AN: Okay. Before we start, I want to say right now. In language so clear so as to command your attention, that I have little to zero knowledge whatsoever as to the nature of ANWR.
True: There are no roads leading directly to the area in question. At least none that I could find. You can get close and go hiking to get the rest of the way, or more often charter a small plane. The story is set in the not too distant future, so maybe...
False: You can get from the coastline to the wilderness area complete with Visitor's Center by ATV in an hour or two. I've never been, and there is surprisingly little that I could easily find on the subject of tourism, so I don't even know if there are Visitor's Centers or Ranger stations.
ANWR is an area of millions of hectares, most of it open wilderness. You cannot cross-country that distance that fast. I wrote it that way strictly for purposes of story telling. Do not under any circumstances take this part of the story as factual; as it was surprisingly difficult to get a straight answer as to what it was like.
We now have a total of three regular reviewers who are kind enough to point out my every grammar and spelling mistake. I would like to thank the representatives of the world's Grammar police community for their loyalty in following this story, and must admit some amusement that they all seem to congregate here. Sixty stories I've written, three in progress, and you all show up here? I can't help but find that at least a little amusing; and I hope that you're enjoying the story itself.
The flight to Alaska was relatively painless, though it officially sucked Wheeler's credit cards dry, and he flatly refused to use his savings, which were now left for his brother. Transport from the Anchorage Airport to the Wilderness Refuge was no mean feat. The Wilderness Refuge was a fairly isolated location, and none of them had access to a car. Ma-Ti used his ring to get them a rental agreement, and the five of them started driving.
And then it started.
By the time the plane landed, they had run out of small talk. Alaska was a good bit colder; there was ice on the roads at higher altitudes and snow on the mountain peaks, though dry in the lower areas. Discussing the weather filled in another few minutes of conversation.
Figuring out who was driving was another matter. With five of them, a smaller car would be a tight fit, but the larger cars were gas guzzlers. It caused a moment of irony that they had to get the less efficient car simply to carry everyone. Another few minutes to figure out who would drive. In the end, they resolved to take turns. It turned out to be a good idea.
The hostility between Linka and Wheeler had thawed with her discovery that he was always going to be part of the team, but there was still some tension between some of them. So by the first hour of the car ride, they were starting to run out of topics. The silence stretched...
"I spy, with my little eye..." Wheeler stated to say.
"No. That won't be happening." Linka interrupted him.
"I agree." Came a voice from the front seat, but Wheeler wasn't sure who.
"You people have no respect for history. Bad travel games and mass amounts of junk food are staples for long car rides. As well as truck stops and throwing up. You can't argue with tradition!"
"Shut up, Wheeler."
By hour two...
"I told you we should have turned left."
"Turned left where? Was that even a road? We haven't seen a road sign in hours!"
"More like thirty minutes."
"Stop and ask for directions."
"I don't need directions; I know where we are."
"Good grief, is that really something that men do? I thought that was just on TV!"
"Who would I ask? We haven't seen another car in just as long!"
"My god, we're in the Twilight Zone!"
"Shut up, Wheeler!"
By hour three...
"I told you so!"
"Okay! Okay!"
"We probably only lost an hour."
"Thank god for service stations."
"I know! A super-size Mountain Dew for only twenty cents more! Don't get that back in Russia huh babe?"
"Shut up, Wheeler!"
By hour four...
"Are we there yet?"
"Shut UP Wheeler!" Four voices yelled.
"This is a tough audience. I gotta get out of these lounges and start playing the big rooms."
There was no road that could take them directly to the Wilderness Refuge; the closest thing was a challenging gravel road that could take them to within hiking distance. They made it as close as they could and started walking, and then the journey took a whole other tone.
By hour five...
"Are we there yet?"
"Wheeler..."
"I need to pee."
"That's what you get for super-sizing."
"But it was only twenty cents more!"
"We're there!"
"What?"
"Look. According to the map, this is the border of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge."
"No. Gotta be a mirage!"
"Fine, go back to the car. You still have that big cup right?"
"I'm coming, I'm coming!"
The road they had found had taken them close to the coastline. It was surprisingly flat and barren. The ground was hard and icy, and there was little to see. The wind had long picked up, and Kwame was shivering, arms wrapped around himself. Gi had brought cold weather gear. Wheeler had too. Linka was at home in the cold, Ma-Ti didn't seem to be aware of anything around him, though he never put a foot wrong.
"Most people around here are in favor of drilling." Gi reported the findings of her research. "A few years ago, it was going to happen, but The Corporation put the breaks on it. After the spill in the Mediterranean, they used their influence to confirm a lot of protected areas. Their way of keeping the environmental groups happy. ANWR was one of them."
"So if The Corporation was the one forcing this area to be protected, who would be drilling?"
The wind intensified off the water, as they approached the coastline, and Kwame attempted to get his teeth still long enough to talk. "Well, this is the right area. Everyone keep your eyes open."
"What are we looking for?" Wheeler asked.
"Evidence of something illegal being done, and any clues that will tell us who might be doing it." Gi said. "Assuming the missing blog was right."
"This is a really Wilderness Refuge?" Linka said in disbelief. "It looks so... barren."
"Well, the blog was right anyway." Kwame offered. He crouched at the waters edge and ran his fingers through a thick black slick that covered the coastline. "There's oil here. Lots of it. More than there should be."
"How has nobody noticed this?" Linka asked. "If this area is so controversial..."
"Linka, you gotta understand that ANWR is pretty big. Its Nineteen million acres in size. That's an area bigger than West Virginia. Of all that space, less than 2000 acres is wanted for oil drilling. And most of it is like this."
