A Retrieval in Times Square

When the arm console beeped to life, it signaled that the internal temperature of the powered armor read fifty-two degrees. External temperature was -140, without wind.

Tasha's boots crunched through the frozen top layers of snow as she trudged through Manhattan. She clicked on the headlight, looking around, and gauged that she was standing level with the fourth storeys of the surrounding buildings. The snowfall rate was keeping steady.

Fifty-two degrees; -143 without wind.

Bright light came from the signs and jumbotrons of Times Square; remnants of a past life, they were the ghosts of Manhattan. They spoke of sugary chemical sodas, beautiful and romantic heart-shaped lockets, and exciting action comedies as though all was well and any of those happy things were possible in the present.

Tasha’s console indicated that her objective was in the square, beneath almost fifty feet of snow. She dislodged the emitter she was carrying, set it in front of her, and stepped back. It lit up like a tiny sun. The snow around it started to glisten, trying to melt. In a minute, it did. The basketball-sized machine began to slowly sink into its own wide crater.

Fifty-three degrees; -144 without wind.

Waiting was the hardest part of any retrieval. Tasha was anxious to get back. No one in their right mind would want to stay out a moment later than they needed to.

The wind knocked her off balance, even with her boots planted in the snow. She hastily checked her console. Same temperature. She took a deep breath and looked around at the signs.

The ghosts looked back. The silver of the locket shimmered like ice as it opened to show a photograph.

A loud tone from her console meant the emitter had hit ground level. She looked into the crater, and gasped, instinctively trying to put her hand over her mouth. She realized at that moment she may have been the first person to see ground in six years. The emitter, sitting next to an armored car, sputtered out.

Fifty-one degrees; -145 without wind.

Tasha attached her cable to the side of a building and rappelled down into the crater. With some effort, she tore open the door of the armored car. A metal crate rested inside, untouched for years. Tasha lit up when her console indicated a higher radiation count than it was moments before. Her thoughts went to the machines that the scientists were talking about, ones that could power heaters forever. Machines that needed radioactive power.

She felt warm on the inside for the first time in six years.

Fifty-two degrees; -142 without wind. The ghosts sent their messages to the space above her.

She strapped the crate to the back of her armor and activated the cable system. The cord remained taut as she climbed the slope of the crater. Her gauntlets and boots broke the frozen layer easily, but coordinating the two sets of limbs wasn’t always easy with the armor. She nearly slipped, her stomach dropping even with the security of the cable. She had to remind herself to keep breathing.

The ghosts welcomed her back with glimmering lights when she reached the top. She could begin to feel the wind again. She sighed, and clicked her console to detach the cable.

It was too soon. The top of the crater had frosted over, and a sudden gust of wind knocked Tasha off balance, and she slipped.

The armored car crunched under the weight of Tasha’s armor. She knew she had broken ribs at the very least. The armor was often clumsy, and trying to get off the destroyed vehicle was excruciating. Once she caught some of her breath, however, she started gasping in panic. She had nothing to attach her cable to. She would have to free climb.

Forty-three degrees; -143 without wind. Worse than the cable, the fall had damaged her armor. Tasha became acutely aware that she might literally freeze to death if she didn’t move quickly.

She climbed, her chest in searing pain just as much from the fall as from her panicked breathing. She didn’t care about the crate or the heat for everybody. She needed to outrun death, which meant a three-mile hike back to her home, assuming she made it to the top.

Which she did. She panted from the effort and wheezed from the panic, all the while straining from the pain. Her headlight was broken. She tried to look around for her tracks, but they’d been blown over and concealed by the dark. She had to go by memory.

Thirty-two degrees; -147 without wind. Tasha’s teeth chattered. The ghosts lit the way for her.

She trudged forward through the square, her bones protesting every step. A loud hiss came suddenly from one of the legs of the armor. A piston had failed. Her console was showing red lights. The leg was unusable. She had to drag it. Her tracks became a footprint and a long line next to it. Dread, the rational kind, started to truly set in.

Nineteen degrees; -150 without wind.

She decided she might be able to tinker with the armor piston if she could get deep into a building, without wind and with better heat conservation. Maybe her emitter had more juice. Optimism.

She started to violently shiver.

Two degrees; -152 without wind.

The second hiss came from her arm, the one hosting the console. The optimism quickly vanished. She hobbled along as quickly and desperately as she possibly could. If she was going to die, she decided, she at least wanted to be out of the square.

-12 degrees; -149 without wind.

The second leg broke down, and the slow hiss drained Tasha of any hope of survival. She tried to calm her breathing as panic and gloom turned into morbid resignation. She flopped onto her back, the crate under her in the snow.

-36 degrees; -147 without wind.

Her skin burned furiously, then lost feeling. Any moment it would all be done. She just had to get through it.

-58 degrees; -145 without wind.

-99 degrees; -146 without wind.

-120 degrees; -146 without wind.

Tasha’s armor collected frost and slowly was covered in snow. The ghosts called to her.

The locket closed.