Meltwater (Fire and Ice)

leave tomorrow. the websites are ready, the video is edited. we can publish on sunday.
    Apex: we haven’t verified it properly yet. presumably gareth hasn’t got to iceland?
    Dieter: no flights. no it hasn’t been properly verified.
    Erika: and we could use gareth’s help to identify some of the objects in the stills. but he isn’t here. we have to do the best we can.
    Apex: if it isn’t verified, we shouldn’t publish.
    Erika: have you checked out the helicopter noise?
    Apex: i’ve tried: i can’t find any proof that there’s anything wrong. it just doesn’t sound right to me.
    Erika: we’ve come this far. we have to publish. it really would be abandoning nico and asta just to drop everything and run away. i couldn’t do that. could you?
    Dieter: erika’s right, apex . this is the biggest leak freeflow has ever had. we have been working for something like this for four years. we have to take the risk.
    The screen was still for a minute.
    Apex: ok. we do it. what about the press conference?
    Erika: we’ll do something in london with samantha wilton if I can get there. otherwise let’s fly west as apex suggested. do a press conference in washington.
    Apex: they think there’s a chance airspace might be opened up over the north of britain and norway.
    Erika: it will be tough to get tickets though.
    Apex: i can help with that.
    Erika: thanks apex.
    Erika knew what Apex meant: he would hack into the airline reservation systems to get them seats.
    Erika: okay. it’s decided. i’ll get hold of alan in london to see what he can do about a press conference either there or in washington, depending on the volcano. and we will have
the video ready tomorrow, ready for publication sunday. agreed?
    Dieter: agreed.
    Apex: agreed.
    Erika: thanks guys.
    Erika picked up the phone to call Alan in London. She felt better. Her breathing was steady, her eyes still dry. Only one more day holed up here in Iceland.
    She could manage that.
    Ollie staggered out of the house on to Njálsgata. He and Katrín had been out late the night before, had had a good time, and he had missed his brother entirely.
He thought he had heard a door banging shortly after he had gone to sleep, Katrín beside him, but he wasn’t sure. She had abandoned him earlier that morning, claiming she had to go to
work somewhere. Ollie had had trouble believing that she could actually have something as mundane as a day job, but everyone had to earn money and she seemed pretty determined to leave the house by
nine.
    A stiff breeze was blowing and the sky was divided into complicated layers of clouds, underneath which a tight ball of grey was rolling towards him. Ollie climbed the hill to where the great
penis-shaped church stood and scurried inside when the cloud burst. The shower only lasted a few minutes, and once it had gone, he escaped the church and headed down the other side of the hill.
    Ollie had dreaded coming to Iceland, but he had to admit it wasn’t so bad. All those brightly coloured little tin houses were cute, and the people were cool. He had met a load of random
strangers in the bar the night before, many of them female, all of them friendly. Katrín had woman-handled him away from a couple of promising situations, but that was fair enough, he
supposed.
    The country wasn’t the cold, bleak, cruel place he had remembered. Or rather that he had chosen to forget.
    Ollie loved America. From the moment he had arrived at the age of ten he had had one aim: to become a normal American kid. And he had achieved it within a year. Strangely, his father, for all
his talk of Iceland and endless readings of the sagas and reciting of poetry, had understood. There was no doubt that Magnus was his father’s favourite, with his insatiable desire for all
things Icelandic, but Ragnar had helped Ollie become an American kid. They had gone to Fenway Park together countless times, with Ollie explaining each time what was going on on the baseball field.
If Magnus was the expert on long-dead Vikings, Ollie was the expert on the Sox. Ragnar always seemed to listen attentively, but Ollie could never figure out why such an intelligent man, a math
professor no less, could never quite understand the intricacies of the game no matter how many times he was told.
    Ragnar was easier on Ollie too, perhaps because he realized that Ollie’s pain in Iceland had been greater. Magnus was expected to get into an Ivy League College, Ollie could go where he
liked.