Qangata - Official Story

[Louanne Learning]

This thread is only for official entries into the Qangata story. Post all discussion to the OOC thread, please.

Story rotation -

@Louanne Learning
@ps102
@Username: required
@takadote26
@Pending

 

[Louanne Learning]

Prologue

Qangata, Winter, 800 years before the present day

The seals stopped coming. The people survived on lemmings and fox, but it wasn’t enough. There was famine. In the iglu, they sat cross-legged around the qulliq—a large carved soapstone bowl in which oil burned—and told ancient stories that cautioned against desiring more than one needed. The words did not land on Tulugaak. His belly was empty.

The next day, which was dark—it had been nighttime for a long time—an old woman died. They wrapped her in hides, took her to the plain on the tundra, and covered her body in stones. Though he dared not speak it, Tulugaak saw food. His stomach growled for the meat.

He was not evil; he was hungry. Before the dead woman could freeze, well before another could be born and named for her, he took his bone knife and went to the cairn that covered her body. The moon was bright and the squeak of his kamitt—sealskin boots—on the snow the only sound. He removed the stones one by one. The labor was hard, but he would be fed at the end of it. His mouth watered in anticipation. In time, he had her backside exposed. He would not say her name. She had gone to her true state, to where she had been before she was born, and where she would spend the remainder of eternity. What lay here was flesh, unused.

On his knees, he cut out a large chunk and greedily put it in his mouth. In ecstasy, he closed his eyes and chewed, the only flavor being satiation. The sounds of eating moved his blood. A hungry person cannot reflect upon where their food came from. Hunger must be fed.

***

Before long, the elders learned that Tulugaak had violated tirigusuusiit—sacred taboos. A man who had eaten human flesh was no longer a man. Tulugaak became other; he had to leave, for the protection of the community.

He was banished to the tundra.

Tulugaak became he-whose-name-is-not-spoken. He would now belong to Arqsarniq—the Northern Lights.

***

Tulugaak walked for hours on the vast, frozen tundra. He would walk until he fell and died. The cold was fire on his face, bringing heat to the chill he felt inside. He continued on, as if the land itself absorbed his weariness. The land did not laugh, but shared his sorrow. The Northern Lights filled the sky with a great, green shimmering. It brought Tulugaak some calm to know that his ancestors were with him, shining overhead.

A giant polar bear—Nanuk—appeared in his path, and regarded him with interest. Delighted, Tulugaak stopped short. His own trauma of the flesh was about to come to an end by being flesh to feed a master of such strength and courage! There was no turning back, and this seemed a fitting end.

Nanuk approached. The most intelligent of the animals, he circled about Tulugaak, who stood still, braced for the pounce. But Nanuk lay down instead, and turned his furry face to the Northern Lights. He saw something there that Tulugaak did not see. Nanuk, snout up, brayed at the lights, then got up, and walked on past his available and willing prey.

Tulugaak reeled. Nanuk had refused him. Tulugaak felt unworthy.

He lifted his face to the Northern Lights. Old and young faces appeared in the great, green shimmering lights that took up all space. They thrummed and vibrated, and swooped in to come closer to him. They were not his ancestors.

Closer, closer, until they wrapped around him and blotted out all of existence. The unknown and the unknowable filled Tulugaak’s senses, but he did not mourn. Confusion only seemed the natural outcome of human identity.

He heard a chant. “We will feed you.”

“You are those of winter—”

“Winter feeds the spirit and soul.”

Tulugaak fell to his knees, and cried, “Must I choose between Sun and food?”

“Whatever you need to save your life.”

Tulugaak did not know if this was true. But the lights seemed warmer than the frozen tundra. He breathed heavily, exhaling the ice in his lungs. “Save my life,” he whispered.

They took his spirit up, up into the Northern Lights, leaving his flesh lifeless on the frozen tundra.

 

[Louanne Learning]

Qangata, June, 1995

Closing time neared at the Aputik Art Gallery. Malina Ivalu, perched on a stool behind the front counter, sipped a cup of peppermint tea, waiting out the fifteen minutes till lock-up. The gallery was housed in a double expandable trailer, with a floor space of one thousand square feet, divided into showroom, workroom, kitchenette, and a closet for the toilet.

She smoothed a hand over her long, black ponytail. It had been a good day. The tourists had begun to arrive to the Great White North, and made the gallery a must-see, to gawk and gaze at the Inuit ceramics, prints and stone sculpture. She’d sold two stone carvings, one of a dancing bear and one of Sedna, the sea goddess, as well as several wildlife ceramic pieces, and three prints—two tundra scenes and a wolf. Only Sedna and the wolf had been hers. The gallery was a community affair, with half-a-dozen Inuk artists contributing to the inventory.

The bell atop the door tinkled, and Malina lifted her downcast eyes. Ian McCarty, a transplant from Toronto, now teaching fifth grade at Ulaajuk Elementary School, entered. He wore a blue ballcap with the Toronto Maple Leafs logo on it, and an expression on his face as if he was sorry for his very existence.

