I stood in time to see the pack's survivors fleeing toward the treeline, alpha leading the way. I raised the GN-75, sighting in on the fleeing pack. I lowered it again with a snarl. Despite how much they'd pissed me off, I still didn't want to slaughter them.
I turned to Marty, lying on the ice groaning. He was clutching his wrist, which was dripping blood onto the front of his parka.
"Marty, you alright, man?" I asked, sticking the GN-75 back to the front of my own parka.
His only response was a groan.
"Yeah, stupid question," I said. "You've got a first aid kit in that pack, don't you?"
"Uh—" Marty started to say, and then with a ripping, crackling roar the ice below him broke into pieces and he fell through.
I lunged forward, missing him as he disappeared into the black water. I slid onto my belly beside the hole, reaching into the black water. The freezing water burned my skin.
"Marty!" I yelled.
I switched to my thermal vision mode and could see Marty's form in the water, thrashing wildly. The weight of his pack and his sodden clothing were dragging him down. The difference in temperature between his body and the surrounding water was fading rapidly.
Frantically I began to rip the bags off my body and slide them away from the hole in the ice. I needed to go in and get him. My parka hit the ice, followed by the GN-75 and Excalibur. I thought about taking off more stuff, but the thought of Marty dying under the ice drove me forward. I jumped in.
The cold water was like a punch in the stomach. The shock was brutal, but I didn't have time to entertain it. I swam downward toward the fading thermal signature of Marty sinking into the black depths.
Marty was still struggling as the weight of his pack pulled him down, but his struggles were getting weaker. When I reached him he grabbed at me in panic, flailing wildly. I held onto him with my right arm while I put all my strength into getting us back up to the surface.
Without the thermal vision I would have died down there, I think. With it, I could see the hole in the ice as clear as day, even in the darkness under the ice. I rocketed toward it, Marty in tow. We breached, pushing large chunks of ice out of the way.
I gripped the ice with my left hand and threw Marty up and out of the hole. He skidded across the ice, coming to rest ten feet away. The ice burned my hands as I pulled myself out of the hole and into the frosty air.
Steam rose from me in waves. Despite everything, I didn't feel cold. I resolved to investigate that later. Marty was shivering weakly on the ice. My thermal vision could see that his temperature was falling. Hypothermia.
Not having time to screw around, I unsheathed my knife. I cut his pack off him with three effortless cuts. He moaned in pain as I stripped off his parka.
"Marty, we've got to get this off you. You can wear mine," I said.
The parka was more water than coat at that point. Soon it would be an ice sculpture. I dropped it on the ice beside him and quickly got him into my parka. His wrist didn't look good. It was still trickling blood and the bones were probably broken, but I expected it wouldn't kill him anytime soon. The hypothermia might.
"This isn't going to be enough. We need a fire or something."
Marty's pack caught my eye. I snatched it up and dumped it out onto the ice. There was a lot less stuff in there than there had been. A few MRE cartons fell out and a camp stove without the gas bottle. The rest was at the bottom of the lake.
I ripped the MREs open. What Theo had given us was the deluxe version, not just the entree. Each pack had a flameless ration heater bag. I ripped open the soggy cartons and pulled out three heater bags, discarding the meal packets.
"Thank you, Theo," I said.
The heaters were easy enough to use. Add water and the exothermic reaction would start. I added water to each of the three bags and stuffed each one into one of my parka's internal zipper pockets. They were water tight, so even if the chemical gunk was spilled it should be fine.
"Hopefully this will keep you alive until we can get to the outpost, Marty," I said. He didn't react. I could see that he was still breathing, but his shivering had stopped.
"Huh? What? Just let me sleep," Marty said.
I reclaimed my equipment from the ice, madly strapping bags and weapons to my body. The wolves I had killed lay on the ice nearby, and I could hear the occasional yipping bark in the forest to the south.
"This is going to suck, Marty. Sorry," I said. Then I picked him up and slung him over my shoulder in a fireman's carry. I'd only ever seen it done on television, but I was really strong and Marty was light, so it was easy. He groaned in pain but didn't otherwise protest.
With my phone in my left hand, I sprinted into the darkening woods.
Chapter Twenty: Over the River and Through the Woods
I RAN FASTER THAN I ever had, even with Marty draped across my shoulders. I leapt over or veered around thick brush, but the light stuff I plowed right through. When the branches scratched my exposed skin, the wounds would close up nearly immediately.
Steam rose off me as my elevated body heat evaporated the water in my soaked-through clothing.
"Brick, any idea why I'm not cold right now?"
"Your Transcendent Flesh is regulating your body temperature. Your body simply has more resources than Marty's. Check your power stats," Brick replied, his voice no longer coming over the phone's speaker.
With a thought I pulled up my status
