Beneath the Ice

Jane stepped out of the helicopter and breathed in the cold, crisp Antarctic air. Michael, who she hadn’t seen in the last five years, was already waiting for her on the landing platform.

“Things must really be bad if you called me out here,” Jane said, in place of a greeting.

“Well, you know my bad luck,” Michael laughed.

No idea what he means by that. He was always the lucky one, what with him going out and becoming one of the top geophysicists in the field, and her still stuck at that same old institute where they had met.

The Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, or INSTAAR for short, at the University of Colorado Boulder, was where they completed their doctoral programs. While Michael graduated with a dozen job offers and at least five field expeditions lined up, the best Jane got was a position as a research assistant at that very same institute, where she had been working ever since.

Jane hated to brag, but she, well, she knew she was brilliant. In fact, she had done much better during their studies, so it felt unfair that Michael succeeded and she hadn’t.

“This way,” Michael said, gesturing, and Jane walked down the stairs of the helipad. A small pathway had been excavated in the snow that led right to the entrance of their research base, where she would be staying for the next few weeks. He led the way to the door, and they stepped inside.

The base was one giant tent, containing multiple research laboratories, a small dining room, and a few bedrooms. Michael stopped in front of one of them.

“Why don’t you unpack, get ready, and meet me out here so I can walk you through the brief.”

Jane threw her bag onto the bed.

“I’m ready.”

She was eager to get started. When you’ve spent five years waiting to be invited to such an expedition, you’re not about to waste time taking clothes out of your bag.

“Okay then, come on.”

Michael ran his hand through his hair, and they continued on. They walked past the dining room where a couple of researchers were eating what looked like chicken soup. At the end of the corridor, they entered a tiny room with a single table.

Michael pulled out a chair and offered Jane a seat. She grabbed the back of the chair, pulled it out further herself, and sat down. She wasn’t about to let him boss her around. She decided how and when to sit down.

Michael looked a little taken aback before shaking his head slightly and sitting down across from her.

“A few weeks ago a small research expedition was out here studying ice cores when they came across something rather odd.” 

He pulled out a photograph from a folder that Jane had just noticed sat underneath the desk this whole time. The photograph showed a cubic piece of ice being lifted from the ground. However, rather than being fully transparent, it contained what looked like a small, uneven cylindrical tunnel running up from the bottom of the ice cube, terminating just a few inches before reaching the surface.

“I was one of the first to be called out here to see what could have caused this anomaly. We checked for everything from biomatter samples to weather patterns and came up with nothing.”

Jane stared at the ice, fascinated by the mystery that she had already realized she’d be asked to solve.

“We compared the sample with all known ice formations in the region, and found nothing. We have no idea what could have caused this.”

Jane thought for a moment.

“What’s strange is that there is no entrance hole on the surface. It’s as if it had originated from beneath the ice.”

“That’s exactly what we thought. There are almost twenty people on this expedition, and not one of them could come up with a reasonable working hypothesis.”

“Well, have you been able to establish how far down it goes?”

“They.”

“What?”

“That’s the thing. This isn’t the only one. Come with me.”

He got up and held the door open for her. As she passed him, she gave him a dirty look. 

To be honest, Jane wasn’t sure why she was acting this way. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she had been top of her class at INSTAAR. So why does he get to be out here discovering weird ice formations while she is stuck back home researching snow flakes?

She took a deep breath. She had to put all this rivalry behind her and act professional if she wanted to stay here.

She kept silent until they made their way back outside, when she could no longer contain her curiosity.

“Why me? Why did you ask me to come?”

“Because, Jane, when it comes to glaciology, you’re the best I ever knew.”

Jane’s cheeks went red. She wasn’t sure if it was because she was flattered, embarrassed, or just cold. She looked at him. At his short, dark hair sparkling in the cold Antarctic sun. Suddenly, she thought he looked rather handsome, something she’d never noticed before. Strangely.

“How’s your sister doing, by the way?” she asked.

“Oh, Maddie? She’s fine. She’s fine. We don’t talk much. I just know that she still lives with Mom.” 

“And how's she doing?”

Jane generally wasn’t great at small talk, but for some reason she was genuinely interested.

“Honestly, I don’t know. We haven’t spoken in a few years now. And whenever I do call Maddie, we tend to avoid bringing her up.”

“Here.”

