short story

Greenland Ice Sheet
Daniel sat at the edge of a crevice, squinting at the blinding snow. Ice crystals gathered on his short beard.
     “Can you hear it?” Becca asked, her fingertips on her headphone. Her brown eyes sparkled in the brilliance.
     Daniel wrapped his headphones on and listened to the sound of droplets falling into a subterranean pool. He closed his eyes, visualizing the crystalline water rolling down bluish icicles and free-falling in wobbly drops to the black water far below. The faint timpani of after-splatter rang exquisitely. The glacier harbored a secret in its song, and they were determined to decipher it.
     Employed by The Brachae Institute of Global Warming, Becca was in her third year, and Daniel in his second year of employment. At the end of his trial week, Becca had asked him to Happy Hour at her favorite bar. Two drinks in, she made a comment about being a woman of color. When he responded with “Don’t you mean a woman of brown sugar?” her laugh and the twinkle in her eyes made clear the romance was on.
     Becca removed her headphones and packed up the audio equipment. “This isn’t the only crevice that’s appeared since I was here last. Laura said they’re appearing everywhere.”
     Laura McGann, former boss and friendly colleague, ran the Institute of Paleoclimatology, a boutique non-profit. She gathered raw data on glaciers, a long-standing passion of hers.
     “She said her team found five new ones last month. She’s certain there are more.”
     “Judging from the sound, the drops are falling at least a hundred meters into a sizable body of water,” Daniel said. “Hard to say if it’s a pond or a lake.”
     “My guess is all of these crevices are contributing their melt to the same body of water,” Becca said. “That would be a lake.”
     “Dr. Ober will crap his shorts,” Daniel said, referring to their supervisor.
     “I am so tired of him,” Becca said. After logging their audio files, they picked up their gear, climbed aboard a helicopter, and moved on to their favorite crevice. As they neared, the thunder of crashing water overcame the racket from the helicopter blades.
     “Jesus, it sounds like Niagara Falls!” Daniel set the chopper down. They leapt out and approached the edge.
     Becca glanced at her audio gage. “The volume of water flow per second has doubled since last time.”
     The icy aquamarine rim of the crevice descended into ocean blue, and faded to black. Their bodies vibrated from the all-encompassing sound of invisible, crashing water. They looked at each other.
     “We have to do something,” Becca said.

Quincy, Massachusetts, July 14th.
Dr. Ober sat at a desk overwhelmed by a mess of notebooks and partially-opened mail. On the bookshelf, most of the volumes leaned sideways, many stuffed with papers. Narrow windows overlooked the parking lot. While Daniel looked athletic in a t-shirt and cargo shorts, the same attire – with fuzzy hair, a balding pate, and paunchy waistline – made Dr. Ober look homeless.
     “The thing about melting glaciers…” Dr. Ober stopped and stared off into space. Moments ticked by.
     “Melting glaciers…?” Becca crossed one leg over the other.
     Dr. Ober resumed. “The thing about melting glaciers is, the facts are still rolling in.”
     “Really?” Daniel raised his eyebrows. “Anything recent?”
     “Well,” Dr. Ober sat at the edge of his desk and folded his arms. “We’ve learned more about extremophiles, one-celled creatures that can survive extreme environments.”
     “We don’t care what’s in the glacial water,” Daniel said. “We’re concerned about the increasing melt rate. It’s accelerating. We need to establish a baseline.”
     “Yes, the glaciers are melting,” Dr. Ober said as if schooling a child. “That is not news. It would be nice if we had the funding to do more research but that’s not a high priority right now.”
     “Why are one-celled creatures a higher priority than melting glaciers?” Daniel asked.
     Dr. Ober picked up a piece of paper. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but there’s nothing that can be done. Now if you’ll excuse me.” He donned his bifocals and scanned the page in hand.
     Daniel glanced at Becca. They had planned to let Dr. Ober come to the obvious conclusion so he would feel in charge. Clearly that wasn’t working.
