Mercifully, Percy hit the starter and the zodiac’s engine roared to life, drowning out the sound of the worker stomping on the small head, the gray matter shooting out in all directions. Even over the noise of the engine, Striker thought she could hear the sickening crunch, feel the sensation of the skull splintering, the hot smell of the bird’s brains coating the air.

  Lucy turned excitedly to her brown father. “Throw me a rag,” she said, “throw me a rag.” A small gray face peeked out from the top of her dry suit, the creature’s head as if sprouting from her throat.

  “Not now, honey,” the man said distractedly, his eyes locked on the mayhem on deck. Slowly the child turned and trained her empty stare on Striker.

  I pass, like night, from land to land;

  I have strange powers of speech;

  That moment that his face I see,

  I know the man that must hear me:

  To him my tale I teach.

  “Throw me a rag,” the little girl commanded.

  Striker found herself searching around for something, anything to toss, but then the brown dad handed his daughter a piece of gum, and the little girl settled down. The other fathers just sat there wide-eyed like they might throw up. The summer air once again bright and scentless.

  On the short ride out to the island, they did introductions. The Tech Titan’s husband concluded his by proudly pointing to one of the support boats trailing in their wake. “The wife and I brought our own gear,” Kevin said. “Luckily our kayaks are also red.” As a location scout, Striker knew a thing or two about transportation costs. The couple could’ve bought all-new gear, top-of-the-line, for the same amount it probably ran them to ship their boats down to the bottom of the world. Rich people gonna rich, Riley would’ve said.

  “Taylor loves this kind of stuff,” Kevin added. He gazed at the Tech Titan as if her very existence powered the universe, his eyes practically fluttering. “She paddles out to Alcatraz at least once a week.”

  Striker guessed the battered and dented kayak was the woman’s boat. Even at a distance it looked like it had seen its fair share of hairy moments. The man’s had a shiny patina glossing its sides, the thing fresh out of the wrapper.

  “You’re in paradise right now, aren’t you, hun?” Kevin said. His wife looked at him blankly as if battling not to roll her eyes.

  Lean out, honey, Striker thought. She smiled inwardly, looking forward to whatever marital fireworks might be on the horizon. In her book, marriage was like buying a gun or dispensing pharmaceuticals—­you needed a license for it, plus in most states there was a three-day waiting period. Judging from the married couples Striker knew, three days wasn’t nearly long enough.

  Despite his wife’s obvious disinterest, Kevin kept his adoration on high beams. He rested a gloved hand on Taylor’s knee and took off his sunglasses, presumably so everyone could see the bountiful love radiating from his sockets. Didn’t anybody else sense what it was costing him to keep that sappy smile spackled on his face? A body could fake conjugal bliss only so long before cracking.

  “And what do you do?” la Grande Dame asked Kevin, the arch front and center in her voice.

  Striker couldn’t look away from the Dame’s luscious head of silvery hair, her perfectly beveled bob reflective like polished steel, one wing of her hair falling enticingly over her eyes. La Grande Dame and her husband the Baron of Industry Who Had Never Worked a Day in His Life and Had the Hands to Prove It were the last two people on earth Striker had ever expected to see in dry suits. The image did not disappoint. Jane and Robert Foley were well preserved, though the Baron skewed a bit on the frail side. Decked out in the gear necessary for kayaking in Antarctica, the couple reminded Striker of Kodiak bears dancing around in tutus. The black lycra spray skirts girding their waists were undoubtedly the most undignified pieces of clothing the pair had ever donned. Rumor had it that the week before the trip, the Baron had had his valet fly down a case of Château Margaux. The first night onboard, the entire dining room had watched as the Baron and the Dame sipped from a bottle costing on the higher end of four figures, more than most of the crew earned all season. The Margaux gleamed dark and menstrual in the glass, an emerald the size of a grape adorning the Dame’s finger. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Baron and the Dame would be riding in two separate tandems and not together. Striker hadn’t seen it listed as an option in the Yegorov activity book, but the Foleys were each to be ferried about in the glacial waters of the Weddell Sea by one of the Russian crew.

