The three doctors sat cross-legged, chipping ice off a chandelier. It was one of many amenities shipped northward over the last six weeks. Crates and pallets arrived by propeller plane, pushed through the air by combustion and planning and money. Along with the chandelier was a china set, two Turkish rugs, a portable toilet, and a case of brandy, among other things. All spared no expense, all shipped north. The amenities came from all over the world, but that hardly mattered. The doctors were north of everywhere.

Doctor Johanssen wiped the sweat from his brow. His wrists were numb. There had been a problem with the shipping of the chandelier. Some tear in the bubble wrap, or the long veil of plastic, had allowed condensation to freeze. That wasn’t unusual. Everything froze if given the opportunity.

The bigger issue, Doctor Lu thought, was the time these preparations diverted from work. In the past six weeks, thermometers had gone unchecked, field notes left in disarray, greenhouses awarded minimum attention. He would be glad when the ordeal was over. He looked forward to the moment, less than fifty hours away by his watch, when they would wave goodbye to the most hated man in America.

Doctor Harlan tried not to think about anything. It was a skill he had developed over many years, a trick to disassociate himself from the drudgery of being a scientist. He chipped ice from the chandelier the same way he installed the heating system in the new yurt. The way he assembled the yurt in the first place. He completed every job linearly, down a track, like a sled with runners. Harlan found it best to break down each task to its barest components, and perform those components step by step, as a means of self-preservation. His work would have felt too insignificant, had he ascribed it any significance at all. He knew no other method of being an ecologist.

Johanssen stood and shook out his wrists. The other two stopped and watched him.

“That’s done, jah?” his bright blue eyes tried to smile. “We put it up now.”

The most hated man in America arrived by dog sled. He did not drive. He sat in the front in a parka jacket, a puffy green hood ornament. Cortlandt Bright was a tycoon, the sort of man who had the strings of the world stitched into his loafers. His wide, bald head dominated magazine covers in supermarket checkout lines. He dated a carousel of glamour models, owned one professional football team, and had founded two newspapers, one on each side of the political spectrum. He had become the most hated man in America only recently. In fact, it occurred of his own volition.

There was no record of his purchase. The rights were sold at private auction. He publicized it himself, in all of his media outlets. He posted a selfie announcing the news, smiling broadly in a terry cloth robe. In the six weeks that followed, distant corners of the internet banded together to revile him, admonish him, even hate him. Long, tumbling screeds raved against him on social media. Late-night hosts skewered him. An online petition threatening to boycott Bright Industries had been signed by a hundred thousand faceless usernames.

Brand recognition had never been stronger.

The dog sled came to a halt. The green giant stepped off, untied a duffel bag, and the sled left without him. Bright unwound his scarf, revealing a wide smile and chapped lips.

“Good thing I didn’t wear my sandals!” he boomed, rubbing his shoulders. He shook the hands of each doctor, with a grip like a vice. They stepped into the yurt to have dinner.

“Great land up here,” Bright growled, leaning back on his stool. They were in the smaller of the two yurts, where the doctors lived. “The edge of fuck-knows-where, huh? Take a piss off the peak of the world. Course, your balls’d freeze off, the moment you whipped it out.”

Johanssen laughed. It was up to the doctors to make their guest comfortable. Harlan prepared four cups of cocoa. Lu cooked Kobe beef on the small solar-powered grill.

“To be honest with ya,” Bright said, glancing around the kitchenette, the wall of file cabinets, and the triple-high bunk bed, “I thought you guys might live in an igloo.”

“No,” Johanssen said.

“No? Ah. Well.” Bright considered something a moment, then waved it away. “Did you see the dog sled? I did that by choice, you know. I chose to take the dog sled. The dog sled was my choice. They told me I should take a helicopter, but I said, no, I wanted the full thing. Hell, I’d cut a hole in the ice and throw a line in if you wanted. Do you guys ever go ice fishing?”

“No,” said Harlan.

“I did as a boy, a little, jah,” said Johanssen. “In Norway.”

