Surviving Antarctica (4 page)

“Why?” Steve asked. He realized with a shock that during his day job he had never
once asked that question.

Chad stopped in front of the editing room. “If the Secretary focused on us, she might make us wear the gear and follow the rules.” He smiled at Steve. “Now we make our own.”

Chad opened the door, and Steve saw the blank television screens lining the walls. He had spent many hours in this room editing the footage for
Alamo Historical Survivor
. “What are
your
rules?”

Chad grinned at him. “To have a little fun.”

“Fun?” Steve asked, surprised. Now he was certain that there was something very different about the night shift. He had liked his day-shift job, but he wouldn’t have called it fun.

Steve followed Chad through the door into what seemed to be an empty room. Then, in the corner, Steve noticed an old woman sweeping. The day shift didn’t employ aged people. This bent woman’s hands were so arthritic that they looked like claws.

“Why me?” Steve muttered. Why now? he was thinking. Why had he gotten transferred?

Chad looked into Steve’s eyes. “‘Kids aren’t stupid.’”

“You were listening?” Steve asked.

Chad shook his head. “It was in the report.”

“What report?”

“The daily report that goes to all the supervisors. When I helped you get the day-shift job, I didn’t know if you were a day-shift or a night-shift man. The daily report gave me my answer. You wouldn’t last long in the day shift saying stuff like that.”

Steve hung his head. “I’m sorry.”

Chad shrugged. “A day-shift job is far safer, but if it’ll make you feel better, I know your dad would have been a night-shift man, too.”

Safer? “What’s so different about the night shift?” Steve asked, feeling light-headed from the strangeness of their conversation.

“Well, first of all, there are not very many of us. Only nine.”

“Where are the others?”

“Loafing.”

“Loafing?”

“Some nights we sabotage. Some nights we work for Her Royal Highness the Secretary of Entertainment. And every night we loaf.”

“What do you do when you loaf?” Steve couldn’t imagine a job that included loafing.

“Play cards. Sleep. Read.”

Steve willed his voice to sound normal. “What do you do when you sabotage?”

“It depends. We can’t do much. We have to
be very careful. But for every series”—Chad paused—“one of us volunteers.”

Steve’s heart thudded. Volunteers to do what?

Chad picked up a remote and punched a button. All the televisions came alive with scenes from a clinic ward. Chad touched the controls and a camera zoomed in on a sleeping child’s face. A girl. She had a slight smile on her lips. Her open arms made her look completely defenseless. Steve wanted to hug her.

“Polly Pritchard,” Chad said.

Chad touched the zoom lens for the camera aimed on the second bed. A tough-looking African-American boy lay asleep. “Robert Johnson.”

Steve had seen kids like this on the streets. Even while he was asleep, the boy’s hard life showed in his scarred face and his leanness. Steve had the feeling that if he made a sound, the boy would leap up in an instant, ready for anything.

“The kids are heavily sedated,” Chad said.

“Because of the corneal implants?”

“Of course.” Chad smiled. “Just a bit of department trivia. The implants are always placed in the contestant’s left eye.”

Chad seemed to be in such a talkative mood
that Steve decided to risk the question that had been bothering him. “Why aren’t contestants told about the implants?”

Chad turned toward the next kid’s screen. This boy was about the same age as the other two, fourteen, so he was much too old for stuffed animals, but he held his chubby arms as if a teddy bear were in his grasp. He had long brown hair and long brown eyelashes. Steve couldn’t say why, but the boy looked kind.

“Andrew Morton.” Chad identified the boy before answering Steve. “How long do you think Hot Sauce could keep the implants secret if she told the contestants?”

Steve thought about the celebrity-hungry contestants on
Alamo Historical Survivor
, and the answer to Chad’s question was obvious. “She gets away with so much.”

Chad shrugged. “If the night shift had its way, she wouldn’t.”

Maybe he
was
a night-shift man, Steve admitted to himself reluctantly. The poor kids already had enough problems. No one should be allowed to lie to them.

The next screen showed a girl whose long black hair fell over the hospital sheets. She had a broad face and yellowish skin.

“Grace Untoka.”

Steve guessed that she was a Native American.

