Black Ice, Red Water

On the frozen surface of a poisoned lake, their last-ditch effort to expose a corporate crime becomes a brutal fight for survival.

Just pull. Just pull back. The thought was a useless mantra, a stupid little prayer sent to the cheap plastic joystick in her numb hands. Ida’s breath plumed in the cold air of the tent, fogging the corner of the monitor. The little submersible, their thousand-dollar Hail Mary, was stuck. On screen, the view tilted drunkenly—a mess of murky green water and the jagged, rust-brown spine of rebar jutting from concrete. Her fault. She’d gotten greedy, pushed in too close for the perfect shot, the money shot.

Her thumb nudged the control again. The drone whined, its tiny thrusters straining against the snag. The video feed flickered, a line of static buzzing across the image of the outflow pipe. It was all there. A thick, black fluid, dense as oil, unspooling from the pipe’s mouth into the dark water. A slow-motion hemorrhage. The poison that had closed the fishery, that had put the strange metallic taste in the tap water, that had made everyone’s kids sick last summer. They had it. Proof.

And now it was snagged on a piece of forgotten construction debris a hundred feet beneath the ice. Fucking perfect. Just like everything else in this godforsaken town. A plan, half-cocked and born of desperation, failing at the last possible second.

The tent flap whipped open, blasting her with a gust of wind that smelled like snow. Paul. His face was red, raw from the cold, eyes wide with something other than the chill.

“Headlights,” he hissed, his voice tight. “Coming from the plant road. Two of them.”

Ida’s stomach dropped, a cold, heavy stone sinking right through her. “How far?”

“Far enough. But they’re moving fast. Snowmobiles.” He knelt beside her, his gaze fixed on the lurching image on the screen. “Get it back. Now, Ida.”

“It’s stuck.” The words felt like admitting defeat. Like giving up. “It’s snagged on rebar or something.”

She worked the controls, left, right, reverse thrust. The drone shuddered. The tether, a thin yellow line running from the control box to the hole in the ice, went taut as a guitar string. On screen, the image tore, dissolving into a blizzard of static before snapping back. The black sludge continued to pour out, mocking her.

“Then cut it,” Paul said, his voice low and urgent. The whine of engines was a faint, angry buzz now, growing louder, carried on the rising wind.

“Cut it? Paul, the footage is on the drive inside the drone. It’s useless to us if we cut it.”

“It’s more useless to us if they find it connected to us,” he shot back. “They see the tether, they see the tent. We’re done.”

He was right. He was right and she hated it. All that risk. Her savings, Paul’s last unemployment check, all for a little piece of electronics now tangled in underwater garbage. The engines were closer now, a distinct two-stroke roar ripping through the quiet of the lake.

No. There was another way. A stupid way. A desperate, stupid way.

“Kill the power,” she said, her fingers hovering over the red button on the console.

“What?”

“Kill the power. It’ll go dark. No lights. No signal. Maybe they’ll think it’s just a snagged fishing line, some debris. They’ll check the hole, see nothing, and move on.”

“Ida, that’s insane. They’re not idiots.”

“It’s better than leaving them a trail right to our door!” The roar was almost on them. No more time to think. Her hand slammed down on the power button.

The monitor went black. The low hum from the control box died. Silence, except for the wind and the approaching machines. Ida ripped the connectors from the box, shoving the monitor and joystick into a canvas bag. Paul was already outside, kicking snow over the auger hole, trying to hide the perfectly circular wound in the ice.

They burst out of the tent just as two beams of light crested the ridge a few hundred yards away, pinning them. They were sleek, black machines, nothing like their own sputtering, twenty-year-old snowmobile. These were security. Corporate muscle.

The two snowmobiles fanned out, circling their position. They didn't slow. They weren't curious; they were hunting. One of the riders, a hulking shape in a dark uniform, pointed directly at the spot where the drone had gone down.

“They’re not leaving,” Paul muttered, his breath catching in his throat.