“Norway, huh?” whistled Bright. “You don’t say. Good, good! What about you, Lu? Where’re you from?”

Lu pretended not to hear over the sizzle of the grill.

“He is from China,” Johanssen said.

“China! Well, that’s good too.”

Harlan served the cocoa.

“What about you, Doctor Harlan?” Bright asked, his stubbed fingers tapping his stomach. “Where’d you come from? Egypt? Zimbabwe?”

“Harlem.”

Bright frowned. Harlan could see his trip to the North Pole lose a touch of the exotic. But after a moment, he smiled again.

“Harlan from Harlem! Huh, doctor? That’s good too!”

He reached for a silver flask from some inner puff of his jacket and unscrewed the cap with his teeth. He tipped a heavy pour into his cocoa.

“Doctor Harlan is the one, who is been taking most of the pictures,” Johanssen said. “He takes good pictures of c-134, jah?”

Bright looked up from his drink. He took the cap out of his mouth. “You took those pictures, the ones in the magazines? The ones all over the news?”

Harlan nodded.

“Hey, those are great!” Bright said. He offered a drop of his flask to the doctors, but only Johanssen humored him by holding out his mug. “They’re really great. You’ve really made that fuzz ball a celebrity, you know that? I mean hell, only reason I’m up here is because of those pictures.”

“Thank you,” said Harlan.

“You make the thing look so…human. I mean, you really give the goddamned thing a life, you know that? Do you know that?”

“Thanks,” Harlan said again.

Bright shrugged as if he had given away too many compliments. “Well, anyway.” He reached down to untie his boots. He had fat feet, and loose laces helped them to breathe. They were new boots, never worn before.

“That story in the National Geographic, let me tell you, everybody really picked that story up. It really drove up the price at the auction. Black Rhino went for twelve million a few years ago. Last year, Giant Panda went for fifteen. That one, you know, I don’t get. A fucking panda? Where’s the fun in that? Just walk right up to the thing! It’ll probably try to suck you off. Save your money, go buy a pin cushion.”

Johanssen kept smiling.

“This is the one. Everybody wanted this one. Partly cause of your pictures, Harlan! That goddamned story, it was picked up everywhere. You oughta feel great. Twenty-five million is a lot of money.”

“It is,” Harlan said.

“Twenty-five million,” he repeated, drinking from his mug. He shook his head. “That’s a hell of a lot of money to you guys. The environment, I mean. I overpaid, I admit it. But it’s for a good cause, huh? I bet you guys can really do a lot with that.”

“Yes, jah,” Johanssen clasped his hands in a minor display of gratitude. “Thank you much, Mr. Bright.”

“Ah, well. You’re welcome much! Of course!” he waved his hand. “This is going to be good. This is going to be really good for all of us.” He tipped his mug. “So, what happens tomorrow?”

“Doctor Harlan will take you out in the chopper,” said Johanssen. “He is the best pilot, you will be safest with him.”

“The chopper? I already told the guys at the auction I don’t want a chopper. Get another sled out here.”

“c-134 hunts over a range of five hundred miles,” Harlan said evenly. “We’ll only have a few hours to get out and come back. Once the sun goes down, that’s it.”

“And here I thought this place was getting warmer,” Bright laughed.

“Doctor Harlan, jah, he is a good pilot,” repeated Johanssen. “He will fly where you need to go.”

Bright acquiesced. “Alright, alright, don’t break my arm off about it. Doctor’s orders. But look, tomorrow, huh? Drop me off and go away for a while, will you? Gimme a walkie-talkie or something. I’ll call when I’m ready to get picked up. You guys have walkie-talkies, don’t you?”

The doctors nodded.

“Good. That’s perfect. I don’t want any distractions out there. I’ll let you know when I’m done.” He stirred a finger in his cocoa and quaffed the whole mug. “You seem like a good bunch of guys. Do you have internet up here? You don’t, do you? Let me tell ya, and you’re not gonna believe this, but people’ve been saying some real awful stuff about me.”