Chad turned toward the remaining camera. “Last is Billy Kanalski.” Billy had brown hair like Andrew’s, but he was smaller, leaner. He tossed his arm over his head and his whole body shuddered; then he fell quiet.

“They should wake up early tomorrow,” Chad said.

Steve still couldn’t believe that when the kids woke up, although they wouldn’t know it, they’d have miniaturized camcorders in their eyes. “When do they leave for Antarctica?”

“Tomorrow night,” Chad said.

“What are we supposed to be doing?”

“Well, we call this the ‘test period.’ Since we don’t start the actual show until the kids reach the ship tomorrow night, we’re supposed to be”—Chad continued in an exaggerated voice—“‘monitoring the kids to make sure that the implants are working properly.’ Of course, since the kids are lying in clinic beds with their eyes closed, this is an absolutely stupid assignment. When they wake up, we can quickly tell if the implants are working. After that, we monitor them loosely until they arrive at the ship.” He shrugged.

“So what are you going to do?”

Chad nodded as if he understood that Steve was asking a bigger question than what he was going to do tomorrow or the next day. “We don’t know yet,” he said seriously. “I want to introduce you to our crew.” He gestured toward the corner. “This is Pearl. She’s our mascot.”

Pearl didn’t look up from the floor. Steve couldn’t see her face; he saw only her hair, which looked like a dirty mop.

“Hello, Pearl,” Steve said.

Chad stamped on a floor tile in the center of the room. The large square popped up.

Steve stared down into the hole. He couldn’t see anything, but he heard laughter.

“The rest of the night shift,” Chad said. “Go ahead.”

Steve walked down the narrow metal steps. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he was able to make out a tiny room. The walls and ceilings were covered in old rusted pipes. Piles of pipes lay on the ground.

Five or six men sat in a circle lit only by a flashlight. They were playing cards.

A radio blared out a Fair Society commercial. “Each person gets a Toss. Some win. Some lose. But everybody gets a chance.”

The government-owned stations played Fair Society commercials fifty times a day. Steve had
heard its messages thousands of times.

“Cut that trash off,” one of the men shouted.

Chad turned the radio off before identifying Steve. “Our new crew member.”

“Do you play gin?” one man asked. His face was striped with shadows.

Steve shook his head.

“How about bridge?” another called out from a dark corner.

“No,” Steve said.

“Then why did you take him on?” The third man had a big grin on his face.

“He’s the son of a dear friend,” Chad said.

The man nearest to Steve nudged him. “Don’t worry, Steve. We’ll teach you how to play cards in no time.”

As the men played their hands, the cards flashed in the semidarkness.

“Thanks,” Steve mumbled.

STEVE LAY ON
the ragged mat in his hut.The light streamed through the chinks in the walls. It felt strange to be home during the daytime, but now that he was on the night shift, he wasn’t due at work until six
P.M.

A few weeks ago if Steve had been home during the day in the middle of the week, he would have gone bowling on the abandoned freeway or waited for his turn on a free computer at the local computary so that he could read comics. But today, for the sake of these kid contestants, Steve had stayed home to watch
Historical Survivor
. He turned up the volume.
ANTARCTIC HISTORICAL SURVIVOR
flashed onto the screen.

“Right now we want to introduce the contestants for our upcoming series.” With her perfect red suit and matching lipstick, Hot Sauce seemed to glow with satisfaction.

“First, Polly Pritchard,” the Secretary said.

The kids all had on blue jeans, white T-shirts that read
ANTARCTIC HISTORICAL SURVIVOR,
and flashy new tennis shoes from the Nike endangered-fish series.

Polly smiled and waved. The Secretary introduced the remaining kids one by one.

Billy stared straight at the camera, as if to say, “I deserve to be here.”

Andrew squirmed in the small chair.

Robert gave a thumbs-up sign.

Grace scowled.

“Now, Polly,” the Secretary continued, “each of you has been selected because you have a special gift. Can you guess what yours is?” Hot Sauce crossed her long legs.

Steve knew that she had a microphone set to pick up the crackle of her nylons. Only the richest women could afford nylons.

“I don’t have to guess,” Polly said simply, staring straight at the camera. “I have a photographic memory.”

“What exactly does that mean?” the Secretary asked.