     “There is something we can do, Dr. Ober,” Becca said. “If we measure the melt rate of the crevices that are springing up over Greenland and Antarctica, and the volume of water gathering below, we can establish a baseline. Then we can measure the water volume of each lake every three months to see if it is growing, and by what rate.”
     “I said, if you’ll excuse me,” Dr. Ober snapped. “Do I need to tell you to get out of my office?”
     Daniel approached his desk. “Dr. Ober, when you interviewed me you said you were looking for people who had a passion for this line of work, because the job could be grueling and thankless. You were looking for people who cared deeply about things like melting glaciers and rising ocean levels. So my question is—”
     “Daniel,” Becca said, grabbing his arm.
     “—how much do you care?” Daniel pressed on.
     “Do I need to write you up for insubordination?” Dr. Ober asked.
     “I’m not asking for a favor,” Daniel said. “I am asking you to let us do our job.”
     “Daniel, let’s go,” Becca said, pulling him away.

Daniel stormed down the hallway. Becca speed-walked to keep up. When they turned into the break room she was relieved to find it deserted. He grabbed his coffee cup from the cupboard over the sink, snatched the coffee pot from its burner and splashed the thick black liquid into his mug.
     “Daniel,” Becca said quietly once they were sitting at the table, “I know where the ground-water detection equipment is.”
     Daniel raised one eyebrow as he slurped his coffee. She had his attention.
     “Six months before you arrived,” she continued, “Dr. Ober asked Laura McGann to take the equipment to basement storage. She had already accepted the new job and was packing up. She asked me to move the equipment. I still have the key to the storage room.”
     “Has anyone used the equipment since you moved it?”
     “I don’t think its ever been used. Dr. Ober acts like it doesn’t exist.”
     “To him, it doesn’t. What kind of equipment are we talking about?”
     His eager tone made her smile. “We have a proton magnetic resonance system, ground-penetrating radar, and a ground-based radio-echo profiler.”
      “Schweet,” Daniel said in a falsetto. “The Antarctic will be past the vernal equinox in just a few months. We should take the equipment down there.”
     “And look for extremophiles?” Becca asked with a grin and a wink. “That’s a great idea.”

November 2, Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica
Dr. Gilbert Lamb, New Zealand’s leading glaciologist, gripped the steering wheel of the Sno-Cat, his ice-blue eyes sparkling merrily as he yelled over his shoulder. He was packed in Gor-Tex and down, his head topped by a hunting cap with the flaps pulled over his ears. “I finally got a chance to read your charter,” he said in his characteristic New Zealand accent. “I didn’t know the goal of this expedition was gathering extremophiles. Not to be a bother, mate, but extremophiles are not my wheelhouse.”
      “Don’t worry,” Becca said, shooting a glance at Daniel. “The charter is just paperwork that needs to be filled out to, you know, get the funding we need for this research.”
     Gil leaned back and guffawed. “Because the foundations won’t front a dime if they know you’ll give them bad news about melting glaciers and tipping points. Am I right?”
     “Are we that transparent?” Daniel asked.
     “I am sensing this project will be a great success,” Becca exclaimed.
     “And I am sensing you two won’t have your jobs much longer, but don’t let that ruin your fun,” Gil said, still chuckling. He pulled off the plowed road onto a flat mesa and stopped.
      “We're here,” he said.
     “This is Lake Whellan?” Becca asked. Compared to the lumpy, rolling terrain behind them, the frozen lake was startlingly flat and still, save for wispy streams of powdered snow lifted by the random breeze.
     “Did you bring your snorkels and water skis?” Gil asked.
     Daniel chuckled as he got out of the cab. Once the equipment was set up, they took readings.
     “I’ve read most of the sub-glacial lakes in Antarctic change very little over time,” Becca said.
     Gil snorted. “That is old research, my dear. The lakes discovered in the early twentieth century are static. But over the last couple decades, 124 new lakes have been discovered, and that number keeps climbing. When it comes to active water flow, the new lakes are bucking broncos compared to the old ones. There is no doubt they’re fed by melting glaciers, but you better be careful who[m] you say that to.”