One of the machines stopped fifty feet away. The rider dismounted, a heavy tool in his hand. A grappling hook. He swung it once, twice, and launched it towards the auger hole. It landed with a dull thud, and the man began to haul on the rope.

“Go! Go now!” Ida screamed, grabbing Paul’s arm.

They scrambled for their machine. It was old, faded red, the seat cracked. Paul yanked the pull-cord. The engine coughed, sputtered, and died. The man with the hook grunted, pulling hard. The yellow tether, their umbilical cord to failure, appeared from the slushy water.

“Come on!” Ida begged, watching the second rider start to move towards them.

Paul gave the cord another violent rip. The engine roared to life, a belch of blue smoke pouring from the exhaust. Ida was already on the back, her arms clamped around Paul’s waist. He twisted the throttle and the machine lurched forward, tracks slipping on the ice before finding purchase.

They took off, not towards the shore, but across the vast, open plain of the lake. A stupid move. Nowhere to hide. But the shore was too far, and the security sleds were between them and the access road. Out here, at least, was a chance.

The headlights of the two machines swung around, pinning them in a cone of white. The chase was on. Their old engine screamed in protest as Paul pushed it to its limit. The wind was a physical force, tearing at her face, whipping her hair. Snow had begun to fall, thick flakes that swirled in the headlight beams, cutting visibility.

Behind them, the two black snowmobiles gained effortlessly. They were faster, more stable. They bracketed them, one on each side, herding them. Ida risked a glance back. The first rider had the drone now, a small, dark shape dangling from its yellow cord. He held it up for his partner to see.

They weren't just retrieving property. They were eliminating witnesses.

“They’re not stopping!” she yelled over the engine’s shriek.

“I know!” Paul yelled back.

He veered sharply, trying to cut behind one of them. The machine fishtailed, the back end sliding out. For a terrifying second, she thought they were going down, but Paul corrected, straightening them out. But they’d lost speed. The other machine closed the gap, pulling alongside them. The rider was a faceless shape behind a tinted visor. He steered his machine into them.

The impact was a jarring crunch of metal and plastic. Their sled bucked, tilting dangerously. Paul fought the handlebars, his whole body tense. The guard hit them again, harder this time. A piece of their fiberglass cowling shattered, spinning away into the dark.

“Pressure ridge!” Paul screamed, a moment too late.

Ida saw it then—a line of fractured, upturned ice directly in their path, invisible in the swirling snow until they were on top of it. Paul tried to turn, but there was no time. The front ski hit the ridge at full speed. The world became a violent, weightless tumble of noise, snow, and pain.

Ida was thrown clear. She hit the ice hard, the impact knocking the wind out of her lungs. Her head slammed against something—the ice, the machine, she didn't know. Stars exploded behind her eyes. For a moment, there was only the high-pitched ringing in her ears and the rough, cold texture of the ice against her cheek.

She pushed herself up. Her arm screamed in protest, a sharp, grinding pain from her shoulder. The snowmobile was on its side, its single headlight pointing crazily at the sky, the engine finally dead. Paul was a crumpled heap ten feet away, trying to push himself up, his leg bent at an angle that wasn't right.

The two black machines idled nearby, their headlights illuminating the wreckage. The guards dismounted, walking towards them with a deliberate, unhurried pace. They weren't medics. They were assessors.

One of them knelt by Paul, who was groaning, clutching his leg. The guard didn’t offer a hand. He just looked. The other one walked over to their downed sled and ripped their small CB radio from its mount. He raised it over his head and brought it down on the engine block, smashing it into a mess of plastic and wires.

He kicked at their emergency pack, sending a flare gun skittering across the ice into the darkness. Then he turned and walked back to his partner. They exchanged a few words, too low for Ida to hear over the rising wind. They looked at Ida, then at Paul, then at the sky, where the storm was closing in for good.

Without another word, they mounted their snowmobiles. They turned, their powerful engines cutting easily through the deepening snow. They didn't look back.

The last red glow of their taillights vanished, leaving only the sound of the wind and the cold seeping into Paul's broken bone.