“We heard,” Harlan said.

“I mean dammit, people have been playing off like the whole fucking state of affairs up here is my fault! The whole—situation! They go to coffee shops drinking from plastic cups, and sit on their laptops sucking up power, and bitch on the internet about how I’m the end of the fucking world! As if my pipelines went nowhere. As if everything doesn’t flow right into their convenient little lives. And lemme tell ya right now—it’s the kids, I know it is. The kids who can’t get laid, or are trying to get laid, so all they do is sit around and fantasize about my throat getting ripped out as if I was the devil or something. Twenty-five million…that’s a lot of money!”

“Are you okay feeling, Mr. Bright?” Johanssen asked. “Have you had too much to drink?”

Bright shrugged, but raised his flask for another swig. “Do you guys know what you’re doing wrong? Could you take a little constructive criticism, from a man of business? It’s alright if you say no—but you want to know, don’t ya?”

Johanssen nodded.

“Well alright, here it is. Cause I feel some real pity for you guys, I mean it, I really do. I mean, you guys are up here all alone, trying to save the fucking world, and nobody is listening to you! It’s gotta feel real bad. But look, the problem is that people are listening, you’re just not telling them to do anything. You’re telling them to use less and do less and to have less, but shit, nobody wants less. What the hell is wrong with you guys? That’s why these kids are so angry. They feel bad for existing. You guys keep saying, the world would be a better place if we were all dead. That’s why they hate me so much. They’re so fucking neutered, they can’t handle how happy I am to be alive. They can’t handle that I have beliefs.”

He took another swig of the flask. Nobody asked him what he believed, but he told them anyway.

“I believe in adventure! I believe in exploration! But the thing I really believe in most of all—and this is what those bleeding heart, dying dove motherfuckers can’t stand even though they preach about it every fucking day—I believe in myself!”

“You’re really going through with it,” said Harlan.

“Huh?”

“You’re really going through with it?” Harlan asked.

Bright laughed a little, showing some teeth.

“Didn’t I pay for it? I’m all the way up here, aren’t I? What kind of moron pays twenty-five million dollars just to sit on it? Of course I’m doing it. I’m excited for tomorrow, hell I’ve been dreaming about it. You just keep the engine running, alright?” He leaned back and hollered toward Lu: “And the grill too! Steak again tomorrow, eh Lu!?”

Standing over the grill with his back to the others, Lu was crying.

Bright and Harlan flew over the white desert, silent save the noise of the helicopter. Bright was in his green jacket again, zipped to the chin. A long wooden case rested against his shoulder. They had been flying for hours.

Harlan maneuvered the helicopter steadily. He was not used to going into the wilderness. The helicopter was only used for emergencies and supplies. He followed a blip on a handheld GPS, a tracker they clipped years ago onto c-134’s ear. It was how he always knew c-134 had wandered near camp, close enough to take out his camera on the snowmobile.

“How close are we?” Bright shouted over the propeller blades.

“About two miles,” Harlan shouted back.

“Take me down here,” Bright nodded.

Harlan shook his head. “It’s difficult terrain.”

“Take me down here,” Bright said again.

The helicopter landed in a flat patch of snow. Bright hopped out of his seat, setting the long wooden case on the ground. “You got another one of those radars?” He asked. Harlan nodded and got out of the cockpit. He walked around to where Bright squatted in the snow, a GPS in one hand and a walkie-talkie in the other. Bright snatched both and shoved them in his pockets. He nodded enthusiastically, unbuckling the clasps on the wooden case. Two long, smooth barrels rested there, in a furrow of green velvet. The stock was wood and polished, the grain looked like glass.

“Four fifty Nitro,” Bright smiled, lifting the elephant gun reverently and making a show of inspecting the barrels. “Eighteen forty-eight. Beautiful, huh? Damn fucking thing’s an antique.”

“Is it heavy?” Harlan asked.

“No heavier than my dick.”