Malina’s smile was sympathetic. “Hello, Ian,” she said. “Looking for some art?”

“Yes, yes, just looking,” he replied, without meeting her eyes.

“Make yourself at home. We’ve got some new pieces.”

“Thank you, thank you.”

After five minutes of browsing, he turned his face to her. “Sure is nice to have the Sun back,” he said.

“Sure is.”

“Siqiniq.”

Malina grinned, as Ian showed off his knowledge of the Inuktitut language. “Yeah, that’s right. Sun.”

He drummed a hand on his thigh, and then ambled to complete the circuit of the displays. Malina could hear him breathe. Browsing done, he brought himself up before her. “You’ve been well?” he asked.

“Very well. I do love the thaw.”

“The bloom is here.”

“Yes, the bloom is here.”

He glanced about, and then raised jacked eyebrows to her. “Something to celebrate.”

“Sure is.”

“The Uvanga Stomp is going to be awesome.”

Uvanga was Inuktitut for the ‘feeling of light returning.’ “Fun party,” Malina agreed.

“Are you going?”

Malina snapped her eyes to him. It looked like he was holding his breath, so to rescue him, she put aside her wariness at his asking, and answered, “I haven’t really thought about it—”

“I thought, maybe … we could go together.”

“You mean, like a date?”

Presented with the bald truth of his question, he blushed, a red wash on his fair skin. “Um, I guess so.”

Malina intuitively smiled, though she was torn between a lack of attraction to Ian, and his vulnerability tugging at her heartstrings. Oh, what the heck, she thought, I can handle this. It’s not life and death. “Sure,” she responded. “Sounds like fun.”

Ian brightened, as if lit up by Siqiniq herself. “Oh, wow, great. Will you let me cook dinner for you first? I make a really good stir fry.”

What had she gotten herself into? But Ian was sweet enough, and she liked him. “I’ll bring the wine,” she replied.

***

On the stoop, Malina locked the door to the gallery and then turned a reverent face up to the golden glow of the Sun. Siqiniq would not set for several hours yet. Eyes closed, she gathered the warmth.

She bustled home, to her tiny one-bedroom bungalow, wolfed down a tuna fish sandwich, and put on her kamitt, her waterproof sealskin boots. In June, the tundra would be spongy and scattered with small pools from the snowmelt.

With no particular destination in mind, she strode the vast terrain of the tundra. She only wanted to walk free in the rocky land that had exploded with colourful life. Delicate yellow, orange and purple flowers carpeted the plain, softening the wilderness. Insects buzzed around her face, and she waved them away, as her eyes followed a flock of snow geese honking overhead.

And then, there was silence. She broke it by softly singing to herself—

Blue skies smiling at me; nothing but blue skies do I see…

To be a small human person in so much space was a rare privilege. The spirit took the place of the flesh. The invisible became as real as the visible.

Malina dropped her eyes and thought of Ian. Maybe she should not have led him on. She’d make it plain right from the start that they could not be more than friends.

She sensed a presence, and raised her eyes. As if checking up on her, a fluffy, white arctic fox sat on its hindquarters before her. There were no signs of any others, so Malina felt no fear. The beautiful creature squinted its eyes at her, as if from happiness, and wagged its tail.

“Aren’t you a darling,” she said. “I wish I had some food for you.”

“I am hungry,” the fox replied, without opening its mouth, in a child’s voice.

Unsettled, Malina tilted her head, as if disbelieving she’d heard what she heard.

The fox went on, “Ijiraq is hungry.”

Then, it trotted away. Malina dropped troubled eyes, and then raised them. The fox had disappeared.

Wildly, she glanced about. She did not know what she was looking for. Don’t panic, she told herself. She was still on Earth. But to ignore a sign from beyond flirted with disaster.

***

Constable Joshua Kalluk, sitting behind his desk in the Qangata detachment of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police—the RCMP—had just got off the phone with the drummer in his band. When not tending to community needs as a law officer in town, one of eight on staff, Joshua’s time was mostly taken up by his second love, music. His first was his people.

Tundra Thunder, his country-rock band, was slated to play the Uvanga Stomp. The biggest party of the year was only one week away, and his drummer had just called in sick for their practice session scheduled for that night.

The swing of the front door distracted him from his ruminations. Malina entered the office space. “Hey, lean, mean fighting machine,” she said in greeting.

It was true, tall-and-well-built Joshua was classically handsome, his Inuk features giving him a mysterious, come-hither air, but he was humble enough not to know it. “Hey, Malina. How’s it going? Do you know how to play the drums?”

She tucked in her chin. “Uh, no, but I’ll try anything once.”

She pulled up a chair to sit opposite him, with the desk between them. “What can I do for you today?” Joshua asked.

“What do you know about Ijirak?”

He furrowed his brow, and gave a little shrug. “As much as you … it’s an old myth—”

“Is it though? Is it a myth?”

He studied her earnest expression, and came forward in his chair. “What’s going on, Malina? What’s up?”

