Hands stripped off his soaked shirt, the strangling tie, a voice shouting about a “warming blanket.” Other words floated back, and, “We’re in the middle of Antarctica and there’s no warming blanket in the entire building? How about a bathtub? How far away are the staff quarters, then? No, too far. Give me another parka.” Some gruff swearing, and he was hauled back against something solid, a coat snuggled around him.

His brain was a muffled, cloudy thing, and Tom didn’t begin to emerge from the mire until the first electric prickles began in his face, in his nose, then spread into his ears, his lips. They grew sharper and sharper. Painful. So painful. He tried to move away from them, but they kept following, searing him. He was squashed in place beneath a smothering coat, heavy arms.

His eyes hurt, and when he squinted down he could see his hairy legs, quivering like live wires. He couldn’t feel them. His hands were gnarled, prickling claws, his fingers white like porcelain, and someone knelt in front of him kneading them. He squeezed his stinging eyes shut.

“No, leave his hands, Ashwan,” a voice said from right next to his ear.

“What about frostbite?”

“He can survive losing fingers. He can’t survive cardiac arrest if you dilate peripheral blood vessels and shoot cold blood into his chest.”

Tom stirred a bit. Losing fingers? But his brain couldn’t hold on to the thought.

It took him a while to finally peel his eyes open again, and he made out the ashen face, the kid standing near his knee, gazing Tom’s way like he didn’t recognize him. It took Tom a moment to pull the name up. “V-V-Vi?” His voice came out slurred, his throat like sandpaper, his teeth chattering.

“Hi, Tom,” Vik said faintly.

“If you’re going to stay here, make yourself useful,” rumbled a voice from behind Tom. “Get a wet compress for his eyes.”

Vik shuffled off.

Tom’s head flopped back against the person holding the coat around him. He was hiked up a bit farther, the grip around him reaffirmed, warmth soaking into his back. The electrical prickle in his toes and ears and nose grew into a torment, and it was spreading everywhere. He tried to say something, but the words didn’t come out as words. He had a creeping sense there was something he was supposed to be doing. Wasn’t there? He had to do something. He wasn’t safe. Something bad had happened. He wasn’t sure what, but he started pulling at the heavy weight keeping him here, trying to break away.

“Calm down, Raines.”