  Striker snuck another peek at la Grande Dame and her silver hair shiny as a pith helmet. Yeah, this chick was bona fide trouble, her vibe a complicated scent reeking of unbridled arrogance and a carefully cultivated aloofness. As if for confirmation, the Dame tipped her head from side to side, touching each shoulder, the bones cracking in her neck, the sound like a small whip flaying the air. Yeah, Striker had chosen the right nickname for this one. There was something else off about her, something about the manufactured nature of her smile, but Striker had already been staring at the old woman for too long. Whatever it was would come to her sooner or later. For now, she made a mental note to steer clear of the old bird and her titanium helmet.

  “I’m a consultant,” Kevin said, answering the Dame’s question. Nobody asked in what. If you dug around for specifics, he seemed like the type to launch into some corporate mumbo-jumbo designed to make you feel stupid for needing to ask the follow-up question: what does that mean?

  “Nice work if you can get it,” said Billy Bob, the father of the Texas bunch.

  “Amen to that,” said Billy Bob’s wife, Bobbi Sue.

  To be fair, the petite blond with the dark eyebrows didn’t really say this. Since encountering the pair at the breakfast buffet and secretly dubbing them Billy Bob and Bobbi Sue, Striker would periodically put words in their mouths to go along with the characters she’d created. Now as she learned their real names, she decided to stick with the ones she’d already christened them with. It just made things easier.

  Billy Bob and Bobbi Sue had two kids. Any time Striker made eye contact with the girl, the teen began rapidly blinking. Striker liked to think it was some kind of Morse code, the kid begging for help. When they went around the group and introduced themselves, the girl said her name was Anders, her pronouns they/them.

  “Anna also answers to her given name and she/hers,” interjected Bobbi Sue. “Isn’t that right, Anna?”

  Striker was surprised by the brief whiff of compassion that surged in her chest. The parents were probably hoping that by offering as little resistance to “Anders” as their Texan hearts could muster, the sooner Anders would get shelved. But if Striker had to guess based on the look of things, Anders was there to stay.

  Anders’ little brother was a towheaded kid named Mikey who was somewhere around Lucy’s age. Striker could already tell that in the days ahead, Mikey and Lucy would not become fast friends. Mikey was a golden retriever, Lucy a Persian. That these kids were even allowed out on the Southern Ocean seemed like a bad idea. The night before in the sauna, Percy had explained to Striker how young kids got to kayak. Company rules said you had to be at least thirteen, but it happened all the time. Rich families paying an extra “calamity fee” above the $1500 it already cost to be part of the kayaking expedition. The parents forking it over and promising that their kids would be in a tandem with one of them at all times.

  What else Percy tell you in the sauna? Even ten thousand miles away, Striker could imagine Riley thirsting for the gory details.

  It was a recent enough encounter that she was still basking in it. Honestly, they’d kept the conversing to a minimum. It was a twelve-day trip. They both knew it and worked fast. When they first entered the sauna, he’d pretended to be insulted when she asked if he was Australian. “I’m a Kiwi through and through,” he said. She’d nodded, secretly thinking even better. He’d joked that the little girl with three dads had mastered the space-time continuum. He said it while running a finger up Striker’s thigh. “Kid’s everywhere at once,” he murmured, kissing her neck. She could barely see him through the steam. “Don’t tell anyone but someone drowned in the plunge pool two seasons back.” He’d nodded at the small, windowless room next to the sauna where the water sat dark as oil. “Maintenance must have left the metal safety door open,” he explained. “Kid was only ten years old.” Striker felt her body tighten, her breath becoming labored as though something were swelling inside her throat. Percy continued. “Worst part is we had six days left in the trip. Definitely not a lot of fun.” His thumb snagged on her medical alert bracelet as he ran his index finger down the inside of her arm. “You sick?” he asked. “Anything I should know?”