"I don't get it..." Linka said quietly. "If the area in question is so small and... bland, then why is there such a controversy about drilling here?"
"Linka, you're looking at one of the few honestly natural areas left in America. This area doesn't need to be developed. It could be decades before any usable oil was gathered, and we don't know how much there is down there anyway. The problem isn't getting more oil, the problem is we use it way too much." Wheeler listed. "You think if there was another million barrels of crude oil being shipped around the country, oil prices would come down?"
"He's right. It won't help anything to just throw more oil on the fire." Gi agreed. "And anyway, politics isn't our problem. It's illegal to drill here, and we think that somebody may have done it anyway. That's why we're here."
"We're got enough trouble trying to clean up the world with all the legal strip mining and pillaging going on. Bad enough without people doing it illegally too." Wheeler added.
"We don't know that someone is." Gi pointed out. "There could be an oil pocket, closer to the surface. An earthquake, or an underwater landslip… it could be natural."
Ma-Ti spun. "Somebody's coming."
Sure enough, there was an ATV in the distance, its headlights were on despite the hour, and it was headed their way.
"Howdy folks." The man said. He was wearing a Park Ranger uniform, and he looked more than a little surprised to see them there. Nevertheless, he was a Ranger in a National Wilderness Reserve, so he knew to be welcoming to guests.. "Welcome to ANWR."
Everyone nodded, not quite sure what to say. They weren't quite sure what they were doing, and the sudden addition of a man in uniform, standard issue gun and everything, just made it more difficult. Then Gi noticed his nameplate.
"Are you Dennis Edger?" Gi called.
The man jerked. "Um... yes?"
Gi smiled real big and came forward. "I'm Gi! It's nice to meet you finally; I've been following your blog for years."
Dennis shook her hand reflexively. "Really? I'm surprised. Nobody ever seems to comment."
"Yeah. I feel bad about that." Gi admitted. "I really like your photos."
Dennis gestured back the way he came. "Well, I have plenty of inspiration."
"Doesn't look like much." Linka said, and then looked apologetic. "No offense."
"None taken." Dennis chuckled. "But seriously, this is one of the most barren parts of the Refuge. There's a lot of wilderness out there."
"I look forward to seeing it." Kwame said. His teeth were chattering.
Dennis took that in and looked at the rest of them. Gi and Wheeler were dressed appropriately for the weather. Linka was in short sleeves, and didn't seem to notice the cold. Ma-Ti was in vest and shorts, and didn't seem to be aware of the cold either. Kwame was shivering.
Dennis looked Kwame over with his vest and cargo trousers. He went back to his ATV and pulled out a parka, tossing it to Kwame. "You should be careful about the weather this time of year."
Kwame put it on gratefully. "Thank you. A week ago, I was about as far from Alaska as you can get."
Dennis looked further. No camping gear. A couple of backpacks… no heavy cold gear, no sleeping bags, no tents… "You guys get dropped off from Fort Yukon? Because if you got separated from a tour group, I can help you get in touch with them. That said, I didn't get any notification about any official Tour Groups coming through here..."
Kwame shook his head. "No. We're here on our own... We walked."
"From the highway?" Dennis blurted. "That's quite a hike! Must have taken you days!" He narrowed his eyes. "And dressed like that… there's no way you would have survived the trip."
Everyone just looked at him. Ma-Ti started laughing softly.
"Days?" Kwame repeated. They had been walking for an hour or two at most.
"Impossible!" Wheeler hissed.
"Gaia." Linka whispered back.
The Planeteers were silent a moment, wondering if they had been helped along, wondering if it was even possible...
Ma-Ti fished out his camera, started photographing the oil slick.
Dennis watched that shrewdly. "Who do you guys work for?"
Wheeler looked ready to toss out a smug remark, and Linka elbowed him.
"Why do you ask?" Kwame answered.
"Well, the area's a National Refuge here; most of it's been designated wilderness. There are rules about commercial activity. Hunter, fishers, filmmakers, profession photographers. It requires permits."
"We do not work for any business or corporation. We are… independent."
Dennis took that at face value and relaxed. "Fair enough. What brings you here? Most hikers or campers go looking for the more… spectacular parts of the Refuge."
Beat. Everyone looked at each other. They had never exactly planned a cover story…
"Okay." Gi said finally. "We're looking for you."
"For me?" Dennis seemed truly stunned.
Kwame saw where Gi was heading with this, and took up the thread of the conversation. "Gi noticed that your blog mentioned oil on the coastline. With all the talk about drilling in ANWR, we thought it might be worth checking out."
"And… where were you when you decided this?"
"New York." Wheeler told him.
Dennis just stared at them. "And so… you five young people decided to… what? Catch a flight north and see if there was anybody breaking the law in Alaska today?"
"Well…" Wheeler said. "When you put it that way, it sounds kinda stupid. But anything can sound stupid if you say it out loud."
"Listen. Off the record if you want… who are you guys?" Dennis repeated.
"I'm Kwame. That's Wheeler, Ma-Ti and Linka. Gi you've met."
"Pleased to meet you all. Listen. There's no sign of any illegal activity here."
"Then why are you still patrolling this area?" Ma-Ti asked. "You just happen to be in this one spot, far away from anything, far away from what interests the regular visitors? What are you looking for if you're convinced there's nothing to find?"
Dennis stared at Ma-Ti, somewhat unsettled by the boy's perception. Finally, he sighed. "Look, I called the authorities when I saw the oil on the coast. They looked into it, told me there was nothing to worry about."