She related to him her experience on the tundra. He listened with an implacable face. Following a brief silence, he clasped his hands upon the desk, and asked, “Do you want me to arrest the fox?”

She recoiled. “You’re mocking me?” she questioned.

“No, I, come on—”

“You’re mocking Ijirak?”

“Malina. There must be some logical explanation for what happened. The wind can sound like voices—”

“This wasn’t the wind.”

He pointed a discerning look at her. “Malina, I love you like a sister, but I have real problems. I have a sick drummer.”

“Qallunaaq,” she muttered, under her breath. A mild Inuit epithet, Qallunaaq meant “Southerner.”

Joshua, eyes dancing with amusement, lifted a half-smile. “That’s not nice.”

“Just keep your eyes—and your mind—open.”

“Will do. Thanks for coming in.”

Reluctantly, she rose from the chair. She paused, captured his gaze, and then said, “Do not forget where you came from.”

“Never.”

After she’d exited, Joshua roughly rubbed his face. Five years until the 21st century, and so many of his people still set store by thousand-year-old superstitions.

***

The next morning, the phone rang as Joshua entered the office. He sprang to it, and answered, “RCMP Qangata.”

“Joshua, Miki is missing.” The caller was a woman named Frannie Ashona. Miki was her teenaged son. “He didn’t come home last night.”

“Okay, I’ll be right over.”

***

Frannie, hugging herself, was waiting on the front stoop when Joshua arrived to the home. Her face was drawn with concern. “He’s home—”

“Good.”

“But something is wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s like he’s possessed.”

Joshua leaned on a leg. “Can I talk to him?”

Miki, blank-faced, appeared on the other side of the screen door. He pushed his long dark hair out of his eyes.

“Hey Miki,” Joshua said. “Where’d you get to last night?”

A glimpse of fright flashed in his eyes, and then he shook his head and shrugged. “I dunno—”

“What d’ya mean, you don’t know?”

“I can’t remember.”

Joshua dropped his eyes. Geez, he thought, these kids and their drugs.

 

[ps102]

Static. Loud, snowy TV static. And then, a dark hill of ash. That’s where Ioanna was treading towards. Alone, question-less, and determined to climb it. She looked up the pitch-black sky. In its vast, vacant expanse, only the sun flared—its blooming edges blurry as if rendered behind worn scanlines.

The sun shrunk, multiplied, and rolled across her vision. Ioanna rubbed her eyes and focused back to the hill. She continued forwards even as her ears rang with metallic screeching.

When she reached the top, her vision was swarmed by the analogue snow. She rubbed her eyes desperately and then for just that one moment, she saw it—a big, crystal blue lake spanning beyond the hill. There on those glowing waters stood a whited-dressed, little girl. She held tightly onto a teddy bear, face cast down on the waters.

But when tilted her head upwards, her face was expressionless, blank and empty. Whispers. Ioanna heard countless whispers then. Her vision was swarmed by the same snowy static and—rolled to utter darkness.

***
​

When Ioanna woke from that terrible dream, the clear blue sky spanned outside the tiny airplane window, jet engines whirring. With a jitter out of those tiny speakers, the pilot announced in a metallic voice, “We will be landing in Qangata in approximately ten minutes.”

Ioanna glanced down the window at the massive tundra below, which seemed to span just as much as the sky itself. And just like the sky itself, it looked like a blank canvas—empty, isolated, free. For a single moment, she recalled the lush green regions of the seaside village she had spent most of her life. Her stone-built home by that road in the hill, the old school at the village bottom—where sea and the main village met—and all the red rooftops that up and around the mountain, spanning into the meadows.

She recalled her family bakery. She recalled how, early into every single morning—weekdays and weekends—her parents would rush to start the day. They’d ran back and forth between that giant stone oven, endlessly mixing, kneading, and shaping dough into all kinds of shapes and sizes.

And so they’d go on, working late into the day, just to come home covered in flour, sweat and oven soot. “One day, you and your future husband will inherit that bakery. It’s time you start to learn how,” they said to her the day which followed her sixteenth birthday.

In front of a Commodore 64 and a tube TV, she refused, and cited her own dreams. Hell followed, and the rest, she placed in the dark farside corner of her memory.

Now, brand new memories had started to occupy it. Memories that made those days look like nothing.

The plane made a sudden pivot to the left and forced her right out of her mind’s eye. Qangata zoomed into view as the plane neared the landing strip. Ioanna leaned back in her seat and relaxed. Out here in the middle of nowhere, she was safe from him. She had to be.

***​

With two suitcases by her hands, Ioanna exited the tiny airport, meeting the tiny town for the first time. The early summer sky was clear and bright, but her mind was not. She could not internally connect frosty, wet air to June. It confused her.

A black truck passed her. As far as she could see, there were corrugated warehouses and electrical poles and radio towers. She checked her wristwatch and realized that she was to meet with her new landlord for the keys. Keys she paid six months of rent in advance for.

She sighed and let a puff of cold air out. “What have I done?”

With a long face, and zero desire to ask anyone for directions of wherever the hell she was even meant to go, Ioanna gripped the handle of her suitcases and pressed ahead.