     “In your professional opinion,” Daniel said, looking pointedly at Gil, “what is the end game here?”
     Gil slowly shook his head. “These glacial lakes will get larger and larger, and eventually meld into one massive lake.”
     “How do you know?” Becca asked.
     “Because that’s what happened the last time,” Gil said.
     “What do you mean ‘the last time?’” Becca asked. She felt a chill run down her spine.
     “Roughly thirteen-thousand years ago, the earth went through a rapid warming trend. The ice sheet that covered the Canadian east coast melted from the inside, creating a massive sea hundreds of feet above the Atlantic sea-level.”
     “Are you talking about that glacial lake in Manitoba, during the Younger Dryas period?” Daniel asked.
     “Yep,” Gil said, “it has a name now – Lake Agassiz. As the glacier melted, the ice walls that held it in became thinner until the water pressure cracked it, which resulted in a massive glacial outburst flood.”
     “Do you think that could happen again?” Daniel asked.
     “It is happening again,” Gil said, his eyes popping. “People assume epochal changes to our planet take place gradually over time. Actually, they happen suddenly. The dinosaurs didn’t die out over millions of years. They died in a few hours due to an asteroid strike that superheated the earth’s atmosphere and fried everything on the planet’s surface. The only life that survived was either a foot underground or 20 feet below the waters’ surface."
     “Glaciers melt slowly at first,” Gil continued, squinting, “but the more they melt, the faster. The water builds up into a sea within the ice sheet. At some point there’ll be a warm-water monsoon that hammers those glacial walls and we’ll have another glacial outburst flood that will wipe out port cities and re-arrange coastlines all around the globe. In a matter of hours, not centuries.”
     They worked in silence. There was no sound but the whistling breeze.

The following month, Dr. Ober had the latest data on Antarctica extremophiles to show off at the annual Boston Life Science Forum.
     “Keep up the good work,” he ordered.
     They did keep it up. Becca and Daniel arranged a press conference in San Diego at the annual Global Warming Forum, allowing Dr. Ober to believe they would dutifully present their report on extremophiles. But they had other plans.
     They arrived at 7 a.m. to set up their presentation. Becca assembled the video equipment while Daniel set up a series of ice blocks on the table, removing them from the dry ice and setting them out in the broad sunlight at half hour intervals. By 9:30 am, all five blocks were in varying stages of melting. When the reporters arrived, Becca handed out flyers with bulleted facts about melting ice sheets. She stepped up to the microphone.
     “Good afternoon and thank you for coming. My name is Becca Hart and the gentleman standing by the melting ice blocks is my colleague, Daniel Silver. We have recently returned from Antarctica where we have collected some compelling data on melting ice sheets and sub-glacial lakes.” She reviewed the facts listed on the handout, then passed the microphone to Daniel.
     “What we have here,” Daniel said, “are five models of ice in various stages of melting. I placed them in the sun for a reason. Most of us assume a large block of ice melts from the outside in. That happens when ice melts indoors. But, as you can see,” Daniel approached the first block of ice, “when ice melts under the sun, a completely different set of physics comes into play. Notice this block, the first one I put out, no longer has a solid top.” He splashed his fingers on the top of the cube to make his point. “But the walls of the ice block are still intact. This one,” he moved behind the second block, has a sizable cavern of melted water forming on the inside. That’s because ice has glass-like qualities. The sun’s rays are not stopping at the surface of the ice block, rather they are stopping somewhere in the interior. The sun’s rays might focus at a crack that forms a plane. Or the light might become concentrated at a point inside the ice, much like sunlight passing through a magnifying glass. The upshot is, ice melting indoors succumbs only to the higher room temperature. But ice that melts under the sun succumbs to the physics of direct sunlight, which can produce unexpected results.”
     The first block burst its side and splashed Daniel’s abdomen with a rush of cold water. A sharp shriek emerged from the crowd, followed by a round of nervous laughter.
