Of Ice and Men
Chapter Eight, "For the Better " by Josh Glover
"I . . . I’m the only one left.” Penny’s muffled voice was barely audible as she pressed her face harder against John’s sweatshirt. John could not help but try and comfort this stranger, and although his demeanor appeared warm and reassuring, his face told a different story. Penny had just given John the news he dreaded most. In the whole of New York, only this one woman and her aging dog had survived the ice-nine catastrophe. His face became distant and cold.
Penny’s short, exasperated breaths were becoming more regular as she withdrew from John’s embrace. “My name is Penny, and this here is Jasper,” the woman stated through her sniffles. The three wearied newcomers suddenly came to attention at the mentioning of the woman’s name. They looked at each other knowingly, and questioned further.
Lowe began. “Are you the same Penny who spoke with our Newt about a week ago?” He already knew the answer, but asked the question anyway for good measure.
“Newt! I remember that name!” She was trying to pulling her thoughts together, as her mind was still coming out of its clouded post-cry drowsiness. The events of the last few minutes finally registered and settled in, and Penny livened up as she continued. “Where is he, and who are you all?”
Hazel could not bring herself to look the woman in the eyes, and explained curtly. “We were with Newt back on San Lorenzo, but he and his brother had an unfortunate mishap with the ice-nine on our way here and are no longer with us. I am Hazel, and this is my husband Lowe. And our friend John,” she articulated as she motioned to John, who was looking inquisitively at Jasper.
“This dog–I know him from somewhere . . . ,” John mumbled to himself, too quietly to catch the attention of the others.
At this time, the black Labrador walked humbly to the three newcomers. Hazel and Lowe readily began to pet the animal to divert there attention from the disheartened Penny, but John remained detached, his mind clearly in a different place.
Penny stood there awkwardly. She had felt guilty before because she thought she had given the voice on the other line false hope, but was instead just informed that the man behind the voice died. She could tell by Hazel’s tone and the way she wouldn’t look her in the eye that it was suicide. Someone doesn’t live three years in world frozen by ice-nine and just have a “mishap.” Penny recognized that she had not given Newt false hope: she had given him no hope at all, and it led him to suicide. She wanted to rectify the situation anyway she could, so she was naturally eager to answer any questions.
At that moment, John decided to have a talk with Penny. While Hazel and Lowe were occupying their time with Jasper, whose wagging tail and squirming body showed that he was clearly enjoying the attention, John began.
“When Newt got off the phone with you, he noted how you mentioned the term ‘ice-nine.’ We thought that the ice-nine project was classified, and that no one knew about it except for us. Newt, after all, was the son of its creator.”
“Mr. Hoenikker? You guys knew him?”
“I met him and his children after I decided to write a book about the atomic bomb. He was a chief scientist behind that madness as well.”
Penny didn’t need to be asked. She knew what John was getting at. She readily told him about her connection with the Hoenikker projects.
“My parents were primary investors in the atom bomb project, and after its success, they continued to follow your Mr. Hoenikker’s projects closely. I can still remember phone conversations they had had with him about his latest discoveries or inventions.” Her voice began to trail off as small, glistening tears formed in the corners of her eyes. She quickly wiped them away before they could stream down her face as they had countless other times while she reminisced about her late parents. Although they had always been disconnected from her, she still missed them–now more than ever. But she quickly bounced back to reality and resumed.
“So . . . um . . . yeah, they had been spending lots of money on Mr. Hoenikker and his projects, most recently on ice-nine.” Penny’s voice suddenly became overexcited and rushed. “I wasn’t supposed to know about it, but when so many millions of my potential inherit-.” She paused, gathered herself, and cleared her throat. “. . . of my parents’ money were being spent, I just had to know where the money was going. So I did some digging of my own,” which, she decided not to tell her listeners, involved a trip to their financial advisor’s place in stilettos and some signature red lipstick. She chuckled to herself. It was curious how the woman could be on the brink of tears one minute when talking about her deceased parents, and in an amused stupor the next as she thought about their money.
Nevertheless, John could not believe this amazing coincidence. The woman he was talking to actually knew about ice-nine and its effects. He needed to know more. His thirst for more understanding only grew as he stood there and soaked up the information he was being told.
He questioned hopefully. “Penny, have you ever heard of a substance called ice-ten?”
“That’s supposed to reverse the effects of ice-nine isn’t it?” Even as she replied her eyes widened, realizing the connection to their current situation.
“How do you know about it?”
“My . . . uhh . . . friend, Harrison Connors told me about it. He had been Hoenikker’s research assistant for the project, but had been denied access to the substance by Hoenikker himself.”
John knew that Harrison had been Angela Hoenikker’s husband, and that she had bribed him with her ice-nine so that he would marry her. And now John knew the reason behind Harrison’s frequent “late nights at the office” and the lipstick stains on the man’s shirt collar he had heard about from Angela’s brother. Harrison had indeed been a terrible husband. John put his hands in his pockets and shook his head in disapproval, as if his action would shame the deceased spouse. His left hand hit something folded in his pocket. Newt’s picture! He had almost forgotten about it in the whirl of events that had preceded this moment.
