Chương 1

Goddamnit, Lucien. Noah thought for the thousandth time as he trudged through the blowing snow. Why did you have to pick Siberia of all places? Even through the outfit he wore, Noah felt the bite of the cold. The halo of fur around the hood of his bright red parka brushed against the mirrored snow goggles he wore - his only protection from the ever‑present risk of snow blindness.

As he walked, he brought one bulky, gloved hand up to his face to knock the growing layer of ice from his balaclava, his wordless grumbling the only sound not claimed by the howling wind and the crunch of snow beneath his snowshoes. Swaddled in gear and insulation, Noah moved like a bundled thing rather than a man, trudging through the white. Under different circumstances, he might have found the wilderness around him ruggedly beautiful.

The enormous mountains, frozen waterfalls, and endless tundra of the Putorana Plateau made it look like it belonged on a postcard. He mentally noted to take a few pictures after he'd found his older brother. Or when I've found his body. Thankfully, he wasn't given much time to dwell on the intrusive thought. The GPS tethered to his belt began to beep softly, indicating he was nearing his destination.

With a furtive glance back across the frozen lake to ensure his rented SUV—an orange, Russian‑made UAZ Patriot—was still parked where he'd left it, he pushed onward. About twenty minutes later, the gentle beep became a constant hum. He pulled the device in front of his face and stared at the coordinates, shaking it to make sure it wasn't broken. When it stubbornly refused to do anything else, he sighed and let it fall back against his hip, then turned in a slow circle, scanning the landscape.

According to the satellite maps, he should have been standing on a small island in the middle of a lake. Unfortunately, at this time of year the island was just as snow‑covered as the ice surrounding it, making it impossible to tell whether he was in the right place at all. Frustration welled as he raised a hand to shield his eyes from the bright sun overhead. Then he stopped. Ahead of him was a dip in the meter‑tall snowbanks, one just a bit too deep to be the work of wind alone.

He moved toward it cautiously and found, set into the frozen landscape, a perfectly square hole. By his estimate, it was roughly a meter wide and a meter long. There was no snow inside. Instead, a granite stone ladder had been set into one side, descending into darkness. He crouched and peered down, but the mirrored goggles that saved his eyes above rendered the depths below unreadable. Well, that doesn't look safe at all. Rounded stone rungs? Practically asking for someone to fall backward.

Certain now that he'd found what he was looking for, Noah shrugged off his heavy‑duty waterproof backpack and unzipped it. Stories of adventurers lost forever in the Siberian tundra surfaced unbidden as he pulled out an ice pick, a length of rope, and a heavy flashlight. He lashed the rope around the pack, then tethered the ice pick and flashlight to his suit as a plan took shape. May as well make all this snow useful.

He hacked away at the windswept ice with the pick, lifting heavy chunks and stacking them atop the pack until it was thoroughly buried. Once satisfied, he tied the free end of the rope around his waist, choked up on it, and pulled. He added more strength, then more, until his muscles screamed in protest. When he finally stopped, panting, the pack hadn't shifted an inch. Now for the hard part. He took a steadying breath and placed one boot on the stone ladder. The rung held.

After a final tug on the rope, he stepped down onto the next, then the next, lowering himself into the hole. Carefully gripping the edge, he descended rung by rung. By the time his head dipped below ground level, the roar of the wind above had faded to a dull, distant sound. After the fifteenth rung, the light filtering down mixed poorly with the darkening effect of his goggles. He reached up to remove them, fumbling with the straps designed to keep them secure in high winds.

One hand held the rounded stone; the other worked at the Velcro, his thick mitts clumsy with cold. That moment of distraction was all it took. His grip slipped. Noah cried out as he fell backward, the rope biting hard around his waist as it snapped taut. He swung wildly, gasping for breath, hands and feet scraping blindly at the ladder. Gritting his teeth, he tore the goggles up and off his face. His pupils adjusted just in time for him to see the rungs rushing past - A sharp crack echoed from above.

Then Noah was falling. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Three Months Earlier"And you're sure it was him?" Noah said, pressing his cell phone tightly to his ear.

"Da, da." The private investigator's Russian-accented English came through clearly.

"Your brother is hard man to find. Did you know he threw away credit cards, cell phone? I thought having those was requirement for American citizenship?" He finished with a chuckle.

"Yuri, cut the bullshit."

"It is not bullshit!" Yuri insisted.

"Is truth! He threw them away!" Noah rolled his eyes at the often-exaggerative Russian.

"Just… fine. Okay. You sent me a set of coordinates, though - not a city. Where exactly is he?"

"Rural Siberia. Deep in forest."

"And you're sure he's there?"

"Last person I can find who saw him alive was there," Yuri replied evasively.

"But I cannot go to rural Siberia without…" He trailed off. I really don't want to give a bunch of money to a strange Russian I've never even seen a picture of, much less met in person. Noah thought. But he's done everything I've asked of him so far, so…

"Fine," he said after mulling it over.

