The Icarus Project (21 page)

Jake’s room was surprisingly neat. His bed looked like you could bounce a quarter off it. There was a dresser in one corner and a laundry bag hanging on a hook. A neat L-shaped desk took up most of the room. Two large computers sat on the desk. Someone had labeled and tied up all the wires. Numerous cameras and tripods were positioned around the room. The floor was spotless.

“Wow, he’s got two computers.” Kyle rushed over to the desk and plopped down in the swivel chair. “Must be nice to have a billionaire uncle.”

“Let’s just hope Jake’s as good a filmmaker as he thinks he is and got some good footage.” I wiggled the mouse, and one of the computer monitors jumped to life. A smirking image of Jake’s face appeared on the screen. He was staring
right
at us.

“Do I look like an idiot?” the Jake image asked. “Hands off my computer!”

My hand jerked off the mouse, and I stepped back.

Kyle snorted. “It’s just a security screen,” he said.

“I should have seen that coming.” I pulled up another chair and shook off my nerves.

“Jake’s big head is pretty scary,” Kyle said, taking the mouse.

“Password,” the image said.

“What do you think the password is?” Kyle asked.

“Try ‘arcticninja.’” I raised my eyebrows playfully at Kyle and he burst out laughing.

“Are you kidding me?”

“No, I saw Jake type his password the other day when he was showing us the film on his laptop of Charlie back in the cave. He was so excited that he didn’t see me looking.” I smiled, satisfied that I got the jump on Jake.

“Very stealthy of you.” Kyle typed in the password, and
we bypassed the security screen to Jake’s desktop. “Now we need to find the film,” Kyle said, and he started looking in different folders.

“I bet the files are date- and time-stamped,” I said. “Find the one for two a.m. on the day I was outside.”

“Wait,” said Kyle. “What’s this?”

“What’s what?” I asked, scanning the folder.

“It’s called the Icarus Project.”

“Everyone knows Icarus. Next to Achilles, he’s everyone’s favorite character from mythology.” I leaned forward to get a better look at what was inside of the project folder. “The winged boy who fell from the sky,” I said.

“Right. I love that myth. Icarus’s dad wanted to save his son from captivity and made him a pair of gigantic wings so he could fly over the prison walls. Except Icarus didn’t listen to his dad’s warning, because he was excited about flying, and he thought he knew better than his dad. He flew too close to the sun, and the wax holding the wings together melted. He plummeted to the sea and drowned,” Kyle said.

“So why would Jake have film footage marked ‘Icarus Project’?” I asked.

“Get this—the dates on these film clips go back for months, not days. Whatever they are, Jake’s been working on them for a long time.”

“Before we were even invited to the station, before we found Charlie. Open one.”

Kyle randomly clicked on a file. I leaned in to see what it contained, and a small video screen popped open and began to play. Randal was sitting in one of the leather chairs in his private library. His face was red and flushed, his hair a wild mane. A mug was clenched in his hands and he was taking long drinks of the steamy liquid between speeches. One thing about Randal was that he could talk and talk and talk. Here he was discussing a major sighting. He wasn’t sure what it was. He kept saying that it flew, that it had wings, and that it had come in the night.

Kyle and I skimmed through a half-dozen videos that Jake had filmed of his uncle. Many of the older videos chronicled the building of the station, which went back years, but the interesting ones came after the first
sighting.
This wasn’t the sighting of Charlie under the ice. This was something they saw in the night sky—maybe even the snow ghost that I had seen. From what we could tell, Randal had been tracking the flying creature, following it. In one of the videos, filmed inside a dome, Randal sat on a crate, wearing his trademark puffy brown coat and discussing the being he had just seen. He had gotten close to it, really close, and he described the creature as miraculous, an advanced life-form. The word that stuck in my memory was
otherworldly.
He thought the snow ghost creature was an alien life-form—from another world, another planet, far away.

We found another video of Randal’s “nightly sojourns,”
as he called them. He and Jake were tracking the snow ghost across the ice.

Randal had apparently tracked the creature’s movements for years, finally establishing the dig site where the creature was seen most often. He speculated that the creature was searching for something—and whatever it was, he wanted to find it. Once he focused on a location, Randal used radar technology to find the mass, which he figured was the thing the creature was looking for.

He had never been looking for a mammoth—but he needed a credible scientific team to verify his findings, and so he had concocted a mammoth “discovery” to lure scientists to his compound in the Arctic and help him dig up the mysterious mass that would turn out to be Charlie. The model mammoth park in his secret room—all fake, designed to keep us off the trail of the real discovery.

I felt numb, but I still wanted to have proof of what I had seen out on the snow. I needed to see the snow ghost again. “We have to hurry,” I said. “Did you find the film from the other night?”

“Right here.”

In a few seconds we were watching the sky around the snowy compound. We fast-forwarded through a couple hours of wind sweeping over the desolate area, blowing gusts of snow. Nothing exciting at all … until an image of me stumbling under the tarp, yelling for Randal, appeared on the screen. My entrance had been less than graceful.

I cringed. “Wow, I look like a crazy person,” I said.

“You sure do. Especially in that giant coat and goggles.”

“You don’t have to agree with me.” I nudged Kyle with my elbow.

We watched and listened as I dug around the crates and looked for Randal, until I realized the mistake I had made. Then I talked to myself for a few minutes. That’s when the wispy snow ghost appeared out on the ice.

“Look!” I said.

The camera had indeed caught brief glimpses of the image as it floated in and out of view.

“Pay dirt!” Kyle said.

The creature was a beautiful ghostly form with wings, just as I remembered. At first it looked as if threads of light from the aurora borealis had spooled down from the sky as a wave of translucent light danced over the compound. The greenish-blue light was the color of pure energy. But the closer the figure got to the camera, the more pale and ethereal she became. As the creature turned in the sky, the huge white wings became visible. Wings just like Charlie’s.