     Becca regained the microphone. “There is mounting evidence the planet’s largest ice sheets, in Greenland and Antarctica, are not just melting at an accelerating rate, they are melting from the inside. This could result in what is known as a glacial outburst flood incident, which will send a massive amount of water into the ocean. This will result in a sudden and dramatic rise in sea level.
     “It is illogical to suggest that a such an event could never happen, because it already has – thirteen-thousand years ago. If Noah and the Ark has a grain of truth to it, it is likely about a glacial outburst flood that originated in Eastern Canada, rushed across the Atlantic, and flooded the entire Mediterranean region. This epochal flood of the Younger Dryas period is codified science. There is no denying it.”
     Becca paused to wave Daniel to the podium for closing remarks.
     Daniel cleared his throat. “Naysayers in the scientific community will likely point out there is no evidence that our planet is at risk of a similar epochal flood, but a large-scale study on how glaciers melt over time, as our planet warms, has never been undertaken. Here’s a tip from a scientist. Lack of information is no substitute for information. So please don’t be fooled by the argument of ‘no evidence’ when the people making the argument refuse to gather it. As a nation, and as a species, we need to take this matter seriously.”
     The reporters stared at them, stone-faced.
     “Any questions?” Becca asked.
     The sparse crowd murmured to each other. A young man raised his voice. “Are there other climatologists who will confirm your theory about the glacial outburst… flood incident?”
     Becca and Daniel glanced at each other.
     “Yes,” Daniel said a bit too loud into the microphone. “Our colleague, Dr. Gilbert Lamb of the New Zealand Royal Institute of Geology, is one of the world’s leading glaciologists. He would be happy to fill you in further. I can give you his contact information.”

Two weeks later
They both received the email at the same time. They met in the hall on the way to Dr. Ober’s office.
     “What do you think this is about?” Becca asked.
     “Not sure,” Daniel said. “Gil told us our jobs wouldn’t last long.”
     “I thought he was kidding,” Becca said.
     “I thought so too, but now I’m not so sure.”
     As they entered, they blanched at the sight of Dr. Ober’s office. His desk was not just clear, it was spotless, as was the bookshelf. Dr. Ober sat at his desk in a suit jacket and tie, his hair freshly shorn with a shellacked comb-over. His face was grim.
     “Please have a seat,” he said. He handed them each a sheet of paper.
     The letters were short, but Becca was so incredulous, she read hers twice to ensure she had not misunderstood. “We’re being terminated?” she asked.
     Dr. Ober folded his arms. “If you have any complaints, write your congressman. This decision came from way over my head. I had to fight like hell to keep my own damn job.”
     “You know they’re wrong,” Daniel said. “They’re not terminating us because our science is bad, they’re kicking us to the curb because they don’t want to hear the truth.”
     “Not my problem,” said Dr. Ober.
     “Not your problem!” Becca snarled. “It is everybody’s fucking problem!”
     “A verbal assault?” Dr. Ober huffed. “Don’t make me call security.”
     Daniel remained calm. “What do you believe, Dr. Ober? Seriously, why are you even here?”
     They stared at each other for several seconds.
     “I am not leaving,” Daniel continued, “until you tell us what you truly believe about global warming.”
     “Look,” Dr. Ober suddenly deflated. “Climatologists have known for decades that epochal floods go hand-in-hand with global warming cycles. These cycles have repeated over the past 400 million years. And that’s everyone’s excuse for not taking it seriously. Oh, it’s happened time and again over the course of earth’s history. But no one wants to consider there was no Manhattan, or Shanghai, or London back then. No one wants to admit that just one glacial flood could leave every coastal city in the world under 30 to 60 feet of water. You think you’re doing the world a favor by warning them the end is near?” Dr. Ober imitated a school principal at a pep rally. “Hey, listen up kids, did you know half of the earth’s human population will one day be swept away by a glacial flood? But we can’t tell you which day, or year, or even which century. That’s all, sports fans. You can go back to class now.