“It’s hard to describe.” Polly fidgeted. “It’s like I have books in my head.”

“You look too small to have a library in your head.” The Secretary tittered at her own weak joke. Prompted by laugh cards, the audience laughed, too. “But I’ll take your word for it.”

“And you, Andrew?” She turned to the pudgy boy on the end. “What is your special gift?”

The boy turned three shades of red. “I’m alive,” he said.

Steve felt he had something in common with this awkward kid.

Except for Polly, the other children grinned.

“All of us are alive,” Hot Sauce said irritably. “I mean a special gift that you alone in this room may have.” She spread her arms. “That you alone in the country …” Before becoming the youngest Secretary that the DOE had ever had, the Secretary had been a popular talk show host on another show that Steve hadn’t much liked.

Andrew’s face grew even redder. “You may have the wrong guy,” he said finally.

“No, I am telling you that you scored remarkably on one portion of our test. The scientists couldn’t even believe it. Do you have any
idea what I am talking about?”

Andrew shook his head. He looked so incredulous that Steve wanted to laugh.

“You will.” Hot Sauce smiled at the audience. She turned to a small, quiet, dark-headed boy on the end. “What part of the testing did you like best, Billy?”

“The computer games,” Billy said. His fingers twitched as if he were sitting in front of the controls for one.

Hot Sauce looked into the camera. “Our contestants faced real-life survival situations on a computer. Their answers were analyzed by hundreds of scientists. In addition, they climbed rock walls, used navigational instruments, and spent some time in a freezer and a day at a farm. We have a very special group here before you. Grace, why do you think you were chosen?”

Grace stiffened and tossed her straight black hair. “I’m not sure that I want to talk about it.”

The Secretary frowned. “What do you mean? I’ve asked you a question. You’re supposed to answer. I’m an important figure in your government.”

“On the reservation, they call my people dirty. I’m an Iñupiat Eskimo. We are a people of ice and snow. I guess that’s why I was chosen,” the black-haired girl said.

Steve felt sorry for Grace. He knew how cruel kids could be. After his parents died, his old friends shunned him. It was as if they couldn’t bear to be around so much sadness.

“Perhaps.” The Secretary smiled in a way that made Steve doubt whether any of the kids had guessed his or her true gift. She turned to the strongest-looking kid, the only African American. “Now, Robert, why don’t you tell the audience about your very thorough checkup?”

“We’ve been examined by lots of doctors,” Robert said.

You’ve been operated on, too, Steve thought grimly.

“And they’ve all given you a clean bill of health?” the Secretary asked Robert.

“Yeah. I’m fit for anything.” Robert grinned. He was the only kid who seemed happy to be entered in the contest.

“Where are you from?” the Secretary asked.

“Houston, Texas,” Robert said. Steve thought he detected in Robert’s voice a slight twang.

“So you don’t know much about snow and ice.” The Secretary winked.

“No, ma’am.” Robert grinned. “But once, when Houston flooded, my family lived on water moccasins for months. I caught driftwood as it floated by and pieced together a raft.
We all sailed away on it. I’m ready.”

Steve would bet on this kid’s survival instincts.

“I’m sure you are,” the Secretary said. “I think the only player with serious snow-and-ice experience is Billy.” She turned to the slight, quiet boy at the end of the row.

Billy smiled uncomfortably. “That’s right. I don’t have to guess why I was chosen.”

Polly raised her hand.

The Secretary frowned but nodded.

“I have a question,” Polly said. “How can kids make it to the Pole if grown men couldn’t?”

Smart girl, Steve thought. Like me, she ought to be able to afford an education.

“Glad you asked that question,” the Secretary said in a sugary voice. “We’ll go over this more thoroughly later, but we are going to give you a number of breaks.

“In Scott’s day, the continent of Antactica was partly surrounded by ice. Much of the ice has melted, but since scientists haven’t been there since the Big Bust, no one knows exactly how far inland the Pole is.”

Like every other kid in America, Steve had learned from teleschool that after the government went broke, it canceled all scientific research.

“To simplify,” the Secretary continued, “we set our pole one hundred fifty miles from your landing point. Scott’s team had to hike more than seven hundred fifty miles.”