  In the heat of the sauna, she could feel the sweat running down her skin, her body raining. She traced Percy’s nipple with her finger, told him the medical alert bracelet was a gag gift her best friend had given her for Christmas, the inscription a private joke between the two of them. “So what’s it say?” he said, drawing her wrist toward his face, but she pulled her hand away and put it on his—

  In the zodiac, the two married dads sat pawing anxiously at their dry bag. “The seal’s not tight,” said the one wearing aviators.

  “Yes it is,” countered the youngest of the three. He looked younger than the other dads by a solid decade, maybe two.

  “Guys,” said the faintly brown dad who’d introduced himself as Hector. He patted the air with his hand, the international signal for keep it down. Striker had already forgotten the names of the other dads, but she knew she’d remember Hector’s plus the fact that he was some kind of environmental lawyer. After all these years her default setting remained set to automatically retain the deets of brown folks she encountered. Not that it had ever done her any good.

  When it was her turn to introduce herself, Striker felt a sudden dip in the temperature, the day preternaturally quiet. Was it her imagination, or were the adults leaning in, eager to hear her every word?

  This was a new phenomenon Striker had noticed ever since 2020 when pandemonium broke out in the streets. A certain breed of white people attempting to make space. Acting like you had their ear. Like they actually cared what you had to say. Like they appreciated you and believed every single word about your personal story and were forever sorry for anything they might have ever said or done or thought or worn or interpretive danced that you found offensive. She thought of the summer she’d spent in the posh coastal town on the northern cape. Everywhere she went, the people doing a double take, startled to see someone of her complexion. Once they recovered, they’d offer her a hearty hello and beam for all they were worth, desperate to convey their message: Dear Human of Color, please know I am your friend.

  “So what, you’d rather be run outta town?” Riley had said when she’d told her.

  “It’s just creepy is all.” Striker didn’t tell her friend that she’d kept expecting someone to challenge her right to be there, like the Florida teen who got killed on his way home from the corner store with a bag of Skittles tucked in his jeans.

  Floating in the zodiac, the group sat gazing at her, unblinking like fish. She didn’t even know where to begin. 2020 had made everything worse. This breed of white people was becoming trickier than ever to read as they gripped their cards closer to their chests. Why did Gen Z not get this? If white people became inscrutable, then how would folks like her know how to act around them, how genuine you could be? No, she needed white folks to keep their caveman ways front and center. When they did, it made her feel safe. She knew where she stood.

  “I’m Striker,” she finally said, “I’m in the industry,” and left it at that. She saw the youngest dad whisper to his husband, porn? She smiled but didn’t disabuse him of this, thankful there was at least one white person in the group she could still read.

  Bobbi Sue took the smile as a signal. She nudged her son.

  “Happy birthday, Veronique!” said little Texas Mikey in a voice sweet as cane sugar. “Have a beautiful Yegorov day!”

  The adults laughed. Less than three days into their Antarctic adventure and the kid had already drunk the Yegorov Kool-Aid.

  “Thanks,” said Striker, “but the guy on the intercom this morning got it wrong. A: I go by Striker. And B: technically my birthday’s tomorrow. On Christmas.” She nodded toward Lucy and her dads. “As is Lucy’s,” she added.

  “Tomorrow she’ll be ten,” said the quietest of the dads.

  “And I’ll be four times that,” said Striker.

  “Bet there’s a lot of living under that belt,” said the Baron. Kevin laughed, his wife sighing.

  “Happy birthday, happy birthday,” said Lucy. “Happy birthday porn.”

  The goodwill they’d all been riding popped, the fountain of awkwardness once again flowing freely. Only la Grande Dame remained impervious to it. The old woman sat openly staring at Striker, this most exotic of creatures—a Black tourist on a high-end vacation. Most likely the old girl had never seen her kind before.

  The Dame smiled stiffly. “Who did you hurt to get here?” she asked.

  “Excuse me?” said Striker.

  “I said, how long was the flight to get here?”

