Ice Quake Page #5

in the snow.

Oh, honey.

- It's one of ours.

- Is it working?

I can't get it to turn on.

I think the connector's broken.

It should have a GPS tracker inside.

Hey, buddy, do you have

any gum in your backpack?

Yeah, top pocket.

So can you radio out?

The battery's too weak,

but if I can get

some juice to the signal tracker,

the base might be able

to pick it up.

Colonel?

We're receiving a tracking signal

from the mountain.

- One of our guys?

- Yes.

It's a coded hand-radio GPS.

I'm checking who that code

was assigned to.

At least we know someone's alive.

It's Reed's radio.

That's it.

The battery's toast. We've just got to

hope that the base picked that up.

All right.

Here, boy.

All right, let's...

let's keep moving.

It's good to see you guys.

We're gonna have to dig in.

You want us to sleep here?

Are you crazy?

The last thing we want to do

is get caught in this storm.

We're gonna build a snow shelter,

right, Dad?

That's right... we're gonna dig a hole

and we're gonna stay warm, okay?

We're not gonna make it

through the night any other way.

What Jacques Balmat did!

Who's that?

The first man to climb Mount Blanc.

He spent the night in a hole.

- Did he survive?

- Sure.

See? It's gonna be fine.

Just think of it

as an adventure, okay?

It'll be useful

when your teacher assigns you

to write an essay on how you spent

your Christmas vacation.

- Very funny, Dad.

- Okay.

Let's dig in, troopers.

Let's go.

Come on, baby.

Get in.

How long before the eruptions

hit the town?

The flow is so unpredictable.

There's really no way of me knowing

with any sort of certainty, sir.

Carolyn?

Sir?

Have we finished

evacuating the base?

Everyone's out, Colonel...

everyone but us

and a handful of key personnel

who volunteered to stay on.

Okay.

Listen up.

I want you people to leave now.

It's Christmas Eve. You should be home

with your families during this crisis.

I'll take it from here.

Looks like we're staying with you, sir.

No, you're not.

We've lost enough people today.

I order everyone to leave right now.

Oh, for God's sake.

Merry Christmas, sir.

Everyone huddle up together

and get warm.

I hope Yeti's not cold

wherever he is.

No, no, he's built for this cold weather.

He's probably warmer

than any one of us right now.

Hey, where'd you get that?

Oh, this?

It's part of my survival pack.

What else you got in there?

What, you got hand warmers?

No.

Anything to eat?

No.

Oh, I do.

Well, don't look at me like that.

I only had one and I wanted to save it

until we were absolutely starving.

Yeah, well, I think

that's about time now.

Here you go, sweetie.

Thank you.

So, Tia, I hear you're thinking about going

to California for university.

Michael, not now.

What?

I want to hear about the palm trees.

I want to study either

chemistry or geology.

I haven't decided which.

Really?

In case you haven't noticed,

I'm a geek like you, Dad.

Have you researched into campuses?

Yeah.

I don't want you to leave.

You can visit me, Shane.

You can all visit me.

I got an idea:

how about we take you down there

for a tour of some of the campuses?

- Really?

- Yeah.

We'll go as a family,

visit some of the theme parks,

go to the beaches.

What do you kids think of that?

- Cool.

- All right.

- Oh.

- Whoops. You all right?

- Yeah, I'm fine.

- All right.

It's probably easier to fix

than the roof we've got at home.

Easy to say when you've never

fixed our roof.

Right.

Shane, give me the flashlight.

Hey, over here!

Over here! Hey, over here!

Hey!

Oh, my gosh!

Yeah! Whoo!

- Yay!

- We're saved.

- Yay!

- Whoo!

- Is it good?

- Both:
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Colonel?

- He's here.

- Michael.

Thank God you made it.

The kids are okay?

They are. They're with Emily

stuffing themselves in the mess hall.

I've got a transport standing by.

This place isn't safe for your family.

No place is.

Did Reed or Wallace

make it out?

No, I'm afraid not, sir.

Ram, I heard about the cave discovery.

Very nice work.

- Permission to brief the room, sir?

- Listen up, everyone.

People, what we're dealing with

is a massive body of liquid methane,

gigatons of it, moving through caves

underground left by glaciers.

Now, as this body

of methane travels,

it vents subzero methane gas

which causes the eruptions.

We've been tracking those eruptions.

They're heading towards Fairbanks.

The threat, however,

is much bigger than that.

Beyond Fairbanks, these caves open up

above ground at the quarry.

Now, if the methane

reaches this point,

the air will vaporize it

and the results will be disastrous.

- What do we need to do?

- Block it.

We stop it from flowing. We get a satellite

to do a spectrometry scan

to see what we're dealing with.

We've ordered a satellite into position.

It's moments away.

Okay, good. Now, once we see

this body of methane,

we'll have to find a way to extinguish it.

- We're gonna need explosives.

- We've got C4,

but putting it in place

will be risky.

Everyone is evacuated.

I don't have any demolition men.

- I've got demolition experience.

- So do I.

Count me in.

Jamie, Ram, we are going

to do this together, all right?

Let's go mount up.

Ram over radio:

Jamie, we're ready to go. Where are you?

There's a vehicle waiting outside

to shuttle you guys to a shelter.

Aren't you coming?

Kids, I've got a special mission

to go on.

It's very important.

Lives depend on it.

Why do you have to go?

You're not a soldier.

No, but this is part

of my job.

Yeti's still out there.

We can't leave here without him.

Don't worry about Yeti, Shane.

I'll find him when I get back.

Right now you have to look after

your mom and your sister, okay?

Please, Michael, I'm scared.

Do you really have to go?

Yeah. Don't worry,

everything's going to be fine.

We'll be all right.

- Are you okay?

- What's wrong with her?

Methane!

Get the kids out of the building.

Come on, Jamie.

Man over speaker:

... declare a lock zone.

All personnel

follow red-level procedures.

Colonel!

Bill, Bill, are you okay?

It's okay. We've identified the leak.

It's being sealed.

The satellite's tracking it.

There's your methane pool.

Oh, my God.

Look at the size of that.

How much trouble are we in?

If that amount of methane vaporizes

into the atmosphere,

it'll destroy most life

on the planet.

Can't we block it

like you said?

We can't block that.

I mean there must be hundreds

of gigatons down there.

It'll just overflow into other caves

and God knows where else.

You guys okay?

What's going on?

Look at what we're up against.

Whoa, that is way bigger

than I thought.

We have to find a way

to destroy this and fast.

Why don't we burn it?

It's flammable, isn't it?

Only small streams of gas,

not the liquid.

Well, let's just

blow it up with the C4.

We need a high-velocity detonation

to obliterate that methane pool.

- C4 is not going to cut it.

- That's all we've got.

- Can't you just order an air strike?

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