“Penny, did you tell Newt about the ice-ten while you two were on the phone? Do you have any?”
She replied timidly. “I don’t remember telling him about it. I know I told Angela though. We were good friends, after all. And her husband was part of the project anyway. I’m sure we talked about it in passing one time or another. God, it seems so long ago. Three years never seemed like such a length of time before.”
John had to get to the point. “Can you explain this?” He took the folded painting out of his pocket and showed it to the woman. He pointed to the writing on its bottom, where Newt had written Ice-ten is with Penny.
Penny’s jaw dropped. “Where did you find this?”
“Newt drew it right before– right before he left us,” John managed to say with some difficulty. He could see Hazel, Lowe, and the black Labrador walking towards them out of the corner of his eye.
Hazel and Lowe had grown tired of playing with Jasper. Even though he was an older dog, the couple could not keep up with his seemingly endless amount of energy. They approached John and Penny, and realized the gravity of their conversation as soon as they came within earshot. John had Newt’s painting out, and Penny looked as though she had seen a ghost. Jasper trailed the two, his tongue flopping about as he continued to pant from the exercise, which he only seldomly received.
Hazel interjected the conversation with a simple, “How’s everything going over here?” Despite her lack of children, Hazel was still the most naturally mother-like figure John had ever known. She had asked the question with such an innocent grace that Penny could not help but respond immediately, for fear of disappointing the woman.
“The painting that Newt drew is of Hoenikker’s lab. That is the building we have been standing in front of. And inside it is ice-ten.”
“Now you listen here,” Lowe said in a declarative tone. “This is not the time to make us feel like we’ve got some wild shot to turn everything back to normal. How do we even know that you’re telling the truth? What do you even know about this ice-ten stuff anyway?”
“She knew Hoenikker’s assistant, Harrison Connors, Angela’s husband,” replied John.
It was Penny’s turn. “I have a key to the lab: a key that I was given by Harrison,” she explained ashamedly. Penny was looking at the ground, trying to avoid the burning eyes of those around her. She had been able to thaw the world for the past three years, but had decided to instead wait it out and, in effect, caused the deaths of hundreds of millions worldwide.
“I had wanted to steal some ice-ten, so that together with the ice-nine Angela had given Harrison, I could make a fortune. Selling a weapon like ice-nine is not as effective if it cannot be defended against. But paired with its antidote, I would make millions–billions even! Harrison and I had planned to run away together, away from Angela, once I stole the ice-ten. Harrison was too well-known around the lab and would have been easily caught going through Hoenikker’s files and such, so we both knew that in order for our plan to work, I had to do it. Since my parents died right before the freezing, I had dismissed the plan, for I was going to receive enough money from them as it was. And that is why I never sought to find the ice-ten in the last three years. It made no difference to me.”
Silence. Hazel had her hands laced together in front of her, struggling to find something to say to ease the tension of the situation. Lowe began to pace back and forth, visibly irritated. John just stood in his place, not caring about what could have happened or what should have happened, only concerned with what was going to happen. He was fitting together the pieces. Penny had an affair with Harrison, who told her about ice-ten and plotted to steal it and sell it to make a fortune. She told Angela about ice-ten as well, but to what extent, he was unsure. Something was definite, however, Newt knew about ice-ten and he knew Penny knew about it. But how?
John reasoned that Penny was not telling them the whole truth, and he sought to find answers. Just as John opened his mouth to ask Penny about her connection with Newt, a flash of bared teeth and outstretched arms flew past him. Lowe had finally snapped. He drove himself into Penny, knocking her backwards as a plume of ice-nine particles was uplifted from the frosted city sidewalk. Penny screamed. Lowe grinned maliciously. Hazel ran to help. John remained helpless as the plume settled on top of the disturbing scene. Penny was forever frozen with the look of fear in her eyes and her mouth opened so widely and animatedly that her scream could practically still be heard being emitted from it. Lowe’s uncharacteristically sinister gaze at Penny as he hovered over her frozen body was too encased in the ice-nine. Even poor Hazel, who had only wanted to help, was left ice-covered running to the scene, with the most concerned and loving look upon her visage, contrasting against the outright violence and fear of the frozen figures before her.
John sighed a painful sigh. His only solace came from the faithful Jasper at his side. But John had not even had the time to mourn the loss of his friends when Jasper ran off into the nearby building, the one from Newt’s picture.
John followed the black Labrador further into the facility. It was quiet and dark: the only light came from the hazy sun that cast an eerily silver-gold glow through the small window in the hallway. The pair stopped at a door, pushed it open, and entered. The door was plain, wooden, and windowless, with a small plaque with one word written on it: Hoenikker. The room beyond the door proved to be a simple laboratory, neatly arrange and spotlessly clean. The dog led John to the far corner of the lab, where a bookcase stood, filled with journals and notebooks, each with titles written in the same messy scrawl. A small box stood out among the many bindings, completely untouched and seemingly forgotten about. The inscription on the lid jumped out: ICE-TEN. John looked at his sole companion for comfort, and opened it up, knowing that his life was once again about to change forever. This time, hopefully, it would be for the better.