The billionaire drew two long, golden bullets from a pocket in the wooden case. He cracked open the stock, loaded one in each chamber, closed the stock, and took aim at nothing. “Dunno if the damn thing will even fire out here,” he said, staring down his imaginary prey. He opened the stock again and took out the bullets. “Guess that’s part of the fun.”

With Harlan’s help, he wobbled back to his feet. He slung the rifle over his shoulder and removed the GPS. His big body throbbed at the sight of the little blip on the screen.

“We didn’t expect you to bring that,” Harlan said.

Bright stared at him: “Huh?”

“The gun. We thought you might bring an assault rifle.”

His face contorted. “What the fuck for? I’m not shooting up a kindergarten.”

“That’s not funny,” Harlan said immediately.

The green jacket slumped. “It’s not supposed to be.”

They studied each other a few seconds. There was no sound and nothing moved. Sunlight dropped on the ice sheet, the reflective snow almost blinding. Both men knew more should be said, but neither had any idea what it was, or who should say it.

“I’ll call in when I’m done,” tried Bright.

“I’ll come pick you up,” said Harlan.

Bright nodded. Stooping, he closed the empty case and handed it to the doctor. Then he nodded again, and grinned, and turned away from the helicopter, and followed the blinking GPS into the desert.

Harlan was right: the terrain was difficult. With every step, Bright’s new boots sank into the snow. The sun battered from above, but the cold seemed to rise all around him, stiffening his joints. The landscape, so flat overhead, was actually a series of slow-rising dunes. Bright’s heart thumped hard. The cold air stuck in his throat. He had only gone half a mile before he crested a dune and descended the other side, looking back to discover he could no longer see the helicopter. He took deep breaths, and smiled, and felt a ball of excitement in his gut. He was alone.

Shielding his eyes, he glanced at the sun, already ebbing toward the horizon. He looked over the desert in every direction. Without the GPS, without those damn doctors around, it would be himself and the snow for a thousand miles. He was a man, a human being alone in the snow. He started to laugh but his breath had not caught up to him yet, and it buried somewhere in his throat. He glanced at the GPS again. The blur was moving away from him, slowly.

“Perfect,” Bright growled out loud. The strap of the elephant gun dug into his shoulder. He adjusted and kept walking.

Time disappeared in the snow. The sky was still. The world was frozen. The sun crept lower, but Bright could not tell whether minutes or hours had passed. He was occupied, imagining the days to come. A future version of himself telling this story over eighteen holes, or dominating a dinner party. He chuckled, thinking of how uncomfortable he would remember himself being. The blip on the radar drew closer. He climbed another dune, the heavier snow dissipating under his feet, replaced by a thick sheet of ice. To his left—West? or maybe East?—white turned blue. The ground giving way to an expanse of water.

He checked the GPS. The blip was close. In fact, it was right under him. Bright surveyed the landscape again. He should have been able to see it by now.

A wet bulk splashed out of the water. Two thick, shaggy paws crushed into the ice, an impossible white mass lifting itself above surface. It stretched its neck as four limbs seemed to elongate, four feet widening and rooting into solid ground. It shook, heavy rivulets of ice water blowing off its fur. Its snout was angular. Its paws too big for its body. The curves of its back craned and jutted as if it wore the wrong skin.

“Jesus Christ,” Bright muttered. “You really look like that, huh?”

c-134 started to slink, shambling slowly, taking no notice of the giant green puffball. Bright unslung his rifle. He cracked open the neck and loaded both barrels. With small steps, he moved towards him, the nose of the gun aimed at c-134’s own black nose. When he reached a certain distance, c-134 stopped and stared at him. Bright stopped too.

“I’ve only got two rounds,” Bright said loudly. “Do us both a favor and go down quick, okay?”

c-134’s blank eyes kept staring. He lowered his head and shook his neck again, swaying his furry, circular ears.