***​

Farther into the town, Ioanna appeared to finally be inside the residential area. Homes built with either corrugated or painted planks of wood were arranged behind wide streets frosted lightly with morning ice.

She stopped for a second and looked around. Her new place of employment had arranged everything from her work visa to the rental and communicated it over e-mail. She was to meet a woman named Pana. Easy enough to remember. She also told herself that the address would be easy to remember. She didn’t need to print it out.

Once again, she let out a frosted sigh. She was such an idiot, indeed.

“Hey, you look troubled. Are you okay?”

The voice made her jump around, only to find a tall man standing there in official looking uniform. The slow realization of his position made her heart race. He was with the police. Ioanna said nothing and took two steps back.

The man in question visibly studied her behavior. She knew that avoiding him would be a mistake. But it was fine, she told herself. It was a coincidence. Had to be. It’s a small town.

Her fingers trembling, Ioanna answered. “I-I am fine.”

He raised a brow. “It doesn’t look like it to me. You are dragging these big suitcases around and going in circles.”

Ioanna’s heart quickened its pace. “You’ve had your eye on me? I did no wrong! I’m just a little lost…”

Her hands trembled even more. She noticed how his eyes locked into them for just a second before they returned to her own. “You seem stressed. Are you sure you are okay?”

“It’s just the cold. I’m not used to it.”

“Where are you headed, exactly?”

“I… don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

She didn’t know how to answer that. Would he even know what an e-mail is, or even understand the situation. But the barrage of questions made her extremely uncomfortable. It couldn’t be that he was sent by him. That’s just impossible.

Or, was it?

The picture of his face, lit dimly by the rainstorm clouds, played back in her mind.

“No matter where you go, I’ll make sure that you fail. Mark my words.”

Lightning struck and brought Ioanna to the present. The policeman still stood in front of her. What if this was some kind of setup?

“I forgot to print the e-mail, okay?” Ioanna quickly said, gripping her suitcases. “Am I alright to go, or am I under some kind of investigation?”

“Investigation? No, no, not at all—“

“Then, if you’ll excuse me.”

Ioanna took her suitcases and went up a small uphill. She could feel the policeman, staring at her back. Most likely, she was just paranoid. But she knew that you could never be too safe in this dark, sorrowful world.

***​

It took her an hour, but she found the address an hour later than the meeting time. Pana, a kind-looking elderly woman, still waited by the grey bungalow’s patio, a cup of tea by the white table.

“Hi,” she said as she climbed the stairway. “I am sorry for being late.”

“You must be… Ioanna,” Pana said with a smile as she tried her best to pronounce her name. She failed, but Ioanna was used to it by now, so she didn’t mind it. “Welcome, welcome. Let me show you inside.”

Pana turned the doorknob and opened the door to the decently spaced home. A kitchen by the left, a small living room that consisted of a sofa; coffee table and an old Sony Trinitron in the front, as well as a bedroom door to the right of the living room.

After a small tour around the home, Pana handed the keys with her usual, warm smile that she always put out. Ioanna could tell it was genuine. “I hope you enjoy it, dear. Will you be staying here for long?”

Ioanna had no desire for small talk. “Thanks, and I don’t really know. It depends. Anyway, I’m tired, so, if you’ll excuse me…”

Pana’s warm smile melted away. “Of course. Please let me know if you need anything. I live right across.”

With that, she left and closed the door behind her, leaving Ioanna with the sweet silence she longed for. She unzipped one of the suitcases and unburied the 486DX machine from underneath the pile of clothes she secured it with. She hoped the hard drive survived the trip. There was no way in hell she could afford another right now.

After she picked a random change of clothes, she showered and immediately returned her attention to the machine. She set it underneath the TV like a DVD player and plugged the S-Video cable. Knowing she wouldn’t have access to a real monitor for a while, she equipped it with such a video card before she ran away from America.

With the push of a button, it booted to Windows 3.11. This digital space was her place of comfort. The only place she felt at home, no matter where she was in this world. She set the keyboard on the coffee table. Ordinarily, she’d run Telnet and login to a BBS and have fun exploring there, but no phone line was available in her new home.

Instead, she opened Microsoft Word and decided to a translate a Greek song that had been on her mind as of late.

Those words and years lost
and the sadness which covered them in smoke
it was the night who found them in brotherhood
And that sudden happiness I found
it was dark lightning tearing through forests
and reasons I made for you

And I speak to you in balconies and yards
and in the lost gardens of God
Because I always seem to think
that the nightingale will come
with those words and years lost​

Unable to go on, Ioanna went to bed. The whole night, she dreamed of birds swarming clear skies.

