The End of the Beginning

Over 190 miles south of the narrow separation of water between Russia and Alaska called the Bering Strait, the Ice Curtain by some, was St. Lawrence Island. This was the dam’s backbone. On one side of this small island, the last remaining portion of the land bridge that existed 16,000 years ago that had connected Asia with the America’s just as humans now again had, was the Chukchi Peninsula belonging to Siberia. On the other side of the island was the Norton Sound and the great Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta of southwestern Alaska.

The dam itself, starting in Chukchi, ran southeast thirty-eight miles to connect with the boomtown of Gambell, Alaska, on the northwest cape of St. Lawrence. It then resumed at a cape below Seevookhan Mountain on the eastern side of the island from which it continued running east southeast more than fifty miles to the another boom town called Ice Gate, built up on the southwestern end of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta south of the rivers mouths. Ice Gate was a new city of now over 5,000 workers under the direction of UNIRO Engineering Corps.

Built from the seafloor up atop the shallow continental shelf with fill taken from the now demolished Diomede Islands, the dam was 700 feet wide at its base, 400 feet wide at its top, and had a height above sea level of eighty-five feet. Five gaps with suspension bridges spanning them, each a mile and a half long, allowed for shipping traffic through the open Northwest Passage and the migration of sea life. On these bridges, and along the entire length of the dam, was a high speed rail line, a four lane highway, wind turbines, an oil and natural gas pipeline per a condition of Russia, maintenance hubs, rest stops, and electrical substations; making this dam a horizontal strip of civilization across the freezing and menacing Bering Sea, waters that saw darkness and temperatures that still reached well below zero for many months out the year. Accropode lined to protect its interior fill, it could even capture the seas underlying currents with tidal turbines and housed research stations to study the effects of the new project on the waters it cut. But what was the intended effect of such a gargantuan project? Why dam two oceans from each other?

Not only did it connect the two-superpower continents with a means of easy transport and provide megawatts of clean energy to both sides, it now was an anthropogenic air conditioning system for the Arctic Circle. Sea ice was melting at rates that were spiraling out of control and total ice-free summers in the North Pole were close to being a reality. NASA was clocking the rate of melt at just over thirteen percent per decade relative to the 1981 to 2010 average.

Ice-free waters and land were only adding to the warming of the planet with a lowering of albedo and releases of methane from melting frozen soil called permafrost. Methane is a volatile greenhouse gas that is much more capable at trapping heat within the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, but it only last just over a decade once in the air. This short lifespan did not matter anymore though as so much of it was now present, with more replacing it every day from stores of it that had remained locked away for millennia worth billions of tons.

With the Pacific waters now blocked from entering the Arctic, warm surface water in the Anadyr Current could no longer travel through the Bering Strait and deeper water with a high salt content was stopped as well. The freshwater outflows of the Yukon and the diverted Kuskokwim River were going to empty to the north of the dam and lower the salinity of the Norton Sound, the Chukchi Sea, and eventually the Arctic Ocean so that seawater could more easily freeze, once again raising the areas albedo, creating a feedback that would cool the region down. Methane releases would be halted and permafrost would refreeze if the idea worked.

Like the Coastalscraper in Dover though, this project was met with protest and backlash. Fear of biodiversity loss within the sea and a complete disruption of Pacific and Arctic currents was very much made clear by a number of groups as a way to stop the project. Three years of scientific scrutiny and research after the founding of UNIRO though showed the plan was feasible, both economically and structurally. Around the clock construction began in 2024, even working through winters. Other methods to achieve the same feat were deemed too dangerous and irreversible if things got out of control with their effects. At least with a dam it was thought, one could just blow it up for a quick fix.

Summers within a few years would begin to tell if the dam was working but pictures of the opening ceremony before William on his glass tablet told him that it worked in UNIRO’s favor politically now. Almost every world leader was in attendance of the opening. It seemed as if every news agency was as well. There were speeches about the goodness of UNIRO. There were speeches about the future and there were speeches of hope. UNIRO aircraft did a low flyover, followed by a folly of fireworks. Crowds of thousands, mostly press, dam builders, and workers, cheered their minds out.

At the literal center of it all was Director-General Roque Ferrer, shaking hands with the Russian and American presidents on St. Lawrence Island. His power was once more showing over the global theater, bridging both geographical and geopolitical barriers between two nations that very much needed a friendly handshake after too many years of Cold War style relations in the modern century. Hammond was behind him, Colonel Morrison not visible, lost somewhere in a crowd of dignitaries at the new St. Lawrence Transportation Hub: an airport, harbor, and train station to ferry dam employees and supplies to and from the mainland’s.

William could not help but squirm like a child at the awesome sight of it. Many on base were watching like him. The event seemed to finally get the base off its down swing left over from Samir’s death. It helped to remind everyone of their purpose here.

William felt his earpiece begin to vibrate.

“Incoming call from Rescue Officer Gaspard Fortin,” informed a computerized voice.

William tapped the earpiece. “Hello.”

“Yes, hello, Captain Emerson. I’ve analyzed the white liquid you gave me yesterday. I believe I know what it is. I used a chem lab in the training center.”

William checked his surroundings quickly and sunk a little lower into the bench he was sitting on. He was in one of the BLOC Sections many open parks. “What did you find?”

“It is tattoo ink.”

“Really?”

“Yes, but it is unique in the fact that it can only be seen under ultraviolet light. The same will apply when it is on an individual. Rather strange don’t you think, sir? Why would someone want a tattoo they couldn’t even see?”

“That might be exactly why someone would want it,” cringed William. “Thank you, Fortin. And remember, not a word.”

“Yes, Captain. My pleasure, sir. If you need anything else analyzed let me know. I forgot how much fun chemistry was.”

William smiled. “Will do.”

Almost immediately after hanging up the call he started a new one. As he did he grabbed his tablet and took off to the nearest bicycle renting station.

“Call Rescue Officer Nancy Lewis,” he instructed his earpiece.

Within seconds, “Hello Captain Emerson. How may I be of assistance?”

“Rescue Officer Lewis, you have a boyfriend right?”

“Excuse me sir?”