/> “It means I’ll have just enough money to keep you in the lifestyle to which you’ve become accustomed.”
“Oh, you mean cup noodles and thrift stores? So glad that MIT education didn’t go to waste.”
“MIT was two degrees ago,” he says with false haughtiness. “Duke, my darling. Duke.”
“Well excuse me, Mister Microbiologist.”
“I promise it’s not as fun as it sounds.”
“It actually doesn’t sound fun at all.”
“Seriously? How many men could recite the periodic table to you while making love?”
“Not enough.”
The door opens behind me and Mena points over her shoulder. “Team meeting in two minutes.”
I nod and return my attention back to Wallace and Vivienne. “Hey, Wall, tell Viv we’ll talk later. I have to get into this meeting.”
“Okay. Just save me a corner of your heart, okay?”
I laugh, but the heart in question flinches. After only a week with Maxim, I’m not sure there’s anything left.
25
Maxim
“It’s cold as a witch’s tit.”
The observation comes from Peggy Newcombe, the Kansas congresswoman who’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met in that highly practical way that makes you realize what utter bullshit most people spout. She’s a get-things-done kind of person, and I’m glad she’s with us.
“And apparently this is just the start,” I say. From our base’s rooftop, I take in the tarrying sun, its multi-colored brilliance washing the sky in shades of twilight. “Winter’s here to stay for a while.”
“Yup.” She squints into the radiant horizon. “This may be our last sunset for the next four months. Now the fun really begins.”
The space between sunrise and sunset has shortened more every day during the three months since we’ve arrived. Now there’s barely light at all. We’ll live in darkness for the rest of the winter until around September, and have very few outlets beyond the walls of the base where we’re conducting research. Our winter work focuses on greenhouse gases like CO2 and methane, measuring these particles in the atmosphere. We also study the fossilized particles found in ice cores.
Winter will be setting in, and the long Antarctic night is coming. There will be times when it’s so cold, breathing outside for any amount of time would make the lungs hemorrhage. We’re relatively safe as long as nothing goes wrong. That sounds self-evident, but we’re on our own until summer. No one can get to us, and we can’t get out. We have a doctor in our group, but his medical reach is relatively limited. We are past the PSR—point of safe return.
Grim walks up to join us, wrapped in the extreme cold-weather wear uniform we all sport. He has one of those faces that never tells you anything until he’s royally pissed over something stupid you’ve done. His face is like the rest of him—stern and austere. He doesn’t say much, but there’s no one I’d rather have at my back if things ever go to hell.
“Men shut their doors against a setting sun,” he mutters, gazing unflinchingly at the last rays illuminating the sky.
“Shakespeare?” Peggy asks, brows lifting. “You’re a hard man to figure out, Grim.”
“Don’t try,” I advise her. “It’s like banging your hand against a brick wall.”
Grim grunts and takes the lid off the thermos he’s holding. He flings his arm out, tossing water over the side. The liquid literally crystallizes in the frigid air, turning to ice and falling to the ground in frozen spikes.
“This is the most amazing place on Earth,” Grim says, the closest thing to wonder I’ve ever seen on his face as he watches the sun’s swan dance. “Like living on another planet.”
He’s right. The perfectly flat, lifeless plateau appears so starkly white you forget color. The quiet rests in a well so deep you don’t remember sound. And the loneliness some days grows so thick, it’s impenetrable and you forget how it feels to be touched.
Those are the times I think of Lennix most. Of how she’s moving on with her life. It’s May. She’s graduated and is probably on the campaign trail for Mr. Nighthorse. She’s a launched missile now, deployed and doing what she was created to do. Maybe she’s met someone. Kissed someone else since me. Slept in someone else’s bed. I cage a growl behind the bars of my teeth. The thought of someone else touching, having Nix . . .
“Doctor Larnyard was looking for you, Kingsman,” Grim says, slanting me a wry look. “Man doesn’t take two steps without consulting you.”
I nod and start toward the stairs that will take me back inside. I allow myself one last glimpse at the final sunset.