He showed her to a small metal cage hanging from a descending mechanism above a circular hole in the ground. They walked onto the cage, closed the gate, and Michael pressed a big red button attached to the frame. The mechanism whirred to life and slowly began to lower the cage into the ice.

Jane had never been on one of those. She tried to look down, but the ice shaft was too narrow to see beyond the cage floor.

“How deep does this go?”

“Oh, about 500 feet.”

He must have read the surprise on her face as he laughed and added, “Yeah, we ain’t kidding around here.”

A few moments later, the cage descended into what looked like an ice chamber. There was a small tent set up in the corner along with a few computer screens. A young man was working on one of them.

“Tom, there’s someone I’d like you to meet,” said Michael as he stepped out of the cage.

Jane followed.

Tom stopped what he was doing and walked over.

“Ah, the new arrival,” he exclaimed. “I’m Tom.”

“Jane.”

They shook hands.

“Very nice to meet you, Jane. Michael said you’ll solve this one.”

“He did?” 

Michael also went a bit pink. Suddenly, Jane felt guilty for what she did earlier with the chair and the door.

“Anyway, Tom is our data scientist,” Michael explained. “He’s working on rendering a 3D model of the anomaly.”

“Yep, turns out The Tree goes much deeper than we thought.”

“The Tree?”

“Yeah, that’s what we call it.”

“How come?” asked Jane.

To that, Tom nodded at something behind her.

Jane spun around and froze in shock.

She was looking at a smooth wall of ice, almost like a sheet of glass. Behind it, there were tunnels, just like the one she had seen in the photograph earlier. Each looked about two centimeters in diameter. There were hundreds of them, all cutting through the ice up towards the surface, expanding outwards like the branches of a tree.

Jane walked up and placed her hand on the ice, as if observing a giant shark at an aquarium. She looked down. The branches seemed to be converging towards some point deep below her feet, but it was too dark to see more than a few feet down.

“This is what I got,” said Tom and spun the screen around for her to see.

On the screen, she saw the 3D reconstruction of the mysterious structure. As Jane had theorized, the entire thing originated from a single point several hundred feet below the ice before expanding outwards and upwards towards the surface, each little tunnel moving away from the rest, forming a kind of upside-down cone shape.

She stood there observing the tunnels from behind the wall of ice for almost an hour, spinning theories in her mind, none of which satisfied her. It couldn’t have formed naturally; there was little geoactivity in this area. Besides, they were round and hollow, so they couldn’t simply be cracks. They could not have come from above or below, since there were no entrance or exit holes on either the surface or at its point of convergence.

After a while, the three of them ascended back up to the surface and went to the dining room for some dinner.

All this thinking had made Jane hungry, but her appetite had all but disappeared the moment they were served some musty-smelling mushroom stew. Luckily, she could distract herself from her food by chatting to Michael, Tom, and another girl who had joined them. Fiona was a microbiologist, one of the first people sent to investigate the phenomenon and rule out biological causes. She tested the inside of one of the tubes for biomatter and, as Michael had previously pointed out, found no trace of any kind of life inside. The tubes were simply hollow.

“So what are you working on now that that’s off the table?” Jane asked with genuine curiosity.

“Oh, nothing really. My job here is done. I just sort of decided to hang back and see where all of this goes. I don’t even get paid.” She laughed.

Tom seemed to find it especially amusing, as he laughed along with her.

“She’s crazy, this one,” said Tom, gesturing at her.

Fiona made a little bow.

“Why anyone would want to be here is beyond me. If my parents were as rich as hers, I’d be spending my time out in the Bahamas,” Tom explained.

“We’re all here for the science,” Michael interjected.

“Right, for the science,” repeated Tom.

In the awkward silence that followed, Jane thought she saw Tom wink at her, but it could just have been her mind playing tricks. She was too tired after the long journey.

“Think I’ll be off to bed now,” she yawned, getting up from her seat.

She looked over at Michael, expecting him to also get up and walk her to her room, but he hadn’t moved. 

“Think you’ll find your room?” was all he said.

Jane was frankly a little upset by that. Not because she liked him or anything. She just thought maybe he did. And it hurt her ego to know that he didn’t. At least not enough to walk her back. Not that Jane liked him either, or at least that was what she kept telling herself while lying in bed that night.

She was married to her job, after all. But shit, he could have been a bit more gentlemanly.

It was with that thought that she drifted off.

