Stopping himself from thinking about why he was putting his life in danger, Lucas checked how much ammunition he had remaining to end his battle against the insidious trap.
"About half remaining. I've got to play this smart. To use less and get the maximum at the end of the trenches to make a difference, I can't count on the ground to be impermeable and I don't have enough to just make a flood all the way to the objective."
Actually, liquid nitrogen was inexpensive. It was gotten from the atmosphere, the same way as the oxygen but, for every unit of the latter, three units of liquid nitrogen could be produced so the surplus that was quite enough made it cheap.
BUT, he didn't plan to use much of it for his original plan, much less use it all for something else before even setting foot on his destination.
"I've got to make a path with something resistant to the liquid. Following the connecting wires, I made six trenches of less than half a meter each... I think I've got the solution."
He went to his vehicle and took out a jerry can this time. He unfastened the semi-flexible metallic tube at the opening and went back with the new tool. At least that was before remembering that he would have to hold the tube at an angle and pour the dangerous inside. Not ready to lose his hand if he was to splash himself by accident, he turned around to get a pincer.
Now decked with the necessary weapons, he finished the battle quite easily. He was just careful to freeze the explosive from the bottom to spare the one he set out to save from becoming an ice sculpture. Quite a gruesome representation it would have been.
He touched the explosive contraption with one end of the tube and poured a portion of the liquid in the other end. Rinse and repeat six times and he was out of liquid nitrogen with his plan not flopped yet. When he was done, the semi-flexible metal tube was already frozen, becoming brittle and not far from breaking down.
"Now, there is only the last step to determine if my plan was worthy of my genius or we die here. Makes me question why I'm doing this for someone whose name I don't even know. I despise the hero complex you know."
Saying, he fixed his gaze on something he saw previously but didn't pay too much attention to. It was a writing, probably with a knife, and probably again the one used to barbarically carve the abused woman since there were traces of red in the first letter.
'Must have been her blood on the knife.'
""Specter". I hope it is not the moniker of the one who did this to you because I quite like it. Lucas "Ghost" Specter. Now I have a new full name and it's bad-ass, don't you think?"
He seemed to be relaxing but actually, he had made a decision and he was just trying to convince himself to go through with it. They were in a place isolated from civilization and, even if they were not, the chances of the woman surviving were slim to none.
It was already commendable that she managed to survive naked in the cold and in her condition. And, judging by the state of things, it must have been about 24 hours, give or take. With that tenacity, to direct pity at her would be insulting and, it would be arrogant to claim the right to put her out of her misery. So, after all he did, he had two options: watch her die or take her where he was going for a coin toss.
He had his answer, that he knew. But he was looking for the gut to go through with it. It might look like a good choice for him but for her, it might be a taste of hell.
Not having anything more to distract himself with, he sigh a little then crouch beside her, stroking her forehead while adjusting the hair strands there:
"I don't know if you can hear me but I'm sorry for what you had to go through. You survive what most couldn't have and I don't know if you are holding onto something: an unlikely revenge, family, duty, or just plain illusory hope. But what I know is, I hope you will keep holding on and I hope you stand back up stronger than before."
He found his resolve and, without knowing it, what he set out to do would change his life, change his lonely road, giving him...
********
Lucas' vehicle could be seen racing in the white expanse, closing in on a dome that was between him and his destination and was also one of the proponents of the condition he was gunning for.
At full throttle, with the luck of not having any fault in the ice on the way, he arrived less than an hour later. Stopping the car beside the dome, he took the snowmobile he carried and lowered himself into the ridge.
He didn't even have to take out the thermometer he prepared to feel the temperature going sharply down. Even the warmth he had in his bones was struggling to keep up. Once he made it to the center, he took a shovel, a big one this time, and started excavating a hole of two meters in diameter.
Unlike previously, when he was fast but leisurely at the beginning of his journey in this continent, like he was enjoying life even if he must hurry to try and make it last longer, he was now showing a degree of haste that lacked any place for any kind of leisureliness. It was like he was racing against time, running away from the devil. Maybe he had enjoyed being skinny long enough.
After thirty minutes of displacing the soft snow, he breathed in like he was testing something and took back the snowmobile to go to the car. If not for fearing that it would not support the temperature of the coldest place on the planet, he would have directly brought it to the center of the ridge.
Indeed, the said ridge was between the dome Fuji or dome F and the dome Argus or dome A. Due to their elevation, they directly exchanged temperature with space in the absence of clouds, making them lose heat and have the heavy cold fall between them and accumulate.
Now you could say that Sahara was not the hottest place so why would Lucas choose the coldest place as the opposite? Well, like he said previously, luck brought the first baptism but only smarts and planning could make him keep his life. So, considering that he changed in the biggest hot desert on the planet, it's opposite would be the biggest cold desert, meaning here.
Back at the car, he didn't go inside after opening the door but hurriedly took what he planned to use, a tent, water, some clothes and a towel. Closing the door, he went to the passenger side and this time, he was careful as he took hold of a person covered in a heavy sheet of wool. He locked the car and, placing the person before him on the snowmobile, he used his one from hand to drive to the hole.
There, he pitched the tent and once inside, he uncovered the person in the sheet. It was the beautiful Asian female abused, used as a bait for whatever or whoever and left to die amidst sufferings. He put the towel in the container with the water to wet it and started to clean her:
"When I said I was wondering about why I was saving you, I lied. I knew why already."
He started with the places without wounds, before coming back to clean the cuts and stabs.
"If you were just a stranger, I might have saved you still, but I would continue my journey and only pray that you survive until I reach my objective and return to civilization to leave you in a hospital. If you were to die, I would bury you in the snow and feel some pity, nothing more. I would have tried so, I wouldn't feel bad about myself for your death."
He took care of the face carefully, then the bust, the stomach, the arms, the back, the thighs and the feet.
"But, you see, once when I was deployed in the north of my home country, I saw you from afar and at that time, my heart skipped a beat. That was a first for me because even if I smile and show affection, nothing has ever touched me deeper than on surface level. I tried to find you after losing track of you but I failed."
He cleaned between her legs and, gritting his teeth, took care of the place that bled previously between her butt cheeks. With all the wounds and blood, no way he could find anything to be excited about.
"I don't know if I should feel fortunate enough to meet you again or if I should loathe our meeting given the circumstances."
Propping her upper body up, he cleaned her mouth while trying not to choke her.
"Since fate brought us together one more time, let's bet on it for our continued survival, whether yours or mine. Everything will come after."
He stood up, now that he was done, and took off his clothes. A few seconds later, a naked bronze skinned man, not far from being a bag of bones wrapped in skin, carrying a sickly white Asian girl of above average height left the tent in the middle of the ridge and, bathing in one of the lowest temperature on the planet, he lowered himself in the hole of two meters of diameter. Putting himself in an almost fetal position, he spooned the girl and started taking deep and slow breaths that became sparser and shallower with time.
'Let's embrace death, hoping that it will let me welcome a second baptism and by the same occasion spit you back.'