The Iceman's Lament

“So you’re going back up there?” he asked the Minder as they stood on a gantry watching the clamor of the docks below.

“I guess so, mate. She found another hauler, some Russian guy.”

“Dmitri? He’s bringing you up?”

“That’s the bloke yeah. Alright is he?”

“Good enough guy, knows his way around. I don’t think he’s much for EVA though.”

“Don’t matter,” said Jared. “We won’t bring him up to where the Lights are. Less people that know about this the better. As far as he knows we’re placing cameras for the pipeline story…” He rubbed his face tiredly.

“Jared,” Tom looked up at him.

“What mate?”

“Don’t go back up there.”

The big Minder sighed.

“They’re gonna fuck us up, aren’t they Tom?”

“If you start prying into them, yes. Tell me something, how did you feel, afterwards?”

Jared hesitated.

“I told you, up there, right? I told you that I’d done a lot of bad things in my life. Things I ain’t proud of….this business with Lucy, stuff I did before that…”

“I remember...”

“You believe in God, Tom?”

“Not particularly.” But instinctively his fingers felt for the crucifix around his neck. Annie’s crucifix.

“Me neither. Not until now, I don’t know…” he rubbed his face again, embarrassed. “I felt…cleansed…”

“Forgiven…”

“Yeah, exactly. That’s, uh, that’s not a familiar feeling for me.” He stared off into the distance. “I tell you something, I haven’t felt this good in…many years, mate. Many years.”

“Don’t go back up there, Jared.”

“I have to. It’s my job. Have to go…how can I stay away?”

“I’ll bring you up another time, without cameras, without mikes. It will be just as good as the first time. Probably better. You have to go there with an empty mind, an open heart. You take what they give you. You don’t try to take anything from them.”

“Because they’ll fuck us up…”

“I made a couple of mistakes. I had to learn the hard way.”

“But they like you Tom, the Lights.”

And Tom shrugged. “I’m pure, Jared,” he grinned. “Pure as the driven snow.”

“Yeah you are!”

“Don’t go up there. Find an excuse. Have an accident...”

“I can’t abandon them.” But somehow he didn’t sound convinced. He loomed over Tom. “What’s gonna happen?” he asked quietly. “What are the Lights gonna do to them? To Lucy? To Gail?”

Tom shrugged. “Frighten the shit out of them. Make them forget…from what I know, anyway. They’ll remember later but UNSA will squash that story. They’ve done it before. Several times.”

“Kill them?”

“No…no Jared…I think I can pretty much promise you that.”

“But you don’t know.”

“Not for sure…”

“Jesus Christ!”

“Don’t go back up there.”

And the thing was that he and Jared now had a shared emotion.

Absolute loyalty to the Lights.

They both looked over the gantry. There was a landing at the bottom of a set of steel stairs, a good twenty feet below. Ice glinted on the steps.

“That oughta to do it, mate,” Tom pointed.

They moved over to the top of the stairs. There was nobody around to see them.

Jared gave a great sigh, the breath rushing out of him in the frigid air like some locomotive.

“You really think we need to do this, Tom?”

“You can get another gig, Jared, easily.”

He shrugged. “I was getting sick of carrying her fucking luggage around anyway,” he muttered.

“Maybe you’d fancy driving a hauler, once you’ve mended.”

Jared beamed down at him. “I might like that, Tom. I might like that a lot.”

He positioned himself at the top of the steps. He sighed deeply and closed his eyes. “Alright then…”

And Tom pushed him.