"Henry," Dad Reginald stated as they stood in the Bridge. A few weeks had passed since Henry had met him there with the diamond and an epic story. "I need you to do one last mission, more of a diplomacy if you will. We have not contacted some of our partners in Alaska in person for some time, but we need to do so. We decided that you would do well there. It isn't a very delicate mission. We just need you to talk to them, catch up, see how they are doing, make sure they still think our partnership is a priority, the works."
Henry nodded. "Okay. Am I with someone or is this a solo?"
"Technically, it is a solo mission," Dad Reginald admitted. "However, you will be approaching the site with some Toppats from the sea division. You will hire a driver to get to your destination, and then come back. Normally, this would be a mission we could complete ourselves, but we normally stay near the equator, while the sea division tends to stay near the poles. Besides, this will be a good opportunity to meet people from our fellow divisions."
"Okay. So, where's the brief and when do I leave?"
"Over here and tomorrow." Dad Reginald took a file he had been holding in his jacket and held it out to Henry, who barely stifled a laugh.
"Thank you, Dad. I'll see you guys later! Soon!"
So, how soon was "soon?" Henry had gone directly from the airship to a ship in the middle of the ocean. The air was already chilly, but unfortunately, he couldn't stay inside long before he was summoned to a boat. The man driving the small boat was named Barry Bruh; a shorter man with a tall, dusty jungle green top hat. They didn't actually talk very much on the ride with Barry being the quiet type and Henry unable to control his growing anxiety at the weird silence between them. But this didn't last long before they were on a port and some driver named "Mr. Červeny-Ryba" was taking him further inland. It was an odd name, sure, but Alaska was pretty close to Canada and Russia, so names might reflect that?
Well, he didn't think on it much longer before he was in a small, cozy building, meeting with a man and woman who greeted him, offered a cup of tea, and told him that they were still partners and the in-person meeting was unnecessary but thank you for dropping by!
Henry sat at the bar, reveling in the warmth that chased away the Alaskan chill. He downed the rest of his tea, focusing on his empty mug but quite aware of everything that was being said.
"So, how about it?" asked a lady nearby.
"Totally! I'll get a babysitter…" replied a man. Henry stopped paying attention to them.
"Dad is literally always late," said a teenage boy.
"He probably lost his keys. Again," agreed his sister.
Then, as Henry was starting to lose himself to his thoughts, a strange voice piqued his interest.
"You see that hat, моя любовь?" asked a woman, her voice quiet and steeped in Russian rather than English.
"Да. The others were very quick to leave. Was this one stranded?" another woman came in answer.
"Сомневаюсь. He waits for someone else. A spy? Or someone unaffiliated he has paid?"
"Второй. Hats are too proud and silly to relinquish their garb like that."
"And yet you aren't? You wear that silly scarf everywhere, моя любовь."
"It was my grandmother's. He sees us, успокойся!" the second woman hissed.
Henry waved down the bartender for another glass. The man showed no curiosity to Henry's unwillingness to purchase alcohol. Perhaps it was because Henry claimed to be a designated driver. Those two women surely heard that.
As the women were no longer speaking, Henry looked over his phone. He listened as closely as he could, but the women had changed their conversation to the meal they were going to order.
Bzzz!
Henry clicked the power button on his phone and then put it away. He hopped off his seat, tipped his hat to the two women, and left.
A dainty blue car huddled just outside, steam whisking out of the tailpipe. A man sat at the driver's side, watching Henry as he left. The desert-raised man couldn't help but flinch at the wave of cold that crashed into him as he left the warm building. The driver rolled down the passenger window. "Mr. Stickmin?"
"That's me. You?"
"Mr. Červeny-Ryba," the driver claimed.
"Thank you, sir." Henry climbed into the backseat. "Thank you for coming all the way out here."
Mr. Červeny-Ryba rolled up the window and drove. "It's no problem. I like the scenery out here. A refreshing vacation from the dull grays and browns of my home town. Look at that." He gestured to the nature beside him. A river rolled through the thin forest beside him. The embankment was incredibly steep, but the sprouting bush and humble wildlife still managed to keep their roots and footing.