The shot cracked through the desert. The emaciated prey roared, a roar like a great, heavy crash. The power of the elephant gun stunned Bright. He stumbled and fell on his backside. He rolled and leaned forward to see if c-134 was dead. A streak of red stained the fur on his shoulder, and another at the base of his neck. c-134 was not dead. Bright’s shaking hands reached into his pockets for another round.

c-134 lumbered towards him, fixed on the wiggling green ball in the snow. A giant paw rose and came down, tearing through the back shoulder of the jacket. Bright squealed in pain, turned, and almost whipped c-134 in the chin. He pulled the trigger and shot back again. The big white mass fell straight to the ground with two bullet holes in his forehead.

Bright could hardly breathe. He wanted to smirk, to tear off his shirt, to have an erection. But he was worn out. He crawled to the fuzzy white corpse and leaned against it, resting on its stomach.

“None of the other fuckers understand, you know that?” he spoke slowly, gasping a little. “I’m being villainized by my own fucking kind. The first time I saw your pictures, I knew I was gonna have to come kill you. It was…the fuck do you call it…an obligation.”

The blood in c-134’s fur had already froze.

“I pray they send a hunter for me,” Bright said. “I don’t pray much, fuck that blessed be thou horseshit. But I pray with every ounce of fat on this body, someone has the decency to put a bullet through my head. A young male, in his twenties. I don’t care if he comes in a suit, or camo, or buck naked. Someone young, and hungry, and desperate. Someone better suited for the world than me. Better adapted. A kid in his twenties, who’s sure there are good guys, and he’s one of them. An elephant gun would be asking too much. I know he’ll come with a checkbook, or a retirement home, or a deposition. But if I had my way, I’m not fucking here, if I had my way he’d come with a gun, or a bow and arrow, and he’d shoot me through the neck. All those fuckers saw you on TV, felt sorry for you, they wanted to leave you in peace. To starve to death, as if that was the best way out. You understand, doncha? You’re glad I showed up. The only thing men like us want is a fight. It doesn’t have to be fair, so long as our knuckles get bloody. Anything’s better than being left behind.”

He inhaled sharply, then patted c-134 on the fur. For a moment, a terrible feeling ran through him. But it was a feeling he had never felt before, and there was nowhere for it to live. He unzipped one of his pockets and tugged out the walkie-talkie.

“Harlan? Hey boy, doc, can you hear me?”

A few seconds of static passed.

“Did you do it?” The emotionless voice came through the receiver.

“Come see for yourself!” Bright chuckled. “Get the hell over here, we’ll cut you out a wallet!”

Another lag.

“So he’s dead?”

“The fuck? Did you hear me? Quit playing and get over here before my dick freezes off!”

The walkie-talkie went static again.

“Hello? Harlan? What’s up, doc?” Bright smacked the walkie-talkie into his glove. “Piece of shit,” he muttered. He looked at c-134. “You wouldn’t happen to have any spare batteries, would you?” His shoulder was cold. He could feel the tear in his jacket.

He got to his feet and started climbing a nearby dune. He hardly reached the top when he heard a familiar sound.

“For fucks sake,” Bright smiled, hand on his hip, waving towards the helicopter. The chopper came nearer. He could not see Harlan. It was too high, and the windshield was tinted. Bright had not realized how loud the machine was. From the inside, it was not so bad. Out in the snow, the blades made so much noise his ears started to ring. He pointed towards the carcass, gestured his thumb across his throat. He waited for the helicopter to land. But it did not land. It went higher in the sky, and turned, and started flying away.

“Hey!” Bright shouted. “Hey you fucker, over here!” He took a step down the dune and stumbled, rolling into the snow. “Where the fuck are you going? Get over here!”

His hood flew off. He took off his hat and threw it in the air.

“You’re going the wrong way!” he thundered.

His head was in the open now. Chill seized his bald scalp. He huffed back to the walkie-talkie, but there was no more static. “Heh, heh. That’s a good one, doc! You almost had me there. That’s a good one!” He pulled down his hood. He glanced at the lifeless white body, and again towards the horizon. The helicopter was gone. His shoulder was cold. The sun was going down.