 

[Username: required]

The package arrived early.
Good.
Briar stood up, his dreams escaping him. A woman and a fox?
The things you could see in these places.
He extended his hands out to grab a few ground beetles out of his tub. Chewed on one after pulling its head off. Can't have those.
He stared into the distance, hiding behind bushes growing their green leaves. Another vision.
Wasn't real.
Couldn't be.
His hands rested on his package, a heavy cardboard box delivered to him by one of his accomplices. The only other person who knew that he was crazy and was living in the wild.
Work would start soon. He would need to change into actual clothes at his friend's house.
But first, the package must be opened. Slooowly pulling the tape off and opening the box.
Perfect. One bottle of salt. One chalk set. Five candles. Exactly what he asked for.
First he shook salt out of the container and into his hand. Letting it fall between his fingers in a circle around his small campsite, circling around the man-made fire, the pots and pans, and his bed made of other peoples clothes. Had to do what you could, right?
Then, he pressed the chalk hard into the soil and made an inner circle. The ground barely showed the white, but that's all he needed.
And then a star in the center. The dreams had told him to do it. He's sane.
He's normal.
Five candles spread out on each point on the star.
A pentagram.
He was about to light it, and then he would no longer be able to go back.
...
The lighter in his hands felt like he was holding a gun, and the candles were normal, regular people he was about to pull the trigger on.
He could see the anguish in their faces.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four...
I could stop now...
...
Five.
The ritual had been complete. He had to have this work. Smoke coiled from the candles and formed a small cloud in front of him.
A figure stood in the smoke.
The figure bent down and began eating something off the ground.
And then another thing.
The vision managed to look completely real. Despite it being made out of smoke, it was enchanting...
The figure ate more, and more, and more, and more, and Briar thought for a moment he wouldn't stop eating.
The figure stood up from his hunch.
And the small, smoke figure in the cloud of smoke from the candles ran at him, and the smoke filled his nostrils, his lungs, burning them. He could smell sulfur, he could smell rotting corpses, he could hear children screaming...
And then it all stopped. Briar coughed as whisps of white gas came out of his mouth in bursts.
Something was hungry. And something was readying itself for a feast.

 

[takadote26]

Camila was tidying stuff up in the meantime, in the medical centre, she looked outside, "Quite some storm to be had earlier on," concured Camila as she glanced around the room. Looks like some business was to be sorted out, but it was rather strange that no one had been to the medical clinic for several months at the most, it was as though the air was still. Little did Camila know that things would be rather hectic from now on, around the sleepy town of Qangata...

Camila stared at the turquoise laptop while the sunny day had stationed everyone else in Qangata- she remembered the first job she had taken. It was in the Whitsunday police station and she was the main psychologist there, but those days were now long gone and she focused. Now she's back in Qangata for better and for worse, and she even started her own healthcare system...

If things were going well, the first patients should be arriving through that burgundy door, but as things were looking it seemed rather quiet around here. Camila enjoyed having a bit of smal; office-talk, and she sighed wearily. Upon shuffling her deck of tarot cards once more, she kept her oaken desk tidy and re-adjusted her shoes. Her high heels were tight and she had another lot of patients to see after this venture.

"So, how's the outlook so far?" Camila addressed her beleagured receptionist, who gave her the slightest of nods to indicate that things were looking okay so far in the town. The atmosphere seemed quite tense and Camila stiffened instinctively, was her mind playing tricks on her? She paid attention to a vague news article, but it seemed the headlines were once again talking about something out there in the wilderness, that sounded more like something mysterious than anything deemed sane. Must be the headlines playing tricks again, or some sort of strangeness that tabloids frequently highlighted.

She zoomed in once more and scrolled downwards, amongst all the usual ramblings of sea monsters, selkies and other monsters- one word intrigued her- the word "Inuit" caught her eye, even though she was sure that monsters were paranormal at best. She dialled a number on her phone and waited for someone else to pick up. Would they be able to understand the significance of this finding? Only one way to find out.

Upon the third ringtone, it seemed no one had answered her call, so Camila placed the telephone down on the desk, the phone receiver facing downwards. Oh well, she'd try again later but as it appeared unless something happened in the next hour there was really no cause for concern. And so, Camila still waited for news to arrive to this day, anything that would pique her interest since the hours seemed to crawl by in this clinic... If nothing happened within the next hour, Camila might need to go home and have a nice nap on the sofa, such a thought sounded lovely at this hour. She was mulling things over and wondering

Camila sleepily took another panadol and just placed a hand upon her desk, sturdying herself before there was a loud shout from the hallway and a commotion was taking place. "What's going on out there?" Camila enquired sharply, "Wait there outside in the hallway, I'll be there in a jiffy!"

 

[Pending]

Jericho shoved his hands into the pocket of his ochre jacket, hiding them from the lukewarm air. It was nearly Summer on the inlet, yet it already felt like a Nevadan Winter. With the small sounds of an even smaller town around him, he could almost believe he was still home, walking around during those cold months.

Until, of course, he smelled the sea breeze, saw the infrastructure that was built for snow and ice and forgot the knawing worry inside of him. For as every bit that he was grateful of being employed, he also knew he was way over his head. For example: there was a small white bird perched on some railing. It fluttered it’s black tipped wings and twitched it’s fluffy head. Jericho had no idea what that bird was called, and he bet it was only a matter of time before his new co-workers (and potentially the rest of the town) found out he was a fool who couldn’t even name a common bird.

