comms, carving a line right through to Vernadsky. "Tak, ya pokmitayu Darnitsu." He replied in Ukrainian, a pitched but slow voice. "Chomu vi pitayete?" She stalled for a moment. "Um, could you repeat that last part?" They both laughed at the awkwardness of it all. "Why didn't your father ever teach you Ukrainian ah?" He said, his tone turning in the english. She smiled slightly, she swore she had heard the same thing from one of her uncles once before. "Everyone in Queens spoke Russian Dada Fyodor, even the Ukrainians. He thought it would be more useful for me."
"Hah, and then you move to Antarctica! I wonder who feels like the bigger fool, eh?" she smiled at the irony too. "I remember your grandfather Clarachka, oh when I was just a young boy your age. He was a good man! Made us proud at the olympics, no one moved like him in the ring. Its a shame that you all had to move to America, we would have loved to have you on our side of the ice!"
"Agh, you know how it is Fyodor." Clara began, tracing on the desk absentmindedly. "How it is, for people like us." She didn't want to play him, and didn't want to lie to him. Only speak plainly, after such a delicate verbal spin from the hours before. "Its a shame." Fyodor replied, a tinge of sadness on his voice. "You'd think after Bezhura and your grandfather, we would have become better. Haitana too, hospodi I miss Haitana... All thats left of her is the CD's now."
"Who's Haitana?" She said slyly, smiling as Fyodor gasped over the mic. "Whos Haitana??? Whats next, whos jesus christ!? Goodness woman!" She giggled to herself as he explained her career in great detail. She knew exactly who Haitana was. But hearing him gush about her was far too charming to resist. "But c'mon, was it really so bad that you needed to run all the way to Antarctica? Going to America wasn't enough?"
"I could say the same thing about you, Fyodor." He paused for a moment. "Mmhmm, me and you are similar, aren't we?" She nodded, even if he couldn't see her.
"Fyodor, why do you have to fight with Nigel so much? Don't you want to keep eachother safe?" He groaned at the mention of his name. "Bah, Clara c'mon! We were having such a nice conversation! Is that why you're on the microphone? Listen: Nigel worries too much. we're fine here. Plenty of food, we're still hundreds of kilometers from the tip of the Peninsula. Nothings going to happen."
"But you saw what happened to Yelcho, what happened to Palmer." She said with a sigh. "You're worrying him sick, Fyodor, staying there." He grunted, eyes darting around the comms setup back in Vernadsky. "We're. We're fine, Clara. You tell Nigel that we're fine." Fyodor continued to dismiss her. "You know, its okay to be scared Fyodor. Theres not a soul left on Earth who isn't scared."
"I'm not scared! Whos scared of what, the Gray? It stays where it is! Whats to be scared of." An unsure breath escaped his voice. Finally, a clue. "Fyodor. You don't have to prove anything to anyone. Its not the time for that at all."
"Nigel... He says I'm the bravest man he's ever known." He finally admited. "This is foolish though, Fyodor. All you're doing is hurting him." She let the silence give him a baseline; a space to process. "Its difficult, Clara. Its difficult to leave home. If we even could, in the first place."
"I know Fyodor." She said. "Hey, what if I told you a plane from Belgrano was coming to pick you up?" He laughed in disbelief, short little chortles. "I would say you're crazy Clara! Nevermind they can't even launch a weather balloon right, how the hell do you think you'll convince them to come down here, after I've already told them to piss off?"
"Already did. I have my ways." She said smugly. Fyodor waited for the Just Kidding, or for the bluff to disintegrate. But neither happened. "You're serious, aren't you?" She hummed in confirmation. "You must be a magic woman, then." The line calmed down to a pause then, as gears turned in Fyodor's head. "Okay, fine." He finally said. "For you Clarachka, I promise: If a plane full of Argentinians comes today, or tomorrow, I will go. Me and my crew." A relief spilled over her, slinking her muscles loose into the chair. "For Nigel's sake Fyodor, not mine."
"Ah, what? You care so little about me? That hurts Clara!" They laughed together, one final shared joy between them before the eventual sign off. As she was just about to leave the comms room, it hit her like a brick. "Shriver."
A few moments later, she finally got a line out to him. He would always be okay, this she knew. And now both of them could rest easy. The Ukrainians would be off the peninsula in a matter of days, and maybe Shriver was serious about her dream garden. Finally, she cleared the codes and set the headphones on the table. Time on the clock: 9pm.
"Don't worry, you have nothing to apologize for. I'm the one who should be sorry." She thought she heard something, returning from the messhall with dinner clasped under her arm in a green reusable clamshell. Her hair was down, graphic tee hanging loosely from its original tuck. Following the source, sure enough she was correct. "Maybe we are both a little stupid, ah?" Fyodor's voice trickled in from down the hall, Nigel had already replanted himself in the comms room. It had barely even been an hour. She smiled and shook her head. Silently, she tiptoed and peaked into the room. Nigel sat spinning in the chair. Overgrown beard with a ratty ponytail, headphones unplugged sitting on the desk, holding the microphone up by his chest."
"Its just, the Argentinians are such bigots! Why do we have to go with them?" Fyodor whined. "I know baby, I know. It'll just be a few weeks, probably a month tops. Shriver says we need to get everyone we can to McMurdo." Nigel consoled his lover, caressing his cheek through the wires. "It'll be nice to finally see your handsome face with my own eyes, you know." She rapped a short knock to the door, jolting Nigel up from his easy slouch. "Hey Nige, can you ask Fyodor to keep an eye on Emilia from Belgrano?" He looked at her and gave a short thumbs up before shooing her away, returning back to his pillowtalk. "Sorry, that was Clara. Ya I heard, she had the whole system manned today huh." Content, she made her way back to the dormitories. The eternal sun continued to beat down through the windows, glaring menacingly. During the winter, it was like living in the void of space. In the summer though? A different kind of void.
