“Facilities,” he said. “No tub, I’m afraid, but otherwise she flushes up to thirty below outside. Colder than that, we make other arrangements. But you’ll all be long gone before then.”
Wyatt gestured at a closed door across from the bathroom. “The girl’s room.” Shivering, I drifted my hand over the doorknob as I passed. I could hear her vocalizations in my mind, sounds I had committed to memory.
Wyatt paused at the door across from Jeanne’s room. “Val, this is your little piece of paradise.”
The room was the same dreary shade as the hallway, but a mural covered one wall. A trio of badly drawn palm trees sulked over what I guessed was a beach; coconuts strewn around, happy grinning fish popping between frothy waves. Perhaps some tropics-craving climate scientist felt like indulging his artistic side. Definitely not Andy’s work. Wyatt clicked on a tube light. It swayed back and forth, illuminating a twin bed with a red sleeping bag unzipped over it under a small window. A bed table with a reading lamp cozied up to the bed; next to that, a simple bureau, desk, and chair. The rest of the room was stacked floor to ceiling with boxes.
“We had to improvise a little with the girl here and all, sorry. Your room’s also the storeroom—well, one of them.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Which was Andy’s room?”
For the first time, Wyatt looked uncomfortable in his skin. “Well, I took it over, I figured—”
“I just wanted to know. I’m fine here.”
He gave me an efficient nod. “Now, Nora and Raj, I thought you could crash on the couch tonight, since it’s too late to get you settled in the Dome, okay?”
They agreed, and we all shadowed Wyatt back to the office/living room. Outside, the wind whipped the snow sideways; it stuttered rat-a-tat at the wide picture window. “So, we’re in the main building now, which we call the Shack. Jeanne does her repair work in the Shed. We heat it, but not as much as home base here. Behind the Shed is the Cube, where we store the snowcat and snowmobile, like a garage. Out in the bay is the Dome, but you knew that. Now, some ground rules.” Wyatt paused near a whiteboard scribbled over with calculations. “We’ve had a strange summer here, as you know. Barely a summer at all. Lots of storms, temps closer to fall than summer, in the teens in the daytime; ten, fifteen below at night. So, listen up. Anyone, that includes me and Jeanne, goes anywhere, you sign here on this log sheet.” He held out a clipboard chained to the wall, tapping it with a Sharpie as he spoke. “Mark the time you go out and why. You bring your walkie-talkie everywhere when you’re out there, got it? No exceptions. It’s part of your body.”
He handed each of us one of the blocky, old-fashioned things. It was heavier than I thought it was going to be, but also cheap, like a toy. I thought, So this is going to save me?
“Everybody, turn yours on.”
We all did so.
“Super simple to use. It’s your responsibility to make sure the batteries are working. I’ve just put fresh ones in. Jeanne can give you more, ask her where they are when you need them.
“I’ve rated the storms one, two, and three. Level one: up to 25 mph winds, windchill to twenty below. You go outside with my permission only. Level two: 25 to 35 mph winds, windchills to minus thirty. Raj, Nora: the Dome can’t handle that in terms of heat, so we all work and sleep here. Permission to leave granted from me on an emergency basis only, and no one goes out alone, understood? Level three storm: 35-plus mph winds, windchills minus thirty or below, no one leaves under any circumstances. You’ll find that there are ropes connecting all the buildings. Crucial for getting from place to place if you’re caught in a whiteout. Look, I know all this sounds like common sense, who would go out in a blizzard with thirty-below winds? But these are close quarters. Storms can last for days. It gets boring when we can’t do our work—for me, too, okay? So, the temptation is to push the limits and say fuck it and go out anyway, but that won’t work here.
“All right, then,” he said, glancing at each of us as though we were a set of problems it was his job to solve, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. “Let’s eat.”
* * *
FIFTEEN FEET LONG from tail to tooth-filled snarl, a massive polar bear pelt covered one wall of the kitchen. I ran my hand over it; even in death, each hair of its fur felt thick and strong, glinting with a yellowish tinge, like straw. I remembered reading that a polar bear’s fur wasn’t really white; it was actually clear and only reflected the light around it. It felt surreal to be touching the body of this beast, once so ferociously alive and so at home in all the vast reaches of the Enormity.