"Was that before or after someone deleted your blog about it?" Wheeler shot back.
Dennis stared at him. "What? You think somebody was trying to hide this?"
"Makes sense doesn't it? They wave off your concerns, and make sure you don't spread the information about…"
"I was told that I violated some rule in the site's Terms and Conditions. I figured something must have been in one of the photos. Some countries have rules about photographs of Government or military equipment. I didn't think it was that important though..."
"Someone must have registered a complaint for it to be noticed." Gi thought out loud. "Can I see your computer?"
"No." Dennis said politely.
Out of his sight, Ma-Ti raised his ring. Wheeler put a hand out and pushed his arm back down. "I think we've been taking the easy way out too often."
Ma-Ti looked over at him, slightly confused.
"I know how these things work." Wheeler said gently. "You only use it when you need to, and then you need to a little more."
It was the second time Wheeler had used terms or phrases based around to addiction to describe Ma-Ti's powers, and the boy conceded.
Kwame overheard much of this, and stepped up as Gi was still trying to get Dennis to give in.
"I like a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, and I don't mean to offend you miss, but I met you about two minutes ago." Dennis was saying. "I don't let strangers get access to my work computers, and I haven't seen a warrant or a badge..."
"How about something better than that?" Kwame offered. "We were just going to take a closer look at the coast, see if there's any more oily residue there. Would you come with us?"
Dennis seemed a little confused at the offer, but nodded, intrigued.
They went down to the coastline, and Kwame started to explain. "We think that somebody may have been drilling."
"Impossible. It's illegal." Dennis protested.
"So if someone was drilling, they'd probably do it without telling anyone." Kwame pointed out.
"Listen to me, all the oil is either back that way, or under the water." Dennis was waving his hand at the two most distant locations they could see. "For anyone to get to it, you'd need a drill, storage tanks, huge equipment... It's impossible to set that up without people noticing."
"What would there be left behind?" Linka asked. "How would we know?"
"I'm telling you, it's impossible!"
It was amazing, the Planeteers would later reflect, how quickly they dismissed someone who did not understand their powers, or was not part of the group... Dennis was having a whole other conversation to the one that they were having.
Wheeler gestured. "If they drilled the land based oil... we'd be able to see traces."
"Underwater then." Kwame said. "I could probably bring the sea bed up, but I don't know what that would do to any evidence..."
"What do you mean 'bring the sea bed up'?" Dennis repeated.
"Up to me then." Gi didn't hesitate. She walked straight down to the water.
Dennis was flummoxed. "What is she doing? Gi? What are you doing?"
"Water!"
And the waters receded.
Dennis sat down, very suddenly, as the coastline suddenly lurched, and the clear, cold water suddenly jumped upright, pulling away from Gi as she calmly walked down into the mud, the water pulling back like a wave about to crash, but kept still by invisible forces that could keep back the ocean.
The ocean floor dipped down very suddenly, and Gi picked her steps through, very carefully, over rock and debris, with two walls of water on either side of her. She vanished from the sight of those on shore very quickly.
Kwame leaned over to Wheeler. "It's probably dark down there..."
Wheeler was silent for a moment, and then went down between the walls of water after her. He held up his hand. "Fire."
A small ball of flame appeared over the red and yellow jewel in his ring, casting a bright and cheery light in their underwater path.
Gi looked back and nodded to Wheeler, grateful for the 'torch'. Wheeler on the other hand, couldn't stop turning his head left and right. "Well, never done this before." He said quickly. "I mean, I'm usually up a lot higher, up where there's lots of open space. You know, skyscrapers? I actually go one further, skyscrapers without walls. That's dangerous, right? So this is like that. I mean hey, in the water, in the air, that's sorta the same right? You've got this under control. I mean, the water won't stop... standing up, will it?"
Gi had stopped walking through the water corridor. She looked back at Wheeler as he babbled. Wheeler saw the exact light bulb moment on her face. "Wheeler? Are you afraid of water?"
"Water? Afraid? Me?" Wheeler shrilled.
"I'll take that as a 'yes'." Gi chirped. "Wheeler, go back. I can handle it."
"It's dark this deep." Wheeler pointed out. "How deep are we? Deep enough that we'd float back up?"
Gi bent down, picked up a piece of muddy driftwood off the ocean floor and poked Wheeler's fireball with it till it dried out and lit. "Go."
Wheeler hesitated. "Um... Gi, there's a certain lack of rugged manliness about running away from one's phobia..."
"I won't tell the others you chickened out."
"I did not chicken out." Wheeler said hotly. "I took advantage of your gracious offer."
Gi seemed to shiver. "Wow, all this water, it's so heavy, there's so much ocean to hold back-"
Wheeler was already running back the way they came.
Gi smiled and headed deeper, letting the torch he lit guide the way.
It took quite a while to get there. Gi would have been annoyed by the length of the walk, but the fact was, she was enjoying it way too much. She was walking along the bottom of the ocean, and she was dry! She reached out a bit and trailed her fingers through the water. It wasn't air pressure keeping it back, her eardrums were fine. No pressure chambers, no nitrogen mix, no tanks, no masks… she was just taking a walk.
Once she got out to the right area, she walked back and forth for a bit. Closing the corridor of water walls behind her, keeping a pipe above her to keep the air flowing through. She looked up and saw blue sky above her, the open cylinder of water keeping pace with her as she walked.
And then she noticed that the water was getting a little darker, inky black. She moved toward it, parting the water as she went closer to the inky colors…
Until she found it.
