Chapter Text
Not even bacteria lived in this cold, so the bodies stayed exactly where they’d fallen, a testament to man’s hubris.
And the trash - so much trash. Spent fuel tanks and energy bar wrappers, bags and pots and pans and thermoses all abandoned, no one bothering to do anything more than push them slightly off the trail. Up here, you accepted the risks when you hiked north from the last settlement. It was enough to carry your own weight. Extra weight would get you killed.
Further north, in the 'mountains' and valleys formed by the shifting glaciers, the snow mostly covered the bodies and hid the trash, although every now and then a plastic bag or candy wrapper - or a finger - reemerged. The sheer amount of trash the ancient people had generated was impressive - a vast and inhospital land, and all of it filled with garbage to every corner. At least after a recent snowfall it looked fresh and new.
But, the clean snow brought its own dangers. They roped themselves together and Cloud, in front, used a long pole to probe every step for hidden crevices before moving forward. Barret, behind him, would anchor them with a steel spike if Cloud were to miss his footing and fall, though he'd already promised to cut Cloud loose if it looked like they'd go down together.
Bringing up the rear of their little caravan was a sled tied with a rope to Tifa and Aerith, with the heaviest of their supplies roped to it - mainly the fuel tanks, the most valuable thing they owned. Every morning they poured liquid fuel into their suits, to power the heaters that kept them alive in this cold.
They didn’t have enough fuel for the whole trip across the north pole, and South again into Svalbard. That was the secret that Tifa and Aerith and Cloud and Barret all knew but didn’t talk about.
***
“What do you think we’ll find?” Aerith asked. "When we get to Svalbard, I mean."
Tifa, who'd been conserving her energy, just shrugged. It was amazing to her that Aerith always had the energy for small talk, even in the early morning before Barret grudgingly rationed out the instant coffee - another thing they’d soon run out of.
Maybe she was just a morning person.
Maybe she was just a great actor.
“Probably nothin',” Barret grumbled. “It was a well known place before. I bet it's already been cleaned out.”
“Oh, you’re no fun…”
“I’m sure there will be something there…” Tifa said. “It’s not an easy place to get to. I heard it’s completely blockaded from the south.”
“Obviously, or we’d be coming from that way…”
“Not without papers to cross the border we wouldn’t.” Barret put an end to the discussion, not wanting them to waste their breath.
The last hour in the afternoon, just before they stopped for the night, was always the hardest - though this far north, ‘night’ was a relative concept. The sun dipped below the horizon for about two hours around midnight, that was all.
Still, no matter how brightly the sun shone - off the snow, and into their polarized, wrap-around googles - a heavy weight would settle over them then, and their movements would become robotic - lift one foot, put it down, lift another foot, put it down. Repeat ad nauseam.
Tifa kept her eyes trained on the ground in front of her then, where Cloud and Barret took turns breaking in the trail, and she only had to find where their feet had been, to place her own.
This trek, north over the shifting glaciers in the spring while it was warm enough to cross, but before the ice bridges melted, was one of the only ways to leave the country. Thousands of people made this border crossing every year.
Thousands more died in the attempt.
“I hope she left a note for me...” Aerith said eventually, breaking the exhausted silence. Her mother had been a researcher at Svalbard.
“I hope so, too,” Tifa told her, while Cloud offered an impressively empathetic shrug that said he felt the same way.
“This place...” Barret said, musingly. “It ain’t for amateurs. It almost makes you think the ancient people were onto something, when they dug up the whole planet for fuel.”
“Ain’t no one living up here without it.”
***
They’d found their biggest fuel score yet in an abandoned airfield, after Cloud spotted the fuselage of a passenger jet poking out of the snow.
They dug a tunnel to the cabin doors of the abandoned 747, and made the inside of the plane their campsite for almost a month as they excavated the rest of the airport.
If they’d had the fuel and supplies, they could have lived there forever, cozy in the first class passenger section under 30 feet of snow. Aerith took charge of their metal detector, holding it in front of her like a dowsing rod. She had the best knack for it - her and Cloud.
Of course, they weren’t the only scavengers here. But Greenland was a big space - big and dangerous. With the way the glaciers were shifting, even a step off the marked paths could be fatal. That kept the foot traffic down. By the time they found the airstrip, the jet fuel was long gone, carted off by others. But the other little trucks and scooters on the tarmac still had gas in their tanks.
And the vehicles themselves - the metal frames, the electronics - were priceless. No part of them could be replaced anymore. Not to mention, fuel was unbelievably expensive nowadays. Only the main highways had vehicles now. All other travel was by foot or by sailboat. Unless you were rich.
***
They heard the roar of an engine as they sat huddled together at night - 9pm, and the sun still high in the sky.
Out in the open, they’d be obvious to anyone passing through. Without a word they broke camp. Tifa and Barret dug the tunnel hastily, while Cloud kept watch at the entrance. Aerith stood in the middle and passed buckets of snow to Cloud to spread over their footprints, covering them. They managed to burrow into their hidey hole and seal the entrance just as the first truck rolled by.
The sound of the wheels on the snow went on and on. This wasn’t one or two vehicles, but a whole convoy. Tifa tried to keep her breathing slow and even. If one of the vehicles rolled over their hiding place, they’d all be crushed. She breathed slowly through the straw, poked from their tiny cave through the snow to the surface, and tried to stay calm.
***
Eventually the rumbling of the vehicles passed on. But Barret held them back, cautious. After a while Tifa thought she heard it - the vibrations of people passing overhead, in boots.
“Turks?” she mouthed to Barret, and he nodded, grim.
Private security forces. It meant they were close to one of the hidden bunkers, where the wealthy industrialists - the ones who had brought ecological disaster to the rest of the world - were holed up, like snakes.
Above them, they could just about hear the conversation...
“What you think, Rude? Rats out here?”
“They were here for sure, Reno,” an answering voice said. “You can still see the footprints.”
“How recently, you think?”
“Hard to say, with the snow… couple of hours?”
“They’re probably not far then. What do you say, wanna go rat hunting?”
“Nah, I’m low on gas. Plus they won’t last long out here… let’s just go back.”
“And if the boss asks what we saw?”
“We didn’t see nothing... You know how it is out here. Too much of the same scenery, and your mind starts to play tricks on you.”
“That’s true… you’re no fun though,” the first voice complained, as the vibrations of feet above started to move away. “This is the only interesting thing that’s happened in weeks.”
“'May you live in interesting times' is a curse, not a blessing," his companion advised. “Soon you’ll be glad to have such a boring job.”
“Ugh, shoot me first if I ever become as boring as you…”
As the voices moved away, Tifa, Cloud and Barret shared a look.
“We track them,” Barret said. “Carefully, though.”
***
They needed the fuel. They all agreed on that. Without the fuel, they wouldn’t survive out here much longer.
The only mining that took place these days was mining the abandoned settlements for metals, plastics, fuel. To find one of the bunkers - and still with the security force guarding it - that was the motherload. They’d be set for life, whether they stayed together or all went their separate ways.
Barret spent the night checking over his guns - assembling, disassembling, and oiling them. Tifa stretched and meditated, trying to prepare her body for violence.
Cloud - the most dangerous of them - did nothing at all. He would snap into the fighting trance when the time came.
“I wish we could avoid this,” Aerith said.
“We can’t,” Barret told her.
“I know,” Aerith said, lightly. "...it was just a stray thought. You can count on me."
She had the gas, ready to mix and throw into the bunker to flush out the snakes. The most crucial job of all.