SSSD - Check the shack

“Check it out,” Alison calls over the howling wind, making a wide, unmissable gesture.

Signe nods and changes course, plunging toward the shack. The rusty door creaks loud enough to be heard over the weather as Signe pushes it open, turning on her flashlight. Alison joins her.

Several windows are broken, so there’s already snow inside the shack. And footprints. Alison shines her lights around, taking in the furniture. Someone lived here at some point, although that must’ve been a long time ago. This place was wired for electricity, but it looks like no running water. The electricity isn’t working, either. It’s obvious that it hasn’t been used in a long time, just like Renee said. But what about the footprints?

Alison crouches for a closer look. The only thing she can think of is someone getting caught in some weather and taking shelter here instead of risking the trek back to the Outpost. The snowfall is thick enough now that the dig lights aren’t visible from this spot. Taking shelter in a place like this could be prudent. And if they stick around much longer, that’s what Alison and Signe will have to do.

“She’s not here,” Alison says, getting to her feet.

Signe’s in the far corner, kneeling. Alison makes her way over to find the Norwegian examining a pile of torn cloth. Puzzled, Alison gets down to have a look. It’s clothing, or it was. Did someone tear it into strips to use it somehow? No, that doesn’t seem right.

Signe’s gloved hand emerges from the pile with an object, which is broken almost beyond recognition. Almost. Signe appears baffled, and there’s no blaming her for that. It’s not the sort of thing one would recognize if they hadn’t seen it before.

Alison just doesn’t understand.

“That’s a pacemaker,” she says.

“What?”

Alison hesitates, trying to think of the right words to use so that Signe will understand.

“A medical device. It goes inside your body,” she says, tapping her chest.

Signe doesn’t appear to like that, but it’s hard to tell what she’s thinking. The cold and strangeness of this place has thrown Alison’s instincts off. Weird Americans. Normal Norwegians. Her ability to read people is struggling. Everyone seems strange now.

Although not half as strange as finding a broken pacemaker in a place like this.

“Hey,” she says to Signe, giving the other woman’s arm a tug. “We have to keep moving.”

Signe seems to wake up. She nods and stands, helping Alison up. The pacemaker disappears into a pocket of Signe’s parka. At the door, Signe pauses and faces Alison, placing her massive hands on Alison’s shoulders. Her look is intense, and kind of hot, although Alison isn’t naïve enough to think that this is them having that kind of moment.

“What is it?” she asks, still having to raise her voice over the rattles and groans of the decrepit shack.

“You are doing well,” Signe replies.

Alison laughs. “Thanks, I guess.”

They head out, and it’s bad. Signe has the compass and seems confident, but they’re fighting the wind and visibility is low enough that Alison’s anxiety rises. She adjusts her goggles and toils after Signe, who is now deliberately dragging her feet to help forge a partial path for Alison. It’s probably also something that they can use to find their way back. Or maybe not; it’s filling in fast.

Alison has no idea where anything is. Her sense of direction is gone. The world is white under a gray sky. Snowflakes the size of coins stick to her goggles.

There are snowflakes like this in Alison’s childhood fantasies. In fact, it was realizing that there was another girl in one of those fantasies that helped her realize some things about herself. But in her fantasies, she’s not in a blizzard. The blizzard is outside and she’s inside with a fire in a fireplace, and she and a pretty girl are on a loveseat, snuggling in flannel jammies with a box of chocolates.

She sighs, and the moisture freezes in her scarf as she drags herself over another small hill. Their next stop is the weather monitoring rig, provided it hasn’t blown away in all this. Whatever it is, it must be pretty robust if it’s meant to be left out there. Whatever it is, Outpost 69 has nothing like it. The Americans are doing their own thing out here. But if this is a meteorological study, why were they talking about a dig site?

Signe stops. Alison arduously moves to get alongside her, but it’s not the weather rig up ahead.

A figure emerges from the storm, although it’s still hazy. It’s fully dressed in cold weather gear, and the face is hidden by goggles and a fur-lined hood. A second passes. Signe raises a gloved hand in greeting.

“Margot?” Alison calls out.

The figure nods and moves closer.

“We’re from Outpost 69,” Alison shouts.

“We have to get out of the storm.” Margot’s voice is muffled and faint. She points.

The way she’s pointing… isn’t the way that they were going. There are no lights in sight. Margot knows this area, of course. She’s part of the American team.

Margot beckons and begins to move, all but wading through the snow.

Signe is hesitating.

Follow Margot?

Or stick to the route?