"I'll pay for the gear. But you're not getting your finder's fee until I either see my brother or see his body, so don't fuck around on this. I'm sending you a GPS tracker too - keep it on you at all times so I can keep tabs on your progress, or else I'm out."

"Yuri doesn't fuck around with you," he replied.

"You not pretty enough for that." Noah ignored the comment and pulled the phone away from his face, ending the call. His gaze drifted to the map on the wall of his apartment - one covered in multicolored pins connected by string. Almost on instinct, his eyes jumped from the pin over New York to Casablanca, then Cairo, then Turkey, and finally Norilsk, Russia, tracing his brother's path from the last time Noah had seen him in person to where he might be now. Two fucking years, Lucien. Over two fucking years.

Noah held no illusions about the state he might find his brother in. After being discharged from the military, Lucien had become a vagabond, wandering the world aimlessly. He took odd jobs wherever he landed, earning just enough money to pay for his next bus, train, flight, or sea voyage before immersing himself in a new culture. He flouted every rule, got himself into trouble, and generally lived as carefree a life as possible.

The one and only routine Lucien Calder took seriously was being home on September 1st to have dinner at a shitty pizza parlour in upstate New York. It was a promise made in the aftermath of their parents' sudden death. They had both grieved the freak car accident in their own way: Noah by focusing on his impending move to college, and Lucien by enlisting in the marines.

The night before they were both scheduled to leave the relative safety and comfort of their hometown, they wandered the streets until late evening, eventually stopping in front of the only restaurant still open - the town's pizza parlour. There, beneath cheap halogen lights, the two brothers finally confided in one another for the first time since the life-changing event, talking about their hopes, their dreams, their fears, and their grief. After hours of conversation, they made a promise.

No matter what life threw at them, they would find their way back there together on September 1st every year to check in on one another. They would see each other outside of that whenever they could, but come hell or high water, this was the one date they could always count on. Noah's tired gaze drifted downward from the map to his coffee table, landing on the stack of postcards Lucien had sent from his travels, arranged in reverse chronological order.

Somewhere near the bottom was a photo of Lucien standing on the Great Wall of China. His blue eyes, blond hair, and tall build clearly marked him as a stranger in a foreign land, but the smile on his face and his posture showed his complete ease with the situation. Everyone always said we look so different. Somewhere in the middle of that same stack, the photos became less frequent due to the demands of Noah's burgeoning engineering career and Lucien's nomadic lifestyle.

Eventually, the pictures - and then the postcards themselves - had dried up. After they disappeared, the phone calls, text messages, and any chance of seeing each other on any other day of the year soon followed. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Noah closed his eyes. He mentally banished the image of the empty seat across from him at the diner that night, along with the voices of everyone from Lucien's old buddies to the police.

When he'd implored them to give him any sort of lead as to where his brother might have gone, every one of them chalked Lucien's failure to show up to the gradual decline of their relationship and his seemingly allergic reaction to any sort of responsibility. Noah wasn't convinced. For all his flaws, he knew that Lucien would have made it back on time unless something catastrophic had prevented him from doing so. And I'm going to figure out what it was.

An emotional weariness washed over him as he stood and moved through his one-bedroom apartment. He paused at his bookshelf, neatly arranged with reference materials on engineering, systems design, and history, adjusting a book slightly so it stood straight. His finger traced the shelf below - lined with science fiction and fantasy novels - ensuring nothing else was out of place.

As he stepped back, his eyes fell to the bottom shelf, where a game controller sat beside a small collection of strategy games and a modest award for being the most frequent volunteer at his local animal shelter. The memory of a female dog trusting him with her newborn pups brought a smile to his face and finally broke his foul mood, prompting him to shake his head. I need a shower, he decided. I've still got work today. Moving into the bathroom, he was greeted by his reflection.

Three days' worth of dark brown stubble had grown in seemingly overnight, matching the shade of his curly hair. While he hated it and debated shaving his entire head bald daily, his far more fashion-aware friends at the shelter insisted that they loved it on him — usually right before they tried to convince him to adopt a dog of his own. He'd always brush them off with a joke and a smile, but deep down he knew he couldn't adopt one for fear of losing them someday.

Glancing at his phone and checking the time, he quickly undressed before stepping into the shower, signaling the start of his morning ritual. His body moved mechanically through the motions, freeing his mind to drift back to the conversation with the Russian private investigator. He ran through outcomes and probabilities, emotionally preparing himself for the worst. It wasn't until he stood in front of his door, dressed and coffee in hand, that his mind snapped back to reality.

He blinked several times in mild surprise before locking the door and heading down the stairs toward the street, doing his best to refocus on the day ahead. Even so, one thought refused to leave him. Goddamnit, Lucien. Whatever's happened, I'm going to find you.