There in the solid bedrock, was a sudden breach. There was debris all over the place, and a large round hole in the middle of the rock. She bent down and brought the torch closer. The sides of the hole were covered in what looked like teeth marks, and Gi could smell…
She jerked the torch back. Oil. The hole was drilled, and it led to oil! Someone had been drilling!
She looked upward, up the cylinder of water. She was fairly deep.
She was struck once again by the power she now had. The water wasn't frozen, just kept back, put in shape above her.
Licking her lips, she headed back toward the coast.
"Where is she?" Dennis asked.
"There." Ma-Ti pointed across the water. Dennis followed his finger and saw a circle of open space in the middle of the water. It was moving. There was no pipe underneath. There was no water spilling over the edge of the gap. The water simply moved to make space for it. And it was making its way back to shore.
Dennis was standing up again when Gi simply walked out of the water. It was amazing to watch. The gap in the water followed her until the water got shallow enough that she simply walked up through it, back on shore. "We were right. Somebody's been drilling out there. There's a hole in the bedrock, at least twenty feet wide." She tossed Kwame the rock she picked up. "Ugh. Got mud all over my boots. That sea bed's like quicksand in some places."
Kwame looked at it. "Bed rock. Looks like it got chewed. I don't recognize the drill pattern. It must be something new."
Linka was looking out over the water. "If they drilled out over the water and nobody saw, then they must have a ship."
"A mobile drilling platform?" Kwame thought. "That sort of thing must be regulated. There could only be so many of them, surely."
"Not that many." Gi said agreed. "After The Corporation took over the Energy Markets, most of them were decommissioned, used for other purposes… There are the Jack-Up rigs, but they aren't exactly stealthy…"
"A ship?" Linka suggested. "A large Tanker could hold enough oil…"
"There are Drillships sure, but those are exploratory drills." Gi countered. "They don't carry tanks or oil pumps… they're mainly for scientific research, geological sampling… I don't know what could do this!"
"Well then, where did this one come from?" Linka demanded.
There was a moment of silence.
Kwame turned to Gi. "You said that somebody killed the blog that talked about oil showing up here."
"Yeah."
'Then it must stand to reason, that if they're trying to kill a report that could lead to the discovery of illegal drilling, then they must know there was somebody drilling illegally." Kwame reasoned.
Gi was onto the idea in seconds and spun around to face Dennis. "Can I see your computer now?"
Dennis nodded swiftly.
From the coastline to the Ranger Station/Visitors Center was a fair distance. The ATV that Dennis had rode up on had room for only two passengers. Gi and Wheeler went back with him, and Wheeler made a return trip with a larger ATV that could carry the rest of the Planeteers.
And the journey, further inland, away from the road, showed them a whole other side of Alaska.
During the winter, it would be covered in snow, unbroken and untouched by a far away humanity. During the summer, it would have been waves of grass and leafy trees, stretching further than anyone would see…
But at this time of year, when the sun was permanently at a near sunset, the grass was pale gold and the trees were all changing colors to glorious swirls of red and orange. Thousands of trees, millions of leaves…
And above the tree, huge mountains, higher than any skyscrapers, clear windswept rock, capped with pale white snow as the higher altitude embraced the cold.
But what floored Wheeler was how big it was. The forest, the grass and most of all, the Sky. It went on forever, so big that Wheeler honestly wondered if the clouds were close enough to touch…
Linka was directly behind him as the ATV ate up the distance. They both tried not to read too much into her choice to sit behind him, arms around his waist for balance. She could see the way his head was turning, even as he drove.
So could Kwame. "Long ago, people believed that the mountains held up the sky." He shouted over the engine.
Wheeler didn't answer.
"You work on skyscrapers Wheeler. You can't tell me that the mountains are too big for you." Kwame pressed.
Wheeler gripped the handlebars tighter. "I was born and raised in Brooklyn. I haven't been away from Manhattan for more than a week in my life. The… my god the Sky is everywhere. In New York, even on the buildings… there are other towers just as big. You look up and you see walls. There's so much open space up there!"
"Alaska is big sky country." Kwame said. "Just like home. New York was amazing Wheeler, but I don't understand it."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't understand why people would make a city where you can't see the sky and you can't feel the ground."
"I feel like the clouds are going to fall on me."
Linka chuckled, and leaned in closer to talk to him privately over the sound of the engine, putting her lips near his ear. "You're talking to the Queen of the Air, Yankee. I'll protect you."
Wheeler grinned and gunned the engine. "Thanks babe."
"Ohhh. Yeah, don't ever call me that again."
"Sure. I'm really going to respect your wishes in this matter." Wheeler said politely.
Within two minutes of entering the Visitor's Center, Gi was hunched over the computer in the Ranger's office, in her element, tapping away faster than anyone could follow. Another couple of hours, and the others pulled up.
"Any luck?" Kwame asked once the rest of them came inside.
"The blog was kept on a different server, but Dennis here has a Premium account. It has plenty of settings to track who visited. For user stats and such. There's a list of IP addresses I can go through... But we might be able to narrow down the list if we can find out which IP the delete order came from."
Kwame grinned at her openly. "Who are you, where did you come from, and are there any more like you?"
Gi grinned back. "Geeks rule!"
Dennis was somewhat lost. "Listen, I can't believe that you did all this by yourselves…."
"You'd be surprised." Gi told him earnestly. "You're not nearly as anonymous online as you think."
"Actually, with email you can." Linka said. "There are servers in Finland which saves the return address in an encrypted file; and it sends the email to the recipient with an address from the re-mailer. With all the international email traffic, it makes it close to impossible to figure out who sent what to where."
There was a beat as everyone looked at Linka.
The Russian shrugged. "If you don't want it known, don't use the phone."
