My Life Of Evasion

9. 0 to 60 in 1,345,807 Seconds

Chapter 9

0 to 60 in 1,345,807 Seconds

You know it was going to be cold when you have to triple everything you're wearing.  But when there was a wind chill of about twenty below zero, you would, too.  By the amount of fabric I was wearing, I looked like I'd gained about twenty pounds in the ten minutes time that I'd gotten dressed inside the airport building. 

"Don't you smirk at me," I said to Max as I somehow managed to waddle my way over to him.  "You look just like I do, like you gained twenty pounds."

Max started laughing then.  "Well, at least I know I can walk normally.  What was that?"

I meant to cause him pain when I swatted his stomach, but I was only met with the squishy material of his jacket.  "Shut up."

All of our gear was packed into the two planes we were going to go to Antarctica.  Waiting for us on the airfield down there would be a Spryte, which was a vehicle that looked like a huge box van that was able to move through the snow easily.  From then on, we would be by ourselves. 

Ben, Drew, and Sophie were just coming out to us, all dressed like we were.  Dad was talking with the two pilots who would be taking us to Antarctica.  Brielle wasn't going with us.  She was staying in the hotel with Addy, so she would have to hear all about our trip later.  Hopefully, we came back with something helpful, too. 

"Come on," Dad called, waving for us to come over.  "We're ready to go, so let's get moving."

With every step I took, it was becoming more and more easy to walk normally in my thick clothing.  Max walked right beside me, his hand tight in mine, and smiled at me every few moments as we walked toward the planes. 

Once we were piled into the planes – me, Max, and Sophie in one and Dad, Ben, and Drew in the other – we were ready to set off. 

It wasn’t a very talkative ride to the base.  I just mostly stared out the window and watched the land turn to water, which then turned to ice and snow when we started over Antarctica.  I tightened my jacket around me as we made our decent toward the airfield below. 

It was a bumpy landing, but then again, the wind was blowing pretty hard.  I was amazed we hadn’t flown right past the runway. 

Dad, Ben, and Drew were already out of their plane, which had landed just a few minutes before ours.  They were gathering all of the equipment that was in the back.  We each had a backpack, which held bottles of water, food, ice picks, and a bunch of other things just in case we had an accident or something and were stranded for a night or two.  We also had metal detectors just in case whatever was hidden at the coordinates had some sort of metal about it also. 

“Everyone got their gear?” Dad asked.  He had to kind of yell since the wind was starting to pick up.  I lifted my hood over my head and tightened my scarf around my face.  Whenever we got to parts that were even worse with the wind and snow, we were going to have to wear protective goggles so we could see.

Dad was, of course, the one going to drive.  I was sitting beside him with the handheld GPS in my lap.  I had already plugged in the coordinates before we started out and made sure that he was going in the right direction.  By how fast we were going, which was definitely not fast at all, it might take us a little while. 

“So do we know anything about what we might be looking for?” Ben asked from the back.  I knew his question was aimed at Sophie, who was sitting on my other side.

I looked over at her, just as she shook her head.  “There was nothing about that besides the numbers.  It might be in the ice or maybe…”

“Wouldn’t that be the only place it would be able to be?” Drew asked, cutting her off.