Jane spent the next day getting caught up to speed with the progress of their research. Fiona showed her the biotests. Michael walked her through every analysis they had run on ice samples. 

The whole time Jane was thinking about how whatever had created those tunnels must have originated from under the ice, not from the surface, as it was much harder to imagine something moving inwards toward the same point than outwards from it.

Nevertheless, for the next four days Jane conducted her own research in a little dedicated corner of the lab. She began by looking into data from ice formations in the area. She analyzed data on ice layers and went over atmospheric fluctuations in the area. Once again, nothing abnormal. She even looked into the recent activity of the Antarctic plate, which was a bit of a stretch, but she had to be sure.

It was way past ten when she looked up to find that everyone had already left. She hadn’t noticed. She wasn’t even a little tired and had no interest in going to bed. Besides, she knew that she would not be able to sleep with all these questions running through her mind. On top of all that, she wanted to be the one that cracked the case and was willing to do whatever it takes to get to the bottom of this.

It was with that thought that she decided she needed to go down there and inspect the ice further. Although she was strictly told not to operate the cage lift herself without proper training first, the spirit of scientific discovery had overcome her. She grabbed her pen and  notebook, put on her coat, and stepped out into the turmoil of the great snowy desert.

The wind was stronger than usual, so she had to hold her notebook tightly as she forced her way through the snow toward the cage lift.

How hard can this be? Just close the gate and press the button.

A few minutes later, she was back in the ice chamber. It was pitch black. Luckily, there was a lantern right nearby waiting for her. She turned it on and walked up to the ice wall. It was still much too dark to see properly, so she went through the supply box in the tent, finding three flashlights and two other lanterns, which she set up to be able to see more of The Tree.

She sat on the ground and, after a second of getting used to the cold, began to draw everything she could see. The tunnels themselves were rather straight, but the inside of each looked pretty bumpy, as if they were dug by a worm in the ground. She sketched every detail she could see, every line, every irregularity. Occasionally, she walked up to the ice wall and shone her flashlight down into the dark abyss to capture the point of convergence.

“I didn’t know you were an artist.”

The sound startled her, and she whipped her head around to see Michael watching her from behind.

“How did you get down here? I didn’t hear you come down.”

“Guess you were too distracted.”

He sat down next to her, scanning the ice wall.

“Got anything?”

“I…” 

She looked over at him but Michael wasn’t looking at her. His eyes remained transfixed on The Tree.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Michael sighed. “As scientists, we often try to figure out the why and forget that the real beauty is in the unknown.”

Jane found his voice rather soothing. Her eyelids began to feel heavy as she stared at the structure behind the wall of ice. She thought she could see it begin to move, as if it was a giant octopus that had suddenly come alive. She really struggled to keep her eyes open. She could hear Michael muttering something but could no longer make out the words.

Before she knew it, her head was resting on his shoulder. Her flashlight fell from her hands and landed on the ground with a soft clunk.

The last thing she saw was its fading light.

Darkness.

Jane spins around. No one.

She shouts for help, but no sound comes out. The air is cold. She calls out again, louder this time. Nothing.

Suddenly, a bright blue light appears in front of her. She reaches out her hand and lets the glow envelop her fingers. She looks down to see where it’s coming from. It seems to be coming from underneath the ground.

The light begins to move. It is no longer a single beam, but many smaller ones, spreading out in an upside-down cone shape, still coming from below.

Wait.

Jane’s eyes burst open. She jumped out of bed and ran down the hall to the dining room, where Tom and Fiona were having their breakfast.

“Where’s Michael?” she demanded, a little too forcefully.

“Well, good morning to you too,” said Tom.

“What is it?” inquired Fiona.

“Radiation, energy,” announced Jane as she sat down. “Usually, a circular light source shines in all directions, right?” Jane began. “But a focused one could travel in any direction, depending on where it’s directed. For example, concentrated electromagnetic energy, like lasers, could melt ice like that and could also be turned off before it reached the surface.”

Tom and Fiona looked at each other.

“Now,” Jane continued, “there is no source that we could find, but if it somehow was placed there in advance…”

Tom and Fiona were now staring at her.

“Look, I know this gives us more questions than answers, but it’s a start. Where’s Michael? I’ve got to talk to him.”

“Jane, here’s the thing,” began Fiona, but stopped mid-sentence.

“Michael’s left,” finished Tom.