"Well... that's probably true, but..." Gi struggled. "I don't mean to offend Linka, but that indeed is a remarkable bit of information to have committed to memory. Where did you pick it up?"
"From a guy in my home town. Mr Yakov teaches the little kids and I help him. Not that long ago, he was considered subversive. Didn't want anyone reading his mail. That's why he lives in my town now, instead of St Petersburg. He doesn't like to talk about it."
"But he does with you?" Wheeler pressed.
"Well, he knew my pare-" Linka stopped talking suddenly, flushed right pink and looked down. There was a long silence.
Dennis broke it. "Well, tech stuff like getting an IP address you can do yourself sure, but things like parting the ocean… not quite so much. Who exactly are you? FBI? CIA? EPA maybe? Hell, MIB? Who do you guys work for?"
Ma-Ti smiled. "You wouldn't believe us if we told you."
Gi kept at the computer for a while, leaving the others largely to themselves. Ma-Ti had taken a place by the window, looking out over the nature scene. Kwame was between Gi and Dennis, keeping an eye on things and trying to deflect questions, and Linka was sitting in an adjacent office chair, seemingly bored.
Wheeler came out of the reception area with two cups of coffee and sat down next to Linka.. "You uh... haven't said much since we left New York. Not much more than 'Shut up Wheeler' and 'Don't worry, I'll protect you' anyway. Except for a little speech of truly awesome geek-itude."
Linka shrugged. "I don't usually speak unless I have something to say."
Wheeler smirked. "I have the opposite problem."
"I've noticed. Wheeler, I'm not... I'm not really a techie, I'm not a leader, or a detective, or a strategist, or a researcher... I don't really have much to offer at times like these."
"Me neither. I... act."
"Me too."
Wheeler held the other cup of coffee out to Linka. "It's instant, but it's hot."
Linka took it thankfully. "'Hot' is not really an issue for me..."
"Man, I'll say." Wheeler pounced, and Linka knuckled his shoulder.
"What I meant, was that cold does not bother me. In Russia, this is a summer day. I could sunbathe in this weather."
Wheeler just looked at her. "If you're going to keep pitching me softballs like that…"
"That is baseball reference, da?" Linka drawled dramatically, emphasizing her Russian accent quite strongly.
Wheeler chuckled.
"GOT IT!" Gi called suddenly. "That's the one! The IP Address belongs to somebody named... Argos Bleek."
"Never heard of him." Kwame said. "Dennis?"
"It's not a name I recognize." The Ranger said.
"I'm working on it..." Gi said distractedly, already into a search engine. "According to Google, he works for The Corporation... I don't see where he's supposed to be working... there's no department listed, but his title is 'Special Assistant to CEO.'"
"So he's pretty high up in the hierarchy." Kwame said. "Where do we find him?"
Gi was tapping away. "Already on it..."
"We don't have time!" Ma-Ti said suddenly. "Somebody's coming!"
Wheeler was up in an instant, at the window with him. "Where?"
"Back... away from view... beyond the tree line."
"How can you see that?" Dennis asked in wonder.
"By not using my eyes." Ma-Ti explained. "Kwame… they seem very determined. And there are many of them."
The others, including Dennis, came over to the window, getting worried...
And then they heard the helicopters. More than one. And then as they became visible, more than five.
Wheeler looked at Dennis. "Is there any chance at all that they're here to see you?"
Dennis shook his head. "No. And I'll tell you something: Those aren't government helicopters. The markings are Corporation Private Security."
Linka sucked in a breath. "Oh. Well, this is bad on many levels."
The helicopters came in close, the five of them circling the building. And then the shooting started.
It sounded nothing like it did on TV. It sounded like massive explosions going off overhead, a thousand of them in a few seconds...
CRACKACRACKACRACKA!
The bullets impacted the building and everyone hit the floor as a line of bullet holes suddenly chewed through the ceiling.
"I thought there were rules about this sort of thing!" Wheeler yelled in outrage. "Aren't they supposed to warn you first or something?"
CRACKACRACKACRACKA!
The windows shattered. Gi let out a high yelp as glass shards rained down on them.
"Remind me to lodge a protest." Linka answered Wheeler dryly.
Kwame was the first one up, peeking out the window as the next helicopter circled around. "They're forming up. One makes a firing run after another."
"Then get DOWN before the next one comes in!" Gi yelled at him.
CRACKACRACKACRACK-BOOM!
"There goes the ATV!" Dennis yelled from under the desk. "We're trapped."
"Seriously! There are RULES!" Wheeler roared. "They're supposed to tell you to surrender! Show you a badge! Tell you to throw down your weapons!"
CRACKACRACKACRACKA!
"We don't have any weapons!" Dennis shouted. "Not enough to do any good anyway!" He gestured with his handgun, woefully inadequate against a team of helicopters.
Wheeler and Linka traded a dark look. "The hell we don't."
Kwame made a fist. "EARTH!"
CRACKACRACKACRA-thudthudthud!
The bullets shredded into the roof... and then thudded into something else as they worked their way lower.
The others fearfully started to raise their heads and looked out the window, at an apparent stone wall. Kwame had summoned a wall of solid rock up from the ground, putting it between their window and the helicopter's cannons. A natural shield wall.
Linka was up next. "They should have come by boat. Gi's merciful." She reared back and kicked the broken glass shards out of the window. She leaned out as far as she could, trying to see the sky and take cover behind Kwame's wall at the same time. "WIND!"
Dennis was completely out of his depth. "Who the hell are you people?"
Wheeler grinned manically. "We're the Planeteers. Welcome to the war."
