retreating, as great famines and genocides swept continents, one meteorological oddity perplexed the world’s climate scientists. While glaciers melted, exposing mummies and mastodons, one glacier appeared to not only not shrink but, in fact, grow larger.”
Hiroko pulled down a pre-FUS world map, demarcated by long-obliterated political boundaries, and tapped Alaska with her pointer.
“Here, in the southeast portion of what was then the state of Alaska, the Malaspina glacier appeared to be reversing a decades-long process of melting. At one time the glacier was forty miles across, twenty-eight miles long, and some six hundred meters thick, with an area of fifteen hundred square miles. During the early FUS, while other glaciers melted, it appeared to grow by 0.3 percent daily during its peak growth. This caught the attention of the Climate Crisis Control Center, or C4, who initially viewed it as an opportunity to establish a polar bear refuge. As you know, the retreat of arctic sea ice led to alarming polar bear drownings and cannibalism. The C4, who fed rescued polar bears with air-dropped loads of fish compacted into frozen bales, studied the air currents around the glacier and the geology of the region but nothing could explain why it continued to grow. By all measures it should have been melting. Soon it grew to subsume a small nearby village, which was heralded as a promising sign. If it were to melt, you see, Malaspina alone would have contributed half an inch to the level of rising seawater.
“Various climatologists including Dr. Stephen McDonough-Hughes at the University of Alaska Anchorage and Drs. Fran and Regina Kroll of Oxford’s Climate Response Committee believed that the secret to reversing this warming trend may have been contained within or around Malaspina. It seemed that the growing glacier in southeast Alaska might be cause for hope and optimism about the future of the climate.
“Then, on April 14 of FUS 17, the glacier began to move, with its polar bears, breaking free of the mainland and slipping into the ocean. It appeared to be making a beeline for Anchorage, provoking a mass exodus, with Anchorage residents fleeing for other parts of Alaska and Canada. The glacier destroyed city blocks, following a somewhat counterintuitive trajectory. Rather than remaining at sea level, it managed to defy physics and climb to higher elevations. When the airdrops of frozen blocks of fish stopped, some of the polar bears started climbing off the ice to feed on the animal carcasses left in the glacier’s wake.
“After eradicating Anchorage, Malaspina moved on to various population centers of Canada. Reducing Prince Rupert and Whitehorse to mud, it continued on a more or less straight path to Edmonton.
“By now, sympathy for the plight of the polar bears had largely disappeared from public discourse. Instead of beautiful mammals deserving of our preservation efforts, they came to be known as a marauding horde of beasts surfing a climatic anomaly that was laying waste to Canada.
“Several theories emerged to explain the origin and sheer persistence of the glacier. Many suggested the mass of ice possessed an intelligence. It was easy to personify, as it appeared to be deliberately targeting concentrations of human civilization. As it approached Saskatoon, Canadians stood on top of buildings and bridges with bullhorns, loudly and profusely apologizing for warming the planet. But the glacier would not be placated. With its polar bears roaring, the great sheet of ice scraped skyscrapers off the face of the earth, ground power plants and apartment buildings and sports stadiums under its heels, and left behind a trench filled with strange artifacts from cities it had flattened. It picked up an entire Shoppers Drug Mart in Winnipeg, with shoppers and employees still inside. They rode atop the glacier for weeks, barricaded inside the store, fending off polar bear attacks and eating large quantities of snack food before the whole store slipped into Thunder Bay.
“While Malaspina laid waste to the Great White North, Americans paid little attention. They had their own disasters to attend to and besides, Americans never paid much attention to Canadians anyway unless they were good at telling jokes. When Winnipeg was reduced to nothing, few media networks even paid it a minute’s notice, the news overshadowed by certain revelations of a sexual nature involving a supporting cast member of a situation comedy. It was only when Malaspina veered due south, toward what was left of Detroit, that Americans began to pay attention.
“With polar bears roaming the streets of what had once colloquially been called the ‘Motor City,’ and a giant wall of ice not far behind, what was left of the U.S. government mobilized. The National Guard trained thermal beams on the marauding glacier, hoping to melt it down. Still it grew larger and faster, wiping Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and Boston off the map. It headed for Chicago, then St. Louis, pursued all the way by helicopter gunships and tanks. Even its forays into the Southwest did nothing to reduce its size. In fact, residents of those stifling cities welcomed Malaspina’s arrival as a reprieve from the heat, realizing only too late the destructive properties of such a vast body of ice, not to mention thousands of angry polar bears. Once the glacier wiped out Dallas, it appeared to slow somewhat, and by the time it crawled over the Rockies into California it even appeared to be shrinking. It was in Los Angeles that Malaspina made its final stand.
“The history of Los Angeles was one of earthquakes and wildfires. They were familiar with disaster. As Malaspina approached, the mayor’s office, considering the long list of municipalities removed from the face of the earth by this frigid monster, decided to boldly destroy Malaspina once and for all by sacrificing their city in flames. At the moment the glacier came within city limits, specially trained teams in fire-retardant suits ignited strategically placed petroleum reserves. The polar bears let out great wails of fury and pain as their fur burned and the overwhelmed glacier began to melt. Back and forth these elemental forces raged, fire melting ice, ice turning into water that doused the flames, until only here and there fires burned and the glacier was the size of a compact car, surrounded by scorched polar bear meat, dissolving on Sunset Boulevard.
“As that fateful day came to a close, a girl named Deidre Franklin wandered through the wasteland of her city and came to the place where the ancient glacial ice turned at last to water. All that was left now was a single chunk, no bigger than a typical ice cube, containing the dying breaths of ancient mammals, which Deidre used to cool a glass of Mountain Dew X-Treme Lime.”
“Dude, you pissed yourself.”
Skinner lay supine on the guest bed while Carl peeled off his pants.
“If I could move,” Skinner said.
“I need towels,” Carl said and left the room. A bit later he returned with a wet, soapy washcloth and a bath towel.
“Wait, let me do it,” Skinner said.
“Your wife could show up any minute and I don’t want her to find you marinating in your own whiz. You gotta lay still so the system can map your current physical self.”
Carl swabbed Skinner’s naked lower half with the washcloth, dried him off, then helped his friend’s legs into underwear retrieved from the RV.
“I’m sorry I dragged you into that memory,” Skinner said.
“Yeah, it pretty much ruined my day,” Carl said.
“I’m sorry.” Skinner stretched his face. Still felt weird, mapped to his memory face.
“You saw the Last Dude again,” Carl said.
“Same as always,” Skinner said.
“Did he still have that extra-deluxe fridge?”
“Yeah. Stocked in the desert.”
“Did you get a look at the book titles this time?”
“No. I’ve never been able to. It’s always the same progression. There’s no variation to it. Same mesa. Same crows. Same beer.”
“Who do you think he is?”
“Maybe he’s the final judge of humanity. Building some massive message out of stones in the desert. ‘THE W.’”
“You let me know when you figure that shit out,” Carl said.
“Carl, man, what am I going to do about Roon?”
“You’re going to go up there and give her a hug and a kiss and meet your new grandson.”
“I’ve been a pig.”
“Not the first time.”
“I was hoping you’d disagree.”
“I never understood your falling out with her in the first place, so your being a complete asshole is the only