  “Oh,” said Striker. She unclenched her fists. “It’s a little over eleven hours from JFK to Buenos Aires.”

  “Interesting,” said the old woman, satisfied, but by what, Striker couldn’t guess.

  And so their tour group was a lucky thirteen in number.

  Striker watched the Yegorov grow smaller in the distance. She wanted to ask Percy how the crew would dispose of the albatross. Would it be thrown overboard or put to sea in a more gracious manner? She hoped the damn thing wasn’t an omen. In Antarctica, there had to be countless ways to die. Death by air, death by fire, death by icy waters, death by earth gaping open or crushing you. There was also the one she feared most—death by fellow man suffering from cabin fever. During the pandemic, she’d been thankful she lived alone.

  The broken bird with its ten-foot wingspan already seemed long forgotten by the others. The past few years Striker had grown more and more shocked by white people’s willingness to push their luck. With her white friends, she was careful never to mention the few superstitions she held sacrosanct, but with Riley, she never had to explain why she wouldn’t put her purse down on the floor in a restaurant. She just hoped someone from housekeeping had lit some sage in the spot where the bird died. She’d ask Percy about it once they got back. He’d laugh, but so what? In her book, white people could stand to be a little more in awe of the inexplicable.

  Like the night before at dinner when the first mate offered a toast. To both Christmas and summer in the Weddell Sea, he shouted. Throughout the dining room people raising their water glasses high in the air. What she’d learned while scouting a location in the Balkans. Toasting with water was bad luck. It was just one step up from toasting with an empty glass. In most cultures, such toasts were said to result in bankruptcy or some other disaster.

  It didn’t matter if it was summer in the southern hemisphere. Normally summer was a season of barbeques and easy living. But Antarctica was the continent with no margin for error. A place demanding you respect it and what it could do to you in the blink of an eye. Yeah, the Antarctic summer was more than happy to kill you even if it was Christmas. Had any of them really thought this through? Being a full hemisphere away from help? And worst-case scenario, would your body be repatriated or would you be left there in the snow and ice among the scavengers, the birds with their tearing feet, or worse yet, would your corpse be stashed away somewhere in the craggy landscape where nothing ever rots, every frozen thing frozen forever?

  These white people didn’t seem to know the half of it. If you can help it, don’t tempt fate. All around the room, the music of water glasses merrily clinking. Judging from the symphony of sound, Riley would’ve nudged her in the ribs and said half-jokingly that with all that bad luck being generated, someone, maybe multiple someones, was bound to die.

  No thank you, thought Striker. I’m here to do a job and go home and not hurt anybody. She’d kept her palms planted flat on the table. For a brief instant, she thought she smelled something sickly, like a moldering piece of fruit, but she decided someone had simply let the baked Alaska flame a little too long.

  “Remember,” said Percy, as he steered the zodiac out into the waters ringing Paulet Island. “Don’t get any closer to an iceberg than twice its height.”

  Striker adjusted her sunglasses for the umpteenth time. She knew it wouldn’t do any good. Looking at this golden man was like looking directly at the sun. His handsomeness was too much for mortal eyes even if there was a sloppy gob of neon-pink oxide slathered on his face. It was like drawing a fig leaf on Michelangelo’s David. Why ruin an object’s best feature?

  You mean his second best feature, Riley would’ve cackled.

  At breakfast Striker had already been fantasizing about the steamy new trouble she and their intrepid kayak leader might cook up later that night after the eggnog and off-key carols. Regardless of his bright pink nose, there was no hiding the chiseled planes of his face, his perfect jaw chainsaw rugged. Only la Grande Dame seemed able to hold her gaze on him without breaking into a fit of pre-adolescent giggles. The youngest of the dads was the worst, the way he would reach over and tap Percy on his iron forearm with a finger, coyly asking what kind of penguin they had seen, gentoo or chinstrap? Striker felt bad for the dad. He was doomed to spend the whole trip alternating between thirsting and then trying to convince his husband he wasn’t. Good luck with that.