"It's beautiful," Henry agreed. "I'm from the desert, so I'm not normally around so much snow. God, it's everywhere! How do you stand it?"
"I was born here," his driver claimed. "The ice and cold is my home."
The two kept up their meaningless dialogue for a while longer, Mr. Červeny-Ryba watching the road before them and Henry watching the river at their side. The current was swift, swollen by some melted snow in the "warmth" of summer. Henry looked at his driver and then the road. This… wasn't the town Henry had passed on the way here. They were supposed to be doubling back to the docks, where Henry would take a boat back to a Toppat meeting place.
"So where is this place?" Henry asked, his tone as casual as ever. "I've never seen this part of Alaska before."
"Oh, it is quite nice," said Mr. Červeny-Ryba. He pressed something on his dashboard. "I am driving in the back."
Henry attempted to open his door, but all he received was a short click in response. Henry wasn't a child; child proof locks shouldn't work on him!
Mr. Červeny-Ryba said, "Don't worry. I hear it's warm in prison. They might even le–gack!" The man's speech was interrupted as Henry, now without his seatbelt, hooked his arm around the man's throat. Henry reached out and snatched the wheel. The car jerked to the side and then they were no longer on the road. The car bumped as they hit a rock and slid across the snow and hidden ice as the two wrestled for control over the car and control over Mr. Červeny-Ryba's ability to breathe.
Finally, Henry's fingers were pried off the man's throat and he punched Henry's fingers, forcing the man to let go with a yelp. Unfortunately, as Mr. Červeny-Ryba grabbed the wheel, they both found the effort to be fruitless. The car, pointing back in the direction from which they came, rushed off the steep embankment into the river below.
Jesus Christ ice water was cold.
Henry forced his window open with his elbow and crawled out, kicking Mr. Červeny-Ryba in the head through the driver's window as he went. Now outside of the car but no longer holding onto anything, the freezing current took him and tore him down below the frosty surface.
Henry pulled his head above the water just in time to see a small team pulling Mr. Červeny-Ryba out of his car and onto "dry" land before Henry was pulled under again. The wry thought of Henry's capture being more important to them than his death entered his mind. Would they chase him to the ocean if need be, or would they let the cold and water take him first?
A root hit Henry as he struggled past it, as did a few branches and now more rocks as the water thinned into rapids. Ah, well, Henry lived a fulfilling life, he supposed. Dying at twenty-four was probably better than dying at eighteen, when Mrs. Bloodworth thought he would.
Henry's head hit a stone and… his struggles ceased.
Henry's hazy senses registered, well, warmth. Warmth and silence and the feeling of something soft under his previously numb extremities came to his foggy attention. He groaned and pulled himself up so he was sitting, a hand to his head and his eyes half-open. "What the…?"
"Calm," said a woman. "You are still recovering. My husband and I found you while out fishing. You suffered a blow to the head, we believe, and definitely hypothermia."
Henry blinked and took a deep breath. The world started to clear before him. "Yeah. Yeah, I… fell. I fell into the river and just got swept away, I guess. I don't really remember much."
"That's to be expected. You'll remember soon enough, I'm sure," the woman hummed. "The doctors like to call it 'temporary amnesia' or something. How are you feeling now?"
"Heh. Better than I was a few minutes ago." Henry chuckled and then hesitated. "Wait… how long have I been out?"
"Oh, a couple of hours, at worst," the woman responded. "That is when we found you. Two hours ago. Since you would have frozen to death not too much earlier, that is what we've estimated. Do you remember how you fell in? Why?"
Henry shook his head. "No, no. Not… not really. Must have been something about a… car? Maybe? Either way, I need to be getting a port just down the coast. Or something. Where are we?"
"No, no. You should stay a little while longer," the woman denied. "You'll hurt yourself if you move too much."
Henry took a deep breath. "That… that sounds nice." He looked down at his clothes, which were brighter and thicker than he remembered them to be. "Wait, uh… where are my clothes?"
"I washed them, don't worry," she said. "My husband made some stew for lunch. What do you think?"
