Forlorn Hope

Chapter One

Doctor Garret Wenz made his way cautiously up the side of a broken snowdrift, clutching a piece of equipment to his chest, protecting it from the blowing snow. He glanced over his shoulder, licking his chapped lips, pausing to allow his wife, Anna, to catch up with him. He turned to face her and hopped from left foot to right foot keeping his legs busy – a cramp or leg spasm would put a serious delay on their progress for the day. Anna - also a scientist - ascended as quickly as she could, but kept stumbling. Snow packed her boots with every step; she was covered head to toe with the powdery stuff. He couldn't see her lopsided grin, but he did see the twinkle in her eyes through her goggles.

Anna saw her husband of the last five years do what she could only describe as the 'potty dance.' They had no children of their own, but she had seen videos and heard tales of it from those who did. Hoping to see it performed by her own children, she wondered if such a life was possible with her chosen career. She reached up a gloved hand and wiped perspiration from her forehead, only succeeding in pushing snow into her hair and under her hood.

"How much further?" Breath permeated her facemask and drifted away in tendrils.

"I think we're here." Garret looked at the global positioning device clutched to his chest, nodded and declared, "Yup, welcome to Yellowstone National Park."

Anna looked at miles and miles of snow. This expedition was only possible in the summer. Wishing she could have seen Yellowstone in its past glory, she suspected they were the first humans to be there in years. Many species of flora and fauna, some endangered at the time, were found in the national park. Those species, as well as most humans, either died out or migrated to warmer climates closer to the equator. Most of the population lived south of the thirty-seventh parallel. Oklahoma became the northernmost state of the American Union. The former northern border of Wyoming was along the forty-fifth parallel. Nothing lived above this line. Montana was specifically off limits to anyone with penalties ranging from arrest to deportation. Aerial travel by airplane or helicopter, between the forty-fifth and thirty-seventh parallel was expressly prohibited due to the extreme weather conditions. This area was only accessible by extreme weather vehicles. You had to be careful the snow didn't obscure your solar panels – losing power here meant certain death. Power loss wasn't the only issue – obscured vision from blowing snow led more than one intrepid adventurer into a crevasse.

* * *

The extreme change in climate had happened before either of their births. Before it happened, environmentalists would decry internal combustion engines and warn everyone of the impending doom of global climate change. First they warned of a new ice age, then global warming, and finally simply global climate change. Climate change happened, but no one could have predicted the catastrophic ice age now gripping the planet. Scientists estimated this new ice age extended further south than the Last Glacial Maximum – thus the worst cold snap in global history.

Popular fiction at the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first centuries featured sudden cold snaps killing billions, freezing them in place. Vivid imagery featured people fleeing from the cold only to end up frozen in a running position. Reality was far more devastating. The change was quick, but scientists and the military were able to warn world governments and effect efficient evacuation below the thirty-seventh parallel. The world couldn't support the eight billion inhabitants when most of the globe was habitable, but with more than half of it becoming a frozen wasteland, the billions of people overtaxed the remaining habitable area.

Governments across the globe instituted population controls. The country with the lowest impact was China – they had already instituted population control due to their per capita population. China became one of the wealthiest countries on the planet, followed by the African Provinces, Brazilian Federation and the American Union – previously the United States. Humans overwhelming the local resources and depleting every conceivable commodity overran countries considered 'third-world'. The human race became a plague of locusts consuming everything in sight until they turned on each other.

The four major powers left on the planet, in unexpected restraint, quelled these uprisings without warring with each other and sustained a minimal loss of life. Although millions killed each other attempting to acquire resources, billions simply starved. The extremely wealthy fled to orbital space stations and colonies on the moon. Lunar colonization had started with only the four major powers, but as the population dwindled and those wealthy few needed their habitats maintained, more humans found themselves on the moon's surface and in encapsulated habitats circling a frozen globe. The conditions there were difficult, but still better than living on Earth.

Less then ten million humans lived off world, the remaining two and a half billion lived within two thousand miles of the equator. The number of people living outside this area is unknown, but is estimated at less than a million.

The world had finally recovered from this disaster and now it was time to attempt repairing the global climate. It had taken nine decades to get to this point; hopefully it wouldn't take another nine to repair and repopulate this frozen wasteland.

* * *

The two scientists finally made it to the southern border of what was once Yellowstone National Park, not yet to the Yellowstone caldera and further to their ultimate goal – the geyser dubbed long ago 'Old Faithful.' They didn't know how far north their research would take them, but they were very aware of the proximity of the forty-fifth parallel and its status. After the length of their expedition, violating the border of Montana would be an unceremonious end to their endeavor.

If they could have walked the six hundred fifty miles from Gallup, New Mexico, the closest city large enough to accommodate and outfit their party, it would have taken them thirty-five days. They had secured transport via military convoy to Idaho Falls, Idaho. There was a listening post and scientific research station in there and it cut five hundred miles from their journey. They were only able to secure transportation to Idaho Falls due to the importance of their expedition. If successful, it could mean the end of a decades-long ice age.