The corner of his mouth twitched, betraying his unease. ‘Right.’ Jericho told himself. He was getting entirely too emotional. These feelings were better left boxed up until they were forgotten about. Instead of senselessly fretting about himself, he should commit the next couple of days to learning.

He had arrived a week before his job officially started for a reason, after all.

Most things in the town seemed to be within walking distance. This would become intolerable when the Winter came (according to what he found, it dropped to the negative 20s), but for now he would deal with it. But for now he was going to leave the housing district and track down a library...or something like it. He wrinkled his nose when the wind gusted a puff of salty sea breeze right into his face. It was a far cry from heat-baked soil—he could practically smell the fish. ‘What on Earth did I get myself into?’ He wondered, trying not to feel regretful. He settled for a sigh and stopped on the sidewalk. He cast his eyes towards the uninhabited rocky lands. Molted gray faded to a washed out ocean and an even bigger sky. The other size was unfamiliar bush in yellows and red. The only things that stuck out in the tundra were the Inuksuits, decorating the distance like mock monadnocks. It was a little comforting to see them...even if his knowledge on them was severely lacking.
Someone was staring at him, fuzzy and out of focus, lingering just at the corner of his eye. He internally cringed. He had stopped on the sidewalk and was probably blocking something like a tourist. He turned to face the person but his words died on his lips. Nothing was there. His confusion was chased off by the sound of laughter, and he stepped out the way as teenagers gallivanted around the bend. What he saw was just a shadow then. The group passed him, dressed too cooly for the current temperature.

“I’m telling you we should start planning this now. It’ll be too late otherwise.” Chattered one in a tank top.

“It’s supposed to be fun. Planning is just extra work and work is not fun.” Grumbled a girl with braided hair.

“Neither is a half-assed party.” Retorted someone with a jacket wrapped uselessly around her waist.

Braided hair glanced at him suspiciously, like she thought he was about to agree with them. “Whatever. Let’s just talk about this later.” Then she muttered something he couldn’t make out. Then the other two glanced back at him.

“Who is he going to tell?” One of them commented.

‘Oh. They want their party to be a secret.’ Teenagers were the same here, it seemed. The trio soon crossed the road, and he wished them luck with their endeavor. Hopefully they won’t do anything too stupid or set anything important on fire. Jericho had a library he wanted to track down.
He managed to see a handful other people, some of which waved at him. He didn’t wave back but decided to give them quick nod. He didn’t see anything too interesting until he passed outside a medical clinic. He could see some people hurrying around. Frantically. He stopped to stare for a few beats, curious as to what was going on. But getting answers would require him to go in and ask someone. He walked away from the clinic, he’d probably be able to read about it in the town's newspaper. For better or for worse, that was probably the most action the town would see today.

 

[Louanne Learning]

Under a kind sun, Malina decided to go for a walk along the shoreline. The ice had mostly melted, revealing not a hard and fast boundary, but a liminal space, two worlds meeting where crystal waters kissed crumbled shale. Waves lapped in rhythm upon the rocky shore, which sloped out of sight, under the water, and the wind blew in from there, connecting the entirety with its breath.

The peace of knowing place settled in Malina’s heart. She, the land, the water, were all kin. Here, they belonged to one another.

Once she had reached beyond town limits, a human call pierced the quiet.

“Malina! Wait up!”

She turned about. Making his careful way, Ian stepped along the uneven rocks. His fair-skinned cheeks reddened on either side of a huge grin, he came up before her, and said, “What a beautiful day!”

“Yeah, uh, it’s lovely out.”

“Going for a walk?”

“I am … get as much of the outdoors as I can.”

Wide-eyed, he glanced this way and that, at all the open space, then dipped his chin at her. “Mind if I join you?”

Malina’s intuitive smile graced her face. Despite preferring her quiet time alone in nature, the principle of tunnganarniq taught her that it was more important to foster a good spirit by being open and welcoming.

She turned about and put her feet in motion. “It’s a free country,” she answered.

They walked. The gravel crunched underfoot. “What a playground you had,” Ian said. “Growing up, here.”

“Lots to explore.”

“You know the land well.”

“I do … but it never fails to surprise me.”

They walked. “So different from Toronto,” Ian remarked.

She glanced at him. “Miss it?”

“Toronto?” Eyes down, he thought about it, then shrugged. “Such a busy place. Easy to get lost in it. So many people.”

“Very civilized.”

“I guess you can say that. If civilized means putting up with hordes … We lived close to High Park, huge park, in the west end. Houses on top of one another. Not barren and beautiful, like here.”

“Stark, and rugged.”

“Yes … Most usually, I looked to escape so-called civilization. As a kid, I’d go down to the park as often as I could, do the loop. There’s a labyrinth there, this huge concrete pad marked with concentric circles, all forming one path, like, uh, a single winding path leading inward, then back out again. I’d start at one end and walk the labyrinth, always pausing in the middle, kind of like a meditation, and by the time I got to the end I felt sort of, well, clear-headed. I do miss the labyrinth.” He cast a curious eye at her. “Do you have anything like a labyrinth in your mythology?”

