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important? Those files, or her mother’s life? She nodded. “I’ll go get it for you.”
    She turned to go upstairs, but he reached out and pulled her into one of his huge, protective hugs. She hugged him back and felt him trembling, so slightly she almost couldn’t detect it. But it was there.
    â€œTell you what,” he said. “You keep it until tomorrow morning, okay? Keep it safe until the G.E.T. arrives.”
    She squeezed him more tightly. “Thanks.”
    He let her go and turned away, wiping his eyes. Eleanor left him and went upstairs. She climbed back into bed with the Sync and clutched it to her chest. The earlier, nameless fears had become very real, which meant that she could argue with them now. She reminded herself that her mom had extensive training in how to stay alive out on the ice. She had equipment and supplies. She could survive. She had to survive.
    As the night passed without sleep, time stretched and bounced back, minutes and hours seeming to change places, throwing Eleanor into a hazy disorientation. Her eyes closed and fluttered open, again and again. Never quite awake, never quite asleep. She didn’t know how long she lay there. Morning hadnot yet begun to enter the room, but she felt it on the horizon. She couldn’t go to school that day. Not with—
    The Sync chimed against her chest, muffled.
    Eleanor jolted upright, fumbling it into view.
    <70 56 28 24 156 53 27 80 SHOW NO ONE. I will c>
    Eleanor typed as quickly as she could.
    . . .
    
    . . .
    
    . . .
    Why didn’t her mom answer? She had just sent a text. Was she hurt? Freezing to death? Then it occurred to Eleanor.
    The battery.
    If her mom was stranded out on the ice sheet, she might be trying to conserve the power left in her Sync. Maybe that was why her last message seemed cut off. Maybe the battery had finally died.
    There wasn’t any way for Eleanor to know, but what she did know was that her mom had just sent her another warning. Show no one. There wasn’t any way she would let the G.E.T. take her Sync. Not now.
    She had no idea what the numbers in the message could mean. Were they some kind of code? Apassword, maybe? Eleanor needed more information, but she didn’t need to know what the numbers meant to know her mom was in serious trouble. Maybe she was trapped, or injured. Eleanor got out of bed and went for the door. She had to show Uncle Jack—
    She stopped.
    The first messages had demanded secrecy, too, but Uncle Jack hadn’t cared about that. Even if Eleanor showed him this message, he would still turn the Sync and the numbers over to the G.E.T., which Eleanor knew was exactly what her mother didn’t want. The numbers were intended for Eleanor, and it was up to Eleanor to find out what they meant. It was up to her to go and find her mom. The G.E.T. would arrive in a matter of hours for the Sync.
    Eleanor knew she had to be gone well before then.

CHAPTER
5
    T HERE WERE NO PASSENGER FLIGHTS HEADING NORTH . The only people who flew north were oil company workers, oil prospectors, and the cargo planes that supplied them, and not all those flights were exactly legal. If she was going to go searching for her mom, Eleanor knew she’d have to buy or bribe her way onto one of the cargo planes. Her mom kept emergency money rolled up in a quart-size mason jar at the back of her closet. Most people kept money on hand these days, as a precaution—banks and economies in other countries had been collapsing—and her mom had stashed away about two thousand dollars. Eleanor took all that money, and as quietly as she could,she packed everything she thought she might need, pillaging her mom’s supply of spare equipment and gear. Thermal underwear with nanoheaters woven into the fabric. Coats, gloves, and goggles. Boots and the metal-toothed crampons to strap onto their soles if she needed them.