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.
fourteen
“Listen, I tell you true,”Koos boomed, his hands spread wide for emphasis. “The penguin would not leave. He stood there, flapping his wings, guarding the outhouse like it was his throne. And there I was, stuck on the bucket, trousers round my ankles, waiting for the beast to show mercy.”
Rue’s laughter rang down the corridor, bright and unrestrained. Someone else groaned, someone else howled with delight.
Elliot was supposed to be with them, cleaning dishes after dinner, but his nerves buzzed too hard for jokes. He slipped out of the kitchen with an excuse of needing the bathroom. Rue caught his eye as she left. She knew he was up to something. But that was the point. He had to find out what the hell was going on at this station.
So while half the group was in the kitchen cleaning up, and Dr. Keene and his students hunched over microscopes, examining the samples they’d managed to extract before Tyler’s spectacular fall into the crevasse, he was going to use their distraction to his advantage.
He slipped into the residential wing. The corridor stretched ahead of him, lined with those cramped quarters that barely qualified as rooms.
Starting with Dr. Keene and the grad students seemed safest. Their room was unlocked, trusting in the way of academics who’d never learned to assume the worst of people. Elliot envied that innocence even as he exploited it.
Tyler’s bunk was a disaster zone of camera equipment, notebooks filled with terrible poetry, and energy bar wrappers. The kid’s laptop sat open, password-protected but displaying a screensaver of what looked like his girlfriend back home. Nothing suspicious, just the detritus of an enthusiastic twenty-something.
Mia’s space was more organized—textbooks on glaciology, a small stuffed penguin that made him smile despite himself, and a journal filled with meticulous field notes. Her handwriting was precise, recording everything from temperature fluctuations to Tyler’s near-constant complaints about the food.
Dr. Keene’s belongings spoke of a man who lived for his work: research papers covered in margin notes, sample containers labeled with codes that meant nothing to anyone but a professional scientist.
He moved on to Irina’s room next. Unlike the students’, her door was locked. Interesting. He slipped a thin metal tool from his pocket and had the simple mechanism open in seconds. Her quarters were immaculate, almost suspiciously so. No personal photos, no trinkets, nothing that suggested a real person lived here. Just clothing precisely folded and a medical bag tucked beneath her bunk.
He rifled through it carefully, replacing everything exactly as he found it. Standard field supplies, some prescription medications with names he didn’t recognize, and a small leather case containing surgical instruments that gleamed under theharsh fluorescent light. Nothing obviously incriminating, but the clinical detachment of her space set his teeth on edge.
Camille’s quarters were next. Her door wasn’t locked, which surprised him. The tiny space had been transformed into a bizarre luxury pod, with silk scarves draped over the harsh lighting to soften it, expensive toiletries arranged on every available surface, and what appeared to be actual Egyptian cotton sheets on the narrow bunk. A half-empty bottle of bourbon sat on the small shelf, alongside a dog-eared romance novel with a shirtless man on the cover.
He picked through her belongings with methodical care. Designer clothes, a satellite phone that appeared to be non-functional in their current location, a leather-bound journal filled with what looked like financial calculations rather than personal reflections. Nothing explicitly connecting her to Praetorian, but nothing to rule it out either.
Noah’s quarters yielded more promising results. Beneath a stack of neatly folded thermal underwear, Elliot found a small black notebook filled with what appeared to be coordinates, times, and cryptic notations. He snapped photos with his phone, careful to leave everything exactly as he found it. The man’s quarters were spartan, with military-grade equipment tucked alongside geological instruments. A half-hidden case contained what looked like communication equipment that definitely wasn’t standard issue for academic field researchers.
And, interestingly, a red silk thong that almost certainly belonged to Camille Middleton, judging by the matching bra he’d seen in her quarters. So those two were sleeping together. Information to file away for later.
Koos’ room was like the man himself – boisterous even in stillness. Colorful posters from various research stations plastered the walls, technical manuals for every piece of equipment in the facility stacked in teetering piles, and animpressive collection of small carved animals – penguins, seals, whales – lined his shelf. The man had clearly spent many seasons in Antarctica, his quarters accumulated with the souvenirs of a life at the edge of the world.
But still nothing that set off alarm bells.
Elliot closed the door carefully behind him, leaving everything as he’d found it.
Moretti’s quarters were next. The hydrologist lived with monkish austerity—bed neatly made, a pair of boots and a pair of slippers lined up beneath the bunk, research notes stacked square on the desk. No clutter, no indulgence, no sign of personality.
Except for one.
On the nightstand, a single framed photograph. Moretti, younger, his arm wrapped protectively around a dark-haired woman with a luminous smile. His wife, Elliot guessed. The glass was scratched, the frame dented, as though it had traveled with him through years of deployments and expeditions.
Elliot stood over it longer than he should have. Something about the photo itched at the back of his mind. It was perfectly normal—hell, expected even—for the guy to carry a picture of his wife, but everything else in the room was so proper, it all almost felt staged. This photo was the one piece of authenticity.
But he couldn’t get hug up on it now. He was running out of time, and he still had one room left to search.