“Hmm … nothing quite so well laid out. We are all over the place.”

Malina slowed her step, until she’d halted. An outcropping of granite caught her eye. It had been disturbed. The summer before, a heavy granite slab had leaned upright, against man-high boulders. The winter ice must have moved it—or, something had—for now it lay on its side, revealing a small entranceway to a dark space enclosed on all sides by the rock pillars.

They climbed the short incline of gravel to it. A strange lump appeared in the new portal, and Malina gasped as it came to her senses that what they had happened upon was human remains. A long-dead woman lay on her side, knees curled up, a hand beneath her chin, as if sleeping. The desiccated skin of her face was the colour of dark leather. Her lips were slightly parted, as if interrupted mid-sentence. She wore a gut-skin parka with decorative beads of bone worked into its shoulders. Beside her lay the skeleton of a bird, as if it had been buried with her.

Ian grabbed his head as though it might fly off. “Oh my God, oh my God, this is major—”

“Relax, Ian.”

“It’s a mummy—”

“People have died before.”

“Yeah, but—Malina! Look at the stitching on that parka. It’s hundreds of years old.”

Beholding the corpse, an unnamed grief touched Malina. “Okay, so—” she got down on a knee and lay the back of her fingers on the cold, leathery cheek, “we need to see that this woman gets a proper burial—”

“This is an archeological find, Malina,” Ian said.

“Yeah, so?”

“We need to get the scientists out here, get the guys from the research station.”

She snapped troubled eyes to him. “What, so,” she rebuffed him, “they can dissect her?”

As if he hadn’t heard—as if he wasn’t listening—he went on, “Maybe the military, too.”

Malina sprang up to her feet and levelled a look on him. “This woman belongs to our people,” she stated. She glanced down at the vulnerability of death, and wondered—why had this woman been returned to them? Then, she pinned a no-nonsense look on Ian. “Help me put her back into the crevice, where no-one can see her.”

The request slammed Ian. “What?”

“Help me move her into this hole.”

“I’m not touching a dead body!”

“I need you to help me. And I need you to promise you will not tell anyone what we found.”

“Malina, I don’t know, I—”

“Don’t tell anyone,” Malina repeated, leaning in for good measure. “Now, come on, help me.”

 

[ps102]

“You can trust me.”

There in that office, blooming in the afternoon light, he said those words.

Ioanna leaned into his shoulder. Her cheek landed on the soft cushion of his cobalt suit, scented strongly with the aroma of golden cologne he loved.

“I'll always trust you,” whispered Ioanna softly. “But still, I'm not so sure about that. It might be best to—“

He dashed in front of her before she could finish those words and pressed a finger to her lips. “Don’t worry yourself.” He slid his finger to her left cheek and stroked it gently. “Just trust me. You can always trust me.”

He leaned in towards her and— it all faded to black.

***​

She thundered out of her new bed in Qangata, gasping for air and hyperventilating. Ioanna rushed towards the kitchen and poured water on the first glass she could grab onto, the liquid violently rolling and spilling around its circumference.

Ioanna abruptly shut the tap and brought the glass to her lips. She drank and drank until the taste she never wanted to remember was washed away. When she finished, she looked down at the silver sink. It reflected herself, her bed hair, and wet tears underneath swollen eyes.

You can always trust me.

The image of him, of Michael’s face, half-shadowed by a will to forget flashed her mind. But she shook it off with a deep breath, and a good look outside the window above the sink. The morning sky, streaked with light wisps of cloud, was filled with a brilliant blue.

The clock hanging right next to the window pointed at seven o’ clock. Ioanna had just an hour before her first day at work. She clasped the edges of the countertop tightly and promised herself that someday, her days in America wouldn’t be anything more than a midnight dream.

***​

With a yellow overcoat, the fur-lined hood of which covered her head, Ioanna exited her messy home. She held up a piece of paper, scribbled roughly with the address of her new workplace. Ioanna rescued it from her locally cached e-mail. She couldn’t access her account from a place this remote. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to.

Ioanna trotted the thawing, slippery snow and made her way up north where NORAD was located in an area relatively clear of residential buildings, surrounded by barn wire, and next to the wilderness of Qangata’s tundra.

When she made it to the guarded gates, stationed men in camouflaged field uniforms glanced to and fro some papers in their desks. “You must be Ioanna Markopoulou. We’ve been expecting you.”

Ioanna handed her ID and papers. “T-thanks.”

The cleanly shaven young man quickly scanned her documents and handed them back to her. “It’s chaos inside. You better hurry. The chief is eager for your arrival.”

“C-chaos? Why?”

The guard stoodup from his station to lift the gates, without answering. He unfastened a communicator from his belt and pushed a button. “Chief, Ms. Markopoulou has arrived. Where should I escort her?”

A metallic crackling voice answered back with utter urgency. “In the command center. Right this instant. I’m going insane here.”