CRACKACRACKACRACKA!
The helicopters had formed a simple formation, circling around, one after the other, making one firing run after another... when the wind suddenly picked up ferociously. The pilots lost all interest in lining up for an attack run; trying madly to keep from flying into the ground, or each other...
One failed to do so, a sudden blast of wind picking the Helicopter by the nose and flipped it over, bringing it down spectacularly.
"We can't hold it! We've gotta land before we crash!" One pilot yelled.
"HOW ARE THEY DOING THIS?" Another yelled back.
"We'll take them from the surface then. I really don't know how they're doing this, but I bet they're not bulletproof."
"Want to bet my life on that?"
"Just get us on the ground!"
"That part will happen pretty definitely!"
"Tango Four, try and flank them. Blow the whole building if you have to, but don't let them see you coming!"
"Another helicopter!" Ma-Ti said. He was weirdly calm, not even raising his voice. "Coming from the back of the building."
"Wheeler! Linka!" Kwame directed.
Linka was off and running in an instant. Wheeler took half a second to nod at Kwame. "We've got your back!"
Linka and Wheeler exploded out the back door, and saw another helicopter coming in from the other side of the building. It had big guns mounted on the sides, each with a gunner.
Linka and Wheeler lifted their rings in the same moment. "WIND!" "FIRE!"
Their rings glimmered and something remarkable happened. The wind came from nothing. The flames burst spontaneously… and then the elements merged…
Linka and Wheeler both felt their jaws drop. It was more than seeing the elements together. They were feeding each other. Feeding off each other. Enhancing each other. Growing stronger, getting powerful...
The elements fed each other, fire and wind merging into something more, a column of flame wrapped into a translucent air cage, the pillar of flame fed by the wave of air that grew with it, blasting upward like a fireball, bursting upward and devouring the helicopter whole. There was nothing left to fall to the ground.
Silence as flames licked the dust gently beneath them, the wind sweeping their hair around them gently.
Linka and Wheeler just stared at each other, jaws hanging open, eyes a little wild, their eyes lit by some kind of energy that wasn't there before. Their powers had taken each other to a whole other level.
And after a while, they remembered themselves.
"Well. Fight's over the other side of the building." Linka said hoarsely. "We should... get over there."
"Behind you every step of the way, Babe." Wheeler croaked in a hollow voice.
"Eyes a little higher Yankee." Linka rasped back, neither of them having moved a step.
"The helicopters are landing!" Gi shouted from her vantage point at the window.
"They can't get us from up in the air, so they're landing." Ma-Ti said, weirdly calm.
"And forcing us to take them on, instead of driving the helicopters away." Kwame agreed. "Well then there's nothing else for it. We have to get out there!"
Kwame and Gi bolted for the door through the main entrance, when Ma-Ti rushed forward and put a hand in their way. "Wait!"
Out of sight, well beyond the tree line, a soldier in camouflage, staring down the sight of a long range sniper rifle was watching the whole thing. "I have a bead on the leader, Tango one."
"Can you get a clean shot?"
"Range… four hundred meters. But they don't know I'm here. They're heading for the front door... I have a clean shot."
"Take him."
The sniper drew a bead on Kwame at the front door and started to squeeze the trigger, when heard a growl and he spun around.
A pack of wolves had somehow crept up behind him from the forest. And they looked hungry.
He tried to bring his gun around, but far too late. The battle was over in seconds, and the pack threw back their heads and let out a long wolf howl.
Ma-Ti heard the howling and nodded quietly. "Now we can go."
Kwame, Gi and Ma-Ti burst out the front door and charged toward the helicopters. They covered as much ground as they could until they could see the soldiers jumping down, weapons drawn.
"EARTH!"
The soldiers all went rolling as the ground beneath their feet suddenly started moving. Under the helicopters too, the huge machines suddenly caught in the dirt, pulling at the landing struts like quicksand. One of them gunned its engines, trying to get up and failing, the tail being pulled down enough that the spinning rotors caught the ground. There was a sudden blast as the rotors gouged their way in, the helicopter practically disintegrating in seconds, spinning rotor blades being thrown around, tearing into anything they touched.
The attackers were suddenly terrified, unable to duck without drowning in the earth, not daring to stand as jagged metal parts flew around above them. They were at war with powers they didn't understand, and had no idea what was coming next…
"Get us up! Up! Off the ground!" Gi could hear someone yelling. The helicopters had never got the chance to stop their engines, and the others started to hover, getting a little higher, away from the ground, too high to be dragged under, too low to be caught by the fierce winds...
The nearest one swiveled. It was facing them head on. No more door-guns. The gloves were off. The Planeteers were winning this fight, and the people armed with heavy guns didn't like it. The helicopter; less then ten feet off the ground, swung around and aimed its rocket launchers.
Gi froze at the sight of the huge weapons aiming at them.
Kwame did not. "EARTH!" He screamed and threw himself at Gi.
Gi felt him hit her body in a tackle as the world suddenly seemed to slow down…. She felt the ground move. Felt herself hit the ground, Kwame on top of her...
She heard the sound of stone growing upward, heard the whistling sound of a rocket flying in...
KRA-BOOOOM!
The stone wall erupted in a blast of rocket propelled explosives, the blast less than ten feet from the two Planeteers hugging the ground behind it, huge chunks of stone and earth was raining down on them.
Stunned by the concussion, deafened by the blast, Gi and Kwame were left weaving a little, punch-drunk, blinded by the dirt...
Kwame was distantly aware of people surrounding him, he was sort of aware of yelling...
Gi groaned and sat up. "...ow."