“Look at the face,” I said. The winged creature had soft features, beautiful and alien—sparkling large eyes, and long glowing arms. A glittery aura surrounded her.

“It looks like a girl,” Kyle said. He blushed. “I mean, a woman.”

“It does. Like a woman with wings.” I glanced at Kyle.
“And Jake captured it all on film, which is proof that this is real.”

“We aren’t imagining this,” Kyle said. “She’s not in a solid form like Charlie,” Kyle said. “He’s got a body, skin, all that. She’s more like … energy.”

“It makes sense now why Jake won’t tell anyone what he filmed. He wants to keep this a big secret.” I watched the creature float across the screen. She was weaving between the buildings of the compound, and I could see why Randal had hypothesized that she was looking for something.

This was what Jake and Randal were hiding. That’s what they didn’t want Ivan and Katsu or even Dad to find out about. They had another Charlie—but this one was alive.

“They want to keep this quiet,” Kyle said.

“Think about what this would mean for the station. Think about all the money and prestige from all the interviews and appearances.” I couldn’t believe what we were seeing. The creature was so beautiful, so exciting—and Jake had captured her on film. “Not only do they have the film, but they also have a real specimen.”

“I bet they don’t care what happens to Charlie, because they hope to capture more of them. Who knows how many more there are out there?” Kyle said.

“This whole expedition has been a con job, a scam from the beginning. Randal brought us out here to do his
dirty work, but he’s saving the real discovery for himself. I think we should go tell Dad.” I hopped up.

“Not going to happen.” Jake stood in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest.

My stomach lurched.

“Um … Hey. What’s up, man?” Kyle asked.

“What’s up is that I just caught you two snooping around my computer. Trying to steal my files.” Jake barged into the room, pushed Kyle’s hand away from the mouse, and turned off the monitor.

“We weren’t stealing,” I said. “Well, OK … you’re right about the snooping part. But if you and Randal had just told us what was on the film, none of this would have happened.”

“Let’s get one thing clear. I don’t answer to you.” Jake’s words were full of bravado, but his face looked drawn and tired.

“But we can help you and Randal,” Kyle said.

“We don’t need your help.”

“I think you do.” I tried to reason with him. “Katsu and Ivan are going to experiment on Charlie. They don’t know what he is—but you do. Don’t you care?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think. A deal is a deal. And Randal promised Katsu he could have the mammoth’s DNA, and since there is no mammoth, that leaves the kid in the ice with the wings. I can’t stop them.” Jake sighed and slumped down on his bed.

“But you have the film. You could use it to persuade them to leave Charlie alone.”

“The films are a secret. No one is going to find out. It’s all we have.” Jake ran his hands over his face.

“Then why did you do all this, if not for Charlie?”

“Look, the Icarus Project isn’t over when you all leave. Katsu and Ivan get their DNA samples. Your dad and Karen will write their papers. I make a film. Randal gets all the fame and glory, vetted by top scientists so people know it’s for real. That’s how it’s going to work.”

“But Charlie is special. Really special.” I paced the room. “We have to help him. We have to keep him safe.”

“I get it—you’re a softhearted girl. But it’s OK. Katsu just wants to draw some blood and take tissue samples.”

“He’s going to clone him,” Kyle said.

Jake rolled his eyes. “You two worry too much. Cloning is never going to happen.”

“Katsu will try. He always wins. Remember, he’s Doctor Victory!” I yelled.

“Calm down.” Jake held out his hands. “I’d like to help. But there’s nothing I can do.”

The loud roaring sound of an engine filled the room. It was coming from outside the compound.

“What’s going on out there?” Kyle asked.

“Let’s go see,” I said.

The three of us raced out of the room and down the
hallway. The sound grew louder and louder. I ran to the door but didn’t bother to get my coat. I cupped my hands and peered out of the window toward the hangar.

“Looks like Justice got the chopper working again.”

“You know what that means,” Kyle said, shaking his head. “It means that Ivan and Katsu will be packing up and leaving.”

“And they’re going to take Charlie samples with them,” I said.

I couldn’t let that happen. Not after seeing the film of the other winged creature. We hardly knew anything about him. We had to do something drastic. I stared down Jake. “You can either help us or not. But they can’t hurt Charlie. Not after what I saw on the film.”

“Yeah, we’re not letting them experiment. Are you in?” Kyle asked as Jake looked out the window.

“I’m not in until you tell me exactly what this big plan of yours is,” Jake replied. “If the plan is convincing, then
maybe
I’ll help. And you’ll have to tell me what’s in it for me.”

“Well, for the first part of the plan, you need to get everyone out of the station for a few hours,” I said. “Can you do it?”

He put his hands in his pockets and eyed me suspiciously. “Sure. Randal wants to start dismantling and packing up the dig site. I can encourage them to head out
this afternoon. That should give you some time. Why? What are you going to do?”

I had only one idea, and it was a big one. Katsu left me no choice. I just hoped that when everything was done, I wouldn’t regret my decision.

My plan was simple, but the decision that led to
it had been brutal. I was going against everything my parents had taught me about excavations, but I couldn’t ignore my heart anymore. Like Icarus, I had to take the risk and fly higher, no matter what the personal cost.

All I could think about was the air. Air was the enemy of scientific discoveries. If I was wrong, then once the ice was breached, the air would eat away at Charlie, destroying the discovery. But I was counting on the fact that once Charlie was thawed out, he would no longer be seen as just a
specimen
to study, but as a boy. A living, thinking, feeling creature. I had to melt as many cold scientific hearts as I could.