Behind his voice, Ioanna also heard a cacophony of muffled shouts and orders. The guard pocketed the device, lifted the gate, and sprinted towards the grey-plated multi-winged building. “Let’s hurry.”

“What— what’s happening?” asked Ioanna.

“I don’t know the details. I just know that all critical systems are down.”

What on earth did Ioanna get herself to? This was her instant thought. As soon as they entered the building through the glassed entrance, Ioanna was hit by the air conditioning’s warmth. But that warmth soon vanished when she entered the command center, just to see men running everywhere and a bunch of screens stuck to a flashing boot prompt.

Her mind raced through several possibilities when the chief in question, decorated by several emblems on his uniform, dashed in front of her. “Sorry to do this to you in your first day, but we’ve been hit by a virus. Hard.”

“What? How?”

“It’s crazy. Our cyber security consultant, Jason is his name, is looking into it. He believes it was a Word document.”

“A… word document? But those aren’t—“

“There really isn’t time to explain. In short, they mailed us documents with malicious Macros. They had a dated payload for today that wiped everything. We fear they might have also transmitted secrets somewhere on the net. We can’t know. But regardless, I need you to work with Mark to restore everything as per our contingency plan. Now. He’ll show you around.”

Ioanna did not have time to think. The chief sped through the command center and down a corridor of office rooms. They skipped past them and reached the last larger door labelled as a computer lab.

“I’ll leave you to him, then,” said the chief as he turned around.

Inside, a slurry of green indicator lights blinked in the background where various loud equipment was mounted in server racks. A person was running back and forth with bundles of hard drives in his arms.

“You must be the new gal!” He said as he put down the pile and immediately plugged one into a fat SCSI cable. “I know you don’t know much of anything, but I need you to learn fast. I’m restoring images here. Do you know Unix?” He asked as he typed in the terminal of such a system.

“S-sure…”

“Good. There is another Unix system back there with an external interface. Get working. Now. I’ll tell you which images to restore and for which drives.”

Ioanna wanted to scream. She hoped for a calm enough start, and she got arguably the worst of them all: A live IT crisis caused by a novel virus.

She breathed deeply and jumped to the terminal on the opposite side. Luckily, all incarnations of Unix were more or less the same. The man she never got the name off immediately handed her a pile of drives. “Alright,” he said, “These should be imaged with the file on that server’s directory…”

***​

Elsewhere, a quiet day rolled on. Joshua was on his desk, thinking of his band, when the the loud ring of his deskphone shattered his daydream. He picked it up and answered the usual, “RCMP Qangata.”

“Joshua!” uttered a lady in panic. He recognized her. It was Mrs. Kirima from three blocks down. “It’s my daughter, Akna. I’ve looked everywhere! But I just can’t find her.”

He raised a brow. “I’ll be right over,” he said as he put the phone down and dashed outside to the clear summer weather. He took a turn by a house when, suddenly, he spotted Akna in the middle of a vacant lot, glancing up the clear sky.

Joshua called her name as he went over to her. But Akna did not acknowledge his existence. Not until he got close enough. Akna slowly turned her head to meet his. “Hi, Mr. Joshua,” she said.

“Your mother is worried sick. Where have you been?”

Akna grasped her parka. “I’m… wondering this myself.”

The response hit Joshua in the gut. It’s the same as Miki.

“Did you take any drugs?”

Slowly, she shook her head. “No.”

He didn’t expect much else. “Alright, let’s take you to your mother. She is in a panic.”

***​

Half an hour later, Joshua was back to his desk at RCMP. But he did not have a minute to ponder what just happened. The phone line rang once again. “RCMP Qan—“

“My son! He is gone and I can’t find him.”

You have got to be joking. That’s the first thing that went through Joshua’s head. His fluttery stomach stirred for a second before he rushed right outside. He knew the man who called. It was Tuluk from five streets up. He took a turn, then two, when he spotted his son—Suluk—seated on the dirt against a random house's cold, corrugated wall.

Like Akna, his eyes were fixed to the clear skies. “Hey,” said Joshua.

And like Akna, he slowly turned to meet his gaze. “Hey, Mr. Joshua.”

“Where have you been?”

His smile slowly melted away. “I… don’t know.”

***​

Joshua paid a visit to his sergeant’s office the moment he walked back to the RCMP. “Problem,” he said. “I think there is some kind of exotic drug circling Qangata.

The sergeant narrowed his eyes. “Why do you say that?”

“Four children have vanished. All have returned. But they don’t seem to remember where they were. It’s interesting that all these children are the usual troublemakers, too.”

“It’s a small town.” The sergeant shrugged. “Where would they get it from?”

“The real question is who, and I might know the answer to that.” Joshua slid a picture of Ioanna to his desk. The sergeant picked it up and studied it for a minute. “Looks European.”

“Her name is Ioanna Markopoulou. She just moved here.”

The sergeant, having taken a good look of the seriousness in Joshua’s eyes, glanced back at Ioanna’s photograph.

"Hmmmm..."