His vision started to clear and he saw the guns pointing at him.
Wheeler and Linka had snapped out of their shock and come running around the corner of the building, and took in the situation at a glance. Kwame and Gi were locked in combat with a bunch of armed guards. The helicopters had come to a hover a bit off the ground as the dirt had turned to quicksand beneath their landing struts. The attackers had lost their footing, and so the hovering helicopters had taken the shot. Kwame had tried to block it... but they had both been knocked flat by the blast.
Linka and Wheeler took off running toward them without a word spoken between them, when a few of the soldiers who managed to avoid the 'quicksand' had managed to get in close through the smoke and haze, weapons ready and aimed at the near unconscious pair of Planeteers.
"Fire!"
A protective wall of flame had suddenly drawn itself around Gi and Kwame, a line drawn in the dirt.
The soldiers jumped back from the sudden wave of heat and spun around to aim at Wheeler and Linka.
"Again!" Wheeler yelled, adrenaline wiping out everything else.
Another burst of flame drew itself around the attackers. A round cage of fire, drawn in tightly around them. They all drew back quickly against each other, trying to get away from the fire and having nowhere to go.
"Drop it. Drop the weapons!" Wheeler yelled.
The soldiers did so, hands raised in surrender.
The sound of the helicopter blades intensified again, and the helicopters were suddenly lifting off. They could see one or two of the soldiers covered in dirt, having apparently dug their way up enough to get back to their hovering transports.
Linka raised her ring to hit them again, and Wheeler reached out, pulling her hand back down.
"It is over." Wheeler intoned quietly. "They're pulling back."
Ma-Ti was making his way through the battlefield, untouched by the destruction. He moved like a wraith, unhurried, unconcerned. He found a number of people in the wreckage, but only a few survivors. They looked up at him blearily. "The fight is over!" He told them darkly. "Surrender."
Those that were still breathing didn't have the strength to argue.
Ma-Ti saw movement and moved through the smoke, guided by his senses. The ones that had tried to reach them from the ground... the ones that Kwame had tripped up were moving. They had escaped with their lives, and were left half buried in the dirt, trying to pull themselves out like something from a zombie movie. Groaning, aching people emerging from soft and disturbed soil.
A pack of wolves were howling, much closer this time as Ma-Ti called them to his side. It was a howl that declared victory, announced to the world exactly whose territory this was, and dared anyone to try and take it from them.
Ma-Ti knew exactly how they felt.
Gi was bleeding. Without a word, they abandoned the war zone. They went back inside to the Visitor's Center, where Dennis was waiting with his handgun in one hand, and the First Aid kit in the other.
Kwame went to work on Gi's gash immediately. "Put the gun away." He told Dennis quietly. "It's done."
Long silence. A gash on Gi's arm was the worst of the damage that the Planeteers had taken. Assorted bruises and scrapes from diving for cover, aches from the sudden adrenaline…
The attackers had taken far worse damage.
Gi hissed at the antiseptic. "Ow. Is it bad?"
"It'll hurt for a while, but it's not deep. Won't even leave a scar."
Just then, the phone rang.
Everyone ignored it.
Linka was pointing back out at the battlefield. "They probably have survivors. They may need help. I know first aid. I should go-"
"No." Wheeler said instantly. "You stay here."
Linka bristled.
Wheeler didn't back down. "If they're wounded, then they're desperate, and I guarantee you that they're still armed. You aren't going out there."
"They need help." Linka turned to Dennis. "Who do you call for emergency medical help here?"
Just then, the phone in the next room rang, a moment later the room in the reception hall...
"There are survivors." Ma-Ti said plainly as he walked in. "But there's no fight left in them."
...and an instant after that both Dennis' and Gi's mobile cell phones started ringing. The room was suddenly filled with the sounds of ringing phones. It was somewhat unsettling to their already jangled nerves.
Everyone glanced at each other, weighing up what to do.
Finally, Dennis caved. "Fine. I'll answer it." he pulled his cell phone. "Hello?" Pause. He glanced around like he was expecting to see a thousand eyes staring down at him. "Kwame?" He said in a small voice. "He wants to talk to you."
Kwame hesitated only a moment before he took the phone. "Hello?"
"Kwame Deka?" The voice on the other end called. "Congratulations on surviving the audition. I was hoping we could call a cease-fire. My name is Vernan Stumm. I have a business proposition for you. Are you the sort of man willing to make a smart deal when it's offered?"
Kwame covered the receiver. "Gi. Stumm. Find him."
Gi turned back to the computer quickly.
"Having Miss Takashi search for my name won't find anything of importance. All you need to know is that I am an employee of The Corporation and I was hoping that we could have a word in private. I promise you, that our two agendas are mutually beneficial… at least for the moment."
Kwame glanced around the room. "How did you know that Gi was running a search?"
"There is little that I do not know, or cannot access." Stumm said.
Kwame noticed the security camera in the corner of the room. "Wheeler. The camera."
Wheeler lifted his ring and the security camera suddenly burst into flames, which were quickly extinguished. Dennis flinched again.
"Now was that really necessary?" Stumm demanded, though he didn't sound angry. "Kwame... may I call you Kwame?"
"No."
"Mr Deka, I have been following your group for some time. I sent some of our finest private Security to test you out, to see if you were indeed what I needed. And now that I know you are the real deal, I have... a target for you. Look, I could send in another force of Security, and they would be cut down. I could also make your life difficult. I could put your faces on every television screen, every billboard, and every wanted poster on the planet. I could burn you out. I just want a conversation. That's all. If I can't get it by arresting you, then consider it an invitation. I would even pay you, if that's what you wish."