     “They will hate you!” Dr. Ober’s voice rose. “Or just laugh, like, ‘hey aren’t you supposed to wear a tinfoil hat when you say that?’ And when the media are done excoriating you, the forces that be will move in for the kill. At the very least they’ll shred your credibility, destroy your career, and drive you into bankruptcy.”
     “What do you mean, the forces that be?” Becca asked.
     “The corporate-sponsored foundations that decide who gets funded and who doesn’t. Politicians who finance their campaigns with donations from big oil. Who do you think is paying for all this research? Money talks, my friends, and that’s one thing they have an ocean of. Me? I’ve got my 401K, which is just enough to keep me comfortably middle-class when I retire, and I am not messing that up. Not for you,” he said pointing at Daniel, and Becca, “or the fucking human race, whom [which] will turn on you and tear you to pieces if you keep shouting this shit from the rooftops!” He stopped, red-faced and panting. “You two are sweet,” Dr. Ober said, his voice somewhat more calm. “I used to be like you. When I first started, I wanted nothing more than to save the world. Boy did the world school me.”

Fifteen years later
Life at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains suited the former glaciologists. They married and had a girl with curly blonde hair and cornflower-blue eyes, followed by a boy with shiny chocolate-brown hair and a year-round tan.
     Gil spent a month with their family mid-summer, when New Zealand suffered the short, cold days of wintertime. Their kids, Amelia and Wyatt, took to calling him Uncle Gil.
     One year, shortly after Easter, Gill’s voice boomed over the speaker-phone. “I want to take your family on a once-in-a-lifetime cruise,” he said. “There’s a fabulous one that will take us to the Antarctic. We can sail further into the Greenland fjords than any other ship out there. And I guarantee you will see amazing things that the other cruise lines don’t even know exist.”
     “That sounds great,” said Daniel, “What’s the date of departure?”
     “May 1st.”
     “Hmm,” Becca shook her head. “We’d have to take the kids out of school. Becca’s on the varsity volleyball team. She would miss the final tournament.”
     “She can play in the tournament next year. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Listen to Uncle Gil.”
     “We could home-school them on the boat,” Daniel said. “These glaciers are melting so fast, they won’t be around long.” ***

May 6th, Greenland
Their family and Gil were the only guests on the ship.
     “OK, I admit it’s not really a cruise ship,” Gill confessed, once they were all aboard. “This craft is specially designed to gather scientific data on the ice sheets. But the cabins are nice.”
     “Actually, they are,” said Becca. “Everything is brand new. I like it.”
     They stared at the snowy white cliffs of the glaciers towering above them. Turning, the boat sailed into a broad glacial fjord. The brilliant blue water snaked between snowy canyon walls.
     Gill went to the edge of the boat. The others followed. “Once we get past this next turn, you are not going to believe your eyes,” he said. “It will remind you of a conversation we had long ago.”
     When they rounded the bend, Becca was stunned at the spectacle looming before her. “Oh!” she gasped. “Oh no!”
     “Isn’t that beautiful?” Gil announced, beaming with pride, as if he had personally created the phenomenon.
     They stared at a mirror-smooth, monolithic wall of cerulean-blue ice, clear as glass and broad as a football field. The gleaming surface disappeared into thick glacial snow around the edges. The ice wall had the mystical glow of sunlight hitting liquid water. There was no denying it. They were staring at a glacial sea hemmed in by a wall of ice.
     “That is eerie,” said Amelia. “Like a revelation.”
     Her voice sounded far away. Becca could not take her eyes off the crystalline ice wall, spellbound by its beauty even as it horrified her.
     “Here’s the real kicker,” Gil continued, barely containing his glee, “this isn’t the only one. These ice walls are popping up all over the Greenland ice sheets, and they’ve found three in Antarctica, so far.”
     As they stared, shadowy figures beyond the blue glassy ice approached until their whiskered faces were at the ice wall.
