The Anomaly(21)
Kristy would have just known.
I got out my phone, but of course there was no signal. And just as well: Texting in the dead of night would have been a very bad idea. I remembered that I’d cached a blog post of hers back in the hotel, though, and decided I might as well be a dork and read it.
It was good, direct, concise. Kristy had evidently landed in the far reaches of Alaska with a team of hard-core cryogeologists to investigate the impact of global warming on permafrost by measuring the temperature at various levels of the surface, including deep in some developing fissures. Kirsty is well-known for environmental stuff, being able to spin it in such a way that it doesn’t antagonize nonbelievers. By the conclusion of her piece I was immeasurably better informed on the subject, though not on its writer: She keeps herself resolutely out of the picture (something I’m not great at doing, as you may have noticed). I was pleased for her, too. She’d been trying to get something like this together for a long time.
I was about to turn off the phone and try to get some sleep when I noticed smaller text at the bottom of the article. I turned the phone on its side to enlarge it, and read:
The expedition would like to gratefully acknowledge the support of our sponsor, who made this research possible.
Their sponsor’s logo was familiar to me. It belonged to the Palinhem Foundation.
From the files of Nolan Moore:
NEWSPAPER ROCK, UTAH (Detail)
Chapter
12
Seriously?” Feather said, around a toothbrush.
It was a little after eight and everyone was on their feet and getting their breakfast/coffee/ablution needs met quickly. We’d decided not to strike camp, on the grounds that whatever the alleged cavern did or did not hold (assuming we could get to it), we couldn’t be sure to have established the lay of the land in time to depart today. Dylan reckoned that so long as we didn’t leave anything worth stealing at the site it’d be safe, and that the chances of anybody coming down this side canyon today were around zero anyway. While valuables, camera equipment, bottles of water, and sandwiches were being loaded onto the boat, I’d found Feather sitting on a rock, brushing her teeth. When she was done I showed her the page on my phone.
“Wow,” she said. “What a super-cool coincidence.”
“You didn’t know?”
“No idea. The Foundation’s kind of big. Or broad. There’s not many staff, but lots of little departments in different cities. This is the more science-y end of things. I’ve never even met someone who’s involved.” Suddenly her face fell. “Oh, Nolan, I’m so sorry.”
“About what?”
“Being dumb. I didn’t stop to think—this might feel weird to you. Or hurtful. And here I am just being excited about it.”
“It’s fine. Just a little surprising to come upon in the middle of the night, that’s all.”
“I’ll bet! But it’s a totally different kind of expedition anyway. And kind of boring, don’t you think?”
“Climate change is boring?”
She laughed. “Of course it is. Everybody knows it’s supposed to be a thing, and they either believe in it or they don’t. Whatever they find in Alaska isn’t going to change that. But what we might find today…that would prove to the establishment—and people like our cynical friend Gemma over there—that the entire human narrative is skewed. And you will have done that, Nolan. You, and nobody else.”
She smiled brightly and hurried off to go help put stuff on the boat. I watched her go, feeling curiously as if I’d had a chance to talk to Kristy after all.
An hour later we had the raft at the foot of the canyon wall. Over half that time had been spent trying to get it lashed securely in position. Through some fluid mechanics complexity I wouldn’t pretend to comprehend, the side of the river up against the wall was seriously bumpy in parts and weirdly calm in others. Dylan, Pierre, and I eventually got front and back ends of the craft tethered to outcrops in a way that Dylan thought would hold.
“Give me your shirt,” Pierre said.
“Excuse me?”
He took off his T and held out his hand for my shirt. As always on shoots, I was wearing the billowy creamy-white number. Don’t blame me—Ken says it looks the part.
“We’re both wearing jeans,” Pierre said. “And have brown hair. I put on your shirt, Molly points the camera, and we’ve got footage that’ll make it look like you were the—”
“Christ, Pierre,” I said. “I don’t need to be the first up there. Or to look like I was.”
“You found it,” he said, hand still out. “And you’re the man.”
“Do it,” Ken said.
I took off my shirt and swapped with him, reflecting that if Pierre kept being this unannoying I might have to confront the possibility that I found him annoying merely because he was young and affable and unnecessarily handsome. “Thanks.”
He conferred with Molly over the camera, then squared up to the wall of the canyon. Timing it for when the rocking of the water brought the boat right up against the wall, he stepped out confidently—landing so his hands and feet were immediately secure, already scanning the climb ahead with the professional gaze of someone who knew what he was doing.