"We don't work for you."
"Indeed. I make many deals and have many conversations with people that do not work for me. How about this? There's another wave of helicopters being sent to your location. They'll be there in about twenty minutes. You have two options. You could knock them out of the sky, kill the crews... or you could all get on board one of them while the others see to the injured; you come see me, and in return for having the meeting, every employee of your Mining Company back home will have their corporate accounts reinstated, and their pensions tripled."
Kwame was silent a moment. "I do not trust you."
Stumm actually laughed. "In my business, Mr Deka, that's hardly a problem."
Kwame was about to say something more, when the phone disconnected.
Kwame turned back to the group. "The man who sent the helicopters... he says that there is one more on the way. He says that he wants to talk to us. He says that we have a common interest, and he wants to have a conversation in private. He's guaranteed our safety for the trip."
"You believe him?" Linka asked.
"I think he means it when he says he wants to talk. I think that if he could have gotten us in a room by force he would have, but that didn't work, so he's using the phone instead."
Wheeler shook his head. "You can't possibly think that getting us in closer to whoever sent in this troop is a good idea."
"There's nothing more for us to do here Yankee." Linka pointed out. "The oil has been drilled, and whoever did it is long gone."
"Stumm has the ability to make our lives much more difficult. If anyone has a better plan, now's the time."
Silence.
"How long till they get here?" Ma-Ti asked.
"Another twenty minutes."
"Then we better hurry. We were chosen to clean things up." Ma-Ti said. "And we've made quite a mess outside."
Kwame nodded. "Yeah. We better get out there." He turned to their new 'friend'. "Dennis? You might want to stay out of sight for a while."
"Who me? I saw nothing. I heard nothing." Dennis said instantly.
The Planeteers got to work while waiting for the helicopter. They were left ruling over a scene of destruction and chaos. Mangled wreckage, still burning across the cold ground, flames and smoke rising from their shattered forms. Bodies lay motionless, being lined up; the wounded helped out of the wrecks by the able-bodied. Their weapons had been stripped from them, gathered together in a pile.
The wounded were lined up, being guarded by Ma-Ti and a pack of wolves.
Wheeler went through all the weapons, radios, equipment, explosives, flare guns, and piled them all up high, away from the injured. Kwame summoned another wall of rock from the ground, and Wheeler took cover behind it as he lifted his ring and all the weapons suddenly burst into flame, the gunfire magazines and explosives catching alight perfectly, being erased from the world.
The first aid kits had been collected and put to use, the Five of them going back and forth, helping them take care of each other where they could, Ma-Ti keeping an eye on those still angry and hostile, and offering comfort and peace through his power as best he could with the rest.
Wheeler and Gi put the flames out, and Linka summoned a strong breeze to scatter the smoke.
They were showing off a little, making sure that the helicopter sent to attack them could see what they could do, discouraging any further violence, and demonstrating the positive aspects of what they could do.
There was no clear place to land, but as the wounded were lined up and the dead collected, Kwame checked again to make sure the wrecks were all clear of people or bodies, and raised his ring. The ground moved, cracked open. The ground was suddenly home to a small, narrow but unthinkably deep chasm that yawned open, swallowed the helicopters, remains of the burned weapons, and general debris whole, and then closed back up. The ground kept quivering until it had turned flat and smooth again, clear of all wreckage.
The Refuge was clear of all wreckage, there were rows of bodies laid out, and nothing to indicate what had hurt them, or where they came from in the first place.
It was at about that time, when the helicopters came. They apparently had their orders made clear. They landed without incident and went right to work collecting their people... including the dead.
The five young people could feel eyes staring at them as they climbed aboard the nearest helicopter. They could feel the disbelief at five near youths, who had no fatalities among them.
The Planeteers said nothing to them. There was nothing to say.
AN: Linka was the most uncompromising one, Wheeler was the one who shot first and asked questions later. It just seemed right that they would be the enforcers. Something I was trying to demonstrate in this chapter was that their elemental powers grow on each other. You merge two Rings, and the power intensifies. It doesn't take an expert in the show to realize what that would be leading up to.
This is the first time that we go deliberately into action scenes. And yes, there was a body count. I figure if you've got powerful people who don't mind breaking the law, up against a bunch of people who can command things like the ground, the weather, wild animals and fire, there's going to be some damage inflicted. It's a fact. Maybe the Planeteers aren't the X-Men, but this idea of saving the planet is the very definition of a high stakes fight. Don't worry. I promise, I'm not going dark. There's a line between serious and horror. I won't cross it.
Another thing I want to promise you is that I'm trying my hardest to keep politics out of this. It's a fact of the world, so it rates a mention, same as religion. ANWR is a controversial environmental topic, so it's relevant to the story. That is all. Keep that in mind before you flame me for view expressed.
Also, back in the first chapter someone… well, most everyone asked. So, for the record, yes, the villains in this story are based, at least in part, on the bad guys out of the show. I altered the names a bit to make them a little less obvious, and like all characters, will be somewhat non-canon.
If you're picturing them, then for the record:
Bligh = Blight. Brilliant, disdainful, chip on her shoulder. Picture her like the cartoon, but as a soldier more than a mad scientist.
Skumm = Stumm. The same as in the show, only with a face and not a rat-snout. Weasel type. Likes to go unnoticed and talk about you behind your back.
Greedly = Devorux. The one who wants to suck everything dry for his profit. Picture him as handsome this time around. Anyone that greedy is vain and can afford a nice suit and a plastic surgeon. If you can't figure out the name: Devorux = Devour.
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