Blackout curtains greeted her kindly as she opened the door to her room. Like a trained ballerina, she danced around up and around piles of disused laundry and towering biology handbooks, fishing her laptop out and opening it with a swipe. In the click of a moment, Doktor Avalanche's robotic drumlines filled the air, bringing forth Alice in her party dress. And Andrew Eldritch followed with him. She stood back for a moment, smiling. Finally, it felt like life could begin. Even if just for an hour or two. Digging into the mess of braised fish and stewed greens, she clicked around on her laptop. At this time of night, the stationwide wi-fi would have a lot less load. That means the messageboard would surely be popping unburdened. Dragging her cursor, she navigated the local network, typing in the URL and clicking on the latest reply.
/Murdogen/ - Anonymous 12/02/49(Thurs)17:22:01 No.2051▶>>2067 >>2154 >>2542 >>2868 >>3081 >>3221 >>3223 >>3256 >>3353 >>3387 >>3422 >>3695
/Murdogen/ is for any misc discussion that doesn't warrant an entire thread. Please refrain from dooming, we all know whats going on amd we don't need constant reminders.
Give extra love, advice, and support to all anons still breathing. We only have eachother now.
old: >>1267 →
>>
Anonymous 01/15/50(Sat)22:05:04 No.3781▶>>3785
>>2051 (OP)
hope thos fuckin clouds take this dot off the map, its over for me and i want u all to come with
>>
Anonymous 01/15/50(Sat)22:07:52 No.3785▶>>3791
>>3781
Stop drinking alone Cameron
>>
Anonymous 01/15/50(Sat)22:08:33 No.3791
>>3785
make me bby<3
>>
Anonymous 01/15/50(Sat)22:15:15 No.3799
>>3592
>hurr durr rebuild animation style is different therefore bad
daring today, are we?
>>
Anonymous 01/15/50(Sat)22:22:12 No.3805▶>>3806▶>>3809
the fog isnt real, dont ask me how i know
Anonymous 01/15/50(Sat)22:23:09 No.3806
>>3805
Trvke desu my uncle works at nintendo can confirm
Anonymous 01/15/50(Sat)22:25:32 No.3809
>>3805
how do you know
Laughing, then coughing down the bites. The fish was still disgusting, even after a day as long as this one. Cheekily, she rose from her chair, opening a drawer as the music continued to flow behind her. Beneath a pair of longjohns, she fished out an amberfilled flask of antidote, grinning ear to ear as she held it in her hands. "You're too young, you really shouldn't be doing that" She could already hear Shriver scold. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him, but it might hurt her.
She cringed as it went down her throat. "Crown 'Royal'" she sneered in a mocking tone to herself. Nothing royal about it, as far as she could throw it. For some forsaken reason, it was the only thing the South pole had for her. No wine, no beer, but cratefuls and cratefuls of the damnedable liquid. There must have been some deal with the Canadians, she thought. That they would unload their bilgewater into McMurdo for additional timber contracts to keep the Yukon clearcut on schedule. She closed her eyes, cringing down another gulp. It wasn't good for anyone, but it ran in her blood. Metaphorically and literally. The liquor worked its way through her veins, up to her brain. Every other bite of food was washed down with a bit of the Royal, and pretty soon she stopped tasting it at all, much to her delight. She clicked around the messageboard some more. No one knew who started it, it was sometime in November when Ollie from IT mentioned it offhand to her. It seemed like such a needlessly silly thing to allocate bandwidth to, she wondered sometimes how it even stayed up. It probably only took a few hundred megabytes of data to run. In the face of McMurdo's entire multi-terabyte system, it was a rounding error. And so it stayed up, out of general sight. Once the new replies dried up, by habit she tried to get to other websites. Down, Down, Down, Down, Unable to Connect, Down, Down. One loaded for a little too long, nearly tripping a hopechord in her heart. But that one too was Down. By another instinct, she pulled out her phone. Wifi full strength. Circle and dash, no service. She had stopped trying to call back home months ago, the call log screen a parade of red icons. She sighed, the alcohol now swelling well within her synapses as she tossed the phone over to her pillow. A few games here to pass the time, a little bit of dancing too. Until she collapsed in her bed, swimmy in the state of it all. She checked the time. 1:16am. "How the hell..." she groaned, the light of the phone shocked her as much as it could in her state. She reached down, beside the bedframe. The puny pint glass of Crown Royal had a substantial chunk missing. More than she intended to take. It was then she remembered the lump in her pocket. Lazily, hands clumsy, her eyes fell down, feeling around for the bottle Dr. Masters had given her. She read it over again. "nausea and vaginal bleeding, huh." she huffed, setting it down on the windowsill. Maybe it would just fix itself, she thought. It could just be the regular cycle of hormones, maybe the doctors did a good job afterall. Replacing one problem with another. Should she go back then? Have Dr. Masters recycle it into something useful, an antidepressant? She wondered how many people are on those, around here. Sighing, she laid back in her bed, not wanting to deal with going all the way across the station again. If she was even still awake. "I guess I should be thankful for these kinds of problems." She said outloud to no one in particular. First and Last and Always bumped out from the laptop speakers, eeking out as the last few lyrics of the last song fell into place. As did she, eyes growing heavy, listing into sleep. Afterall, hydroponics awaited her.
"And I know the world is cold, But if you hold on tight to what you find
You might not mind too much, Though even this must pass away."
"And memories may last for years
But names are just for souvenirs
Some kind of angel let me Look into your eyes"
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