The ADS I’m standing inside of right now is called a SAM suit, which is a newer, less confining version of the JIM suit I once made my living in, workin’ oil rigs in the North Sea. I was a deep-sea plumber of sorts, fixin’ leaks in two hundred meters of water. Not a job fer the squeamish.

Wouldnae recommend this job neither, truth be told. The SAM is packed inside an aluminum pod slightly bigger than our fat Aunt Lizzy’s coffin. The pod’s attached to a sled, and the sled’s attached tae a torpedo-looking laser device called a Valkyrie which, as I speak, is burnin’ its way through a bloody mountain of ice wit’ yers truly stowed and towed as baggage.

Ben Hintzmann, tha’ bloody bastard, the moment I saw him I teld Zach he was too full of himself tae be trusted as a pilot. Made a muck of this mission, he did. Now yers truly has tae take the plunge intae Antarctica’s frozen arse like a warm suppository jist tae save my boy and keep my sister from bein’ a widow. Bloody hell.

Jist so ye ken, Brandy, t’was the gents from NASA who recruited yer brother fer this rescue mission and not Ming Liao’s team. The eggheads woke me up from a hard night’s sleep tae tell me they had lost contact with Zachary’s submersible, which had run aground. “Run aground?” says I. “How do ye run aground in a bloody subglacial lake?”

The lead gent, whose name fer any lawsuits was Stephen Vacendak, yammered about tides and volcanic rock and such, and then he put it simple: either we get Ming and the boys some air, or they’ll be deid by mornin’.

Next thing I ken, I’m bein’ dressed and hustled out of the dome intae the frigid night. A helicopter lands and they shove me in the cargo hold. Vacendak, who’s apparently a colonel, talks tae me aboot his kayaking and mountain climbing adventures in some place called Ketchum before he hits me with the mission. “It’s easy,” he says. “The laser burns through the ice, towing the supply sled and pod. You’ll be inside the pod wearing the ADS. The laser, sled, and pod are attached by steel cable to a surface winch. Once the laser melts through the ice you’ll be lowered to the lake’s plateau. Touch down, climb out, and we’ll direct ye to the sub.