“What?”

“He got a call from his mom that his sister has gone missing.”

“Maddie?”

“Yeah. He left for Missouri this morning.”

Jane felt sick. The world seemed to have gone hazy. Her vision began to blur. She could feel herself breathing heavily.

“Jane, are you okay?”

She heard the words, but had no idea who said them.

“Do you need a doctor?”

She got up and almost fell over.

“No, I’m fine. I think I’ll just go lie down,” she said as she stumbled out of the room.

As soon as she was out of sight, she started running. A second later, she felt the huge power of the southern wind beating against her body, trying to push her off course. 

Eventually, she got to the cage elevator, pressed the red button, and descended into the depths below.

She knew something was off as soon as the cage landed on the ground with a loud splash. Water swept across the floor of the lift. Jane instinctively jumped backward, but the water reached her a second later anyway. She gasped, expecting her feet to be frozen solid. It took her longer than a few seconds to realize something strange: the water… it was warm.

She looked around the ice chamber. The floor was covered in approximately an inch of water. What was strange was that the ice had not melted, nor was there any crack for the water to have gotten through. Stranger yet, the air temperature in the chamber, from what Jane could feel, was roughly the same as always.

All of a sudden, the water began rising, slowly at first, before picking up speed. It was already up to her shins by the time Jane realized she had to get out.

She slammed the button on the control panel. The mechanism made a noise, but the lift had not moved. The water was up to her knees. At this point, there was no way that the lift could move with all that weight holding it down. Snap! The metal cable detached from the lift and went limp again.

Jane called out for help, but heard no response. Why would they? She had told everyone she’d gone to bed. No one knew someone was even down here.

The water level was now rising rapidly. It was now up to her waist. She instinctively grabbed the top of the metal cage and climbed up onto its roof. Jane was not a great swimmer, so if the water engulfed her, she would not last long.

She knew what she had to do and grabbed onto the metal cable attached to the cage and hoisted herself up. She looked up at the light overhead.

500 feet. Could she do it?

The water was now spinning in circles, forming a whirlpool. She realized she did not have a choice; if the water reached her, she’d be sucked down by the current. She wrapped her legs around the metal cable and began pulling herself up. Almost instantly, her hands began burning from the ice-cold metal. But anything was better than drowning.

The whirlpool was approaching fast; there was no way she could outclimb it. She looked up again to see two tiny silhouettes blocking out the sun. 

“Hold on, we’ll pull you up!” Tom’s voice echoed through the shaft.

“Hurry!” Jane shouted back. A few seconds later, the cable began to move upward. Jane gripped it so tightly that it cut into her hands and climbed along with it, pulling herself up whenever she could. With every pull, she felt like her muscles would give way and she would fall into the water below.

Jane could now see the light getting bigger and bigger, she was almost there. As soon as her hands were within reach of the surface, she gave herself one final pull and dragged herself out.

As soon as she was out, she collapsed onto the ground, panting. Her palms glistened with red, pink, and purple.

The water had reached the surface and was slowly spilling out of the hole.

Jane looked around but Tom and Fiona were gone. She turned in the direction of the base, but the base was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a deep body of water now covered the area where the base used to be situated. 

What happened? Did it sink? Did Fiona and Tom sink along with it? 

There was nothing she could do now. She turned around and ran in the opposite direction. She ran for what felt like hours before her legs gave way and she collapsed into the snow.

The cold was closing in on her.

She closed her eyes.

She never imagined that this was how she was going to die, surrounded by ice and snow and wind, instead of in a warm bed with her kids and grandkids, with her final memory being whatever the fuck had just happened.

Right before fading out, she noticed a soft whirring sound in the distance. As it got louder, she realized that it was a helicopter.

Gathering up all her remaining strength, she managed to push herself up, legs wobbling, and wave her hands at the helicopter once or twice before collapsing back onto the ground.

She closed her eyes and drifted in and out of consciousness as she felt herself being lifted onto a stretcher and carried aboard. She could feel the helicopter rising into the air and taking her away from this nightmare.

A few hours later, after her medical checkup, she was sitting at the airbase waiting for a plane to take her back to the States.

As she looked down at her hand wrapped up in bandages, she knew she would soon have to recount what had happened out there. She also knew that no one was going to believe her.

Not that she was planning to go back to Boulder anyway.

She had unfinished business waiting for her in Missouri.