"That… would be great," Henry admitted. "Thank you very much."
She grinned. "Oh, that's always good to hear! I'll be back. I put your clothes over there. Funny hat you have there." With that, she was gone.
Henry looked over to the other side of the room. His suit, folded neatly with his top hat on top, sat snuggly on a dresser. Henry currently lay in a rather plain bed. Few decorations lined the walls. Perhaps he was in a guest bedroom. How nice of them.
Henry got to his feet and changed back into his nice clothes. His shoes were clean and dry, too. Well, at the very least that water took care of any mud that had been on the bottom of them. What a nice woman. He couldn't help the paranoia that stirred in him. Who would be so kind, so selfless, anyway? She could just be some nice old lady living out in the sticks and snow with her husband in their golden years. They found him, a haggard and dying mess, and decided to help him. Why would there need to be some ulterior, malicious motive?
Oh, right, because he survived for as long as he did assuming the worst until the best showed itself.
Henry made his way out of the bedroom–after making the bed, of course, because he was raised better than to be ungrateful–and found his way to the dining room-kitchen hybrid. A few hunting trophies as well as pictures of a family generations strong were the great focus of the warm-colored place. A couple of rather thick cookbooks sat on the counter next to a few basic appliances.
The man whom he assumed to be the husband greeted him, "Finally awake, I see? I'm glad to hear you're okay. A nice young man like yourself has a few more years to go before God calls him back, huh?"
Henry chuckled. "Well, thank you, Mr…?"
"Caldwell. Mr. Caldwell. Who are you?"
"I'm Harry. Thank you again for your help. Is there anything I could do to repay you?"
"Oh, no, no. It's fine. It's just common morals to help a man in need. But if you really want to, you can stay with us for lunch. It's been some time since we've had company."
Mr. and Mrs. Caldwell were… nice people. An elderly couple who lived in the same house as their parents and then their parents before them. Their own children had scattered to the four winds in search of opportunity and their own families, be them on the sea as fishers or land as drivers or even a bartender.
"Oh, you would have loved our eldest," Mrs. Caldwell hummed. "He's in the navy. A bright young man."
Henry chuckled. "Probably. My best friend is in the military. It sometimes gets difficult to get a hold of him."
"Oh, very," the old woman agreed.
Henry started to say something but stopped himself. His smile died and he looked to the window.
"…target… house… two…" Henry barely heard the words.
He got up and walked to the door, his left hand twitching as the automatic need to have a gun in his hand forced its way into his head.
"What's wrong?" This was Mrs. Caldwell.
Henry narrowed his eyes. He couldn't hear the voice any longer. "I… I'm sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Caldwell." Henry straightened himself and turned around. "It might just be the wind, but I could have sworn I heard something out there. You know, I met these ladies in a bar down the way speaking Russian. Do you hear much of that around here?" Henry sat back down at the table, not exactly raising his voice but making it well heard.
The old man shook his head. "No, we don't normally get visitors around these parts. Sometimes we'll meet a lad who can speak French, but nothing else like that."
Just then, a knock came to the door.
Mrs. Caldwell got up and answered it without a word uttered. "Oh, hello! Is… is something wrong?"
Mr. Caldwell, confused, got to his feet as well to join his wife.
Henry, quiet as could be, slipped from his place and to the window where he'd heard the voices first.
"Yes, Ma'am," replied the man, his voice bearing a heavy Russian accent. "I come for one named Henry Stickmin. We have been tracking him and think he may have been here."
"Oh, no," said Mrs. Caldwell. "We've never met a Henry Stickmin before. We did rescue this nice lad a few hours ago. He called himself Harry. Harry?"
Henry didn't answer.
It's not that he didn't want to answer, but a pair of arms had reached through the window and grabbed him by the neck, pressing a fairly sweet-smelling rag over his nose and mouth. He grabbed onto the wrist that held him and flipped himself over, taking the man's arm with him. He was able to breathe again–barely, but still able–but that sweet smell was still with him. He didn't recognize it through experience, but knowing the Wall, he could make a good guess of what it was.
Someone took him from behind and held him in place until the old sedative completed its work.