     “Oh my God!” Amelia squealed. “They’re seals!” She raised her binoculars to her eyes. “Oh look at their puppy faces— so cute.”
     The seals stared back at them as they flapped up and down the interior of the ice wall, as if begging them to come play. At once, they all turned and zoomed away, leaving trails of fine bubbles in their wake.
     Daniel finally found his voice. “How long before they… you know.”
     Gil smiled. “Come back to run up and down the ice wall for your amusement? Not long.”
      “No. How long before they…” Daniel put his fingertips together and exploded them outward. “Poof.” He didn’t want to say ‘burst’ in front of the kids.
     “Oh— who knows?” Gil mused. “This is all new. Maybe a century, maybe a year.”
      “Jesus, Gill!” Becca said, “If they could… if it could happen in a year’s time, we need to get the hell out of here.”
     “What are you guys talking about?” Amelia asked.
     “No!” Wyatt exclaimed. “I don’t want to leave, this is radical. I want to go further in and find more ice walls. There’re more of these, right Uncle Gil?”
     “One more, but it’s somewhat smaller.” He assured his guests there were others larger than the first they had seen, but they were too far up the fjord.

Becca exhaled in relief when the captain turned the boat around and headed south. A week later they sailed down the coast of Massachusetts and anchored in Gloucester Harbor, enjoying the reflection of the lights on the water until well past dinner. The next day dawned like heaven. Thick clouds lined in bright peach hovered above the eastern horizon. The waves beneath them shifted with reflections of silver and rose. The crisp morning air warmed quickly in the rising sun. After breakfast, they raised anchor and headed south toward Boston. The breeze felt good on Becca’s face. She lowered the zipper on her fleece hoody.
     “Here’s Boston,” Daniel said. “Can you see the high rises? That’s where your mother and I met.”
     “I thought you guys met in Quincy,” Wyatt said.
     “Boston, Quincy. What’s the difference?” Daniel looked at Becca, and they both burst into laughter. The kids didn’t get the joke.
     Gil suddenly exploded onto the deck. “Get below!” he barked.
     At first Becca thought he was horsing around, but the look on his face terrified her. Without a thought, they grabbed the kids and hustled them down the stairs. The crew members on the far side of the hold were strapped into their chairs.
     Gil pushed Amelia and Wyatt into upholstered chairs and buckled them in before slipping crash helmets over their heads. Becca and Daniel fell into chairs and strapped themselves in. Gil buckled himself into a nearby seat. “There’s no time for helmets,” he said to Becca and Daniel. “Just put your arms on the side of your head and hang on!”
     A powerful force slammed into the boat, jarring them. The next moments were an insane jumble of spinning, hurling and falling, like a nightmarish carnival ride. Throughout the swirling chaos of flying magazines, coffee mugs, jackets, and screams, Becca could not tell the difference between one second and eternity. Her only comfort was in seeing her children safely fastened in their seats. When it was over, they were upright and relatively still.
     “Hold tight!” said Gil. “That was just the first one. The others won’t be as powerful.”
     Seconds later they tipped back in their chairs. Becca thought they would tumble again, but the boat stabilized and in moments, they tipped forward. The boat tipped back again and Becca realized, they were riding out extreme high waves.

They emerged when it calmed, and silently stared at the coastline. A cold sense of unreality slithered down Becca’s shoulders. The ocean had engulfed Boston. Only the upper half of the skyline remained above the waves. Ferry boats and yachts floated amidst the sky scrapers, some rocking upright, some on their sides. The sunken city emitted a horrible hum. Becca wondered if she was imagining it. “What is that noise?” she asked.
     “Car horns underwater,” Gil said in a flat, faraway voice.
     Becca shivered violently and reached for Daniel. He wrapped his arms around her. Gone was the sunny day. Mist seized the sky. Wyatt stood at the edge of the boat, staring into nothing.
     “Wyatt,” she called. Her heart sank when he turned and looked at her with the eyes of an old man.