Andrea woke up in a warm bed. Her fingers and toes stung with pins and needles; she definitely had frostbite. She was relieved to hear Chris snoring across the room. They had survived! The Navy had come to get them! Just then, Andrea remembered her last, fading memory: the name of the ship. Looking around, everything in the room was written in Mandarin. This was not the US Navy. They had been picked up by the PLA Navy, who very likely knew what they were doing out there on the ice.
She didn't have much time to think things through before there was a knock on the door. A man in a blue working uniform stepped into the room. The patch on his chest indicated that his name was Jian. As he ducked in the door, he spoke softly to Andrea, "Hello and welcome aboard Hai-bing 722. The doctor will be back shortly, and I've sent for some warm corn porridge."
Andrea was shocked that Jian seemed to genuinely welcome them aboard. "Thank you. Were you able to contact our ship to come get us?"
Jian did not respond before turning around and closing the door behind him. Andrea heard a lock click from the other side of the door. She realized that they were not exactly guests aboard the Hai-bing 722.
Andrea moved over to Chris and gave him a shake. He came to slowly and started to say "Oh hey Andy, I was having the strangest dream..." but was cut off by the awareness of his surroundings. This wasn't his bunkroom aboard the Peary. He noticed the Mandarin writing. But most of all, he noticed Andrea's panicked face. She had about 4 minutes to fill him in until the doctor entered the room with another individual. The doctor's name patch read "Lee". The other man did not have a name patch. He actually didn't have any patches on his work uniform. They immediately understood that he was PLA Intelligence. The doctor carried the promised bowls of warm corn porridge. To Andrea and Chris, it appeared to be milky grits. But their growling stomachs and freezing hands would tolerate anything warm right now.
As they ate their porridge, the doctor examined their feet by pinching their toes. He took their blood pressure and checked their pulse. After they finished eating, he explained that they both suffered some frostbite. His concern was that necrotic tissue could cause sepsis. If they experienced fever or a rapid heart rate, he would order a blood test to check for infection. However, they both seemed okay for the moment. Both Chris and Andrea were surprised by his bedside manner. Even more so because he obviously knew what they had been caught doing.
The other man, however, had been silently watching this whole scene. It wasn't until Dr. Lee left the room that the other man spoke: "We know why you're here. We know that you know why we're here. The only thing left to find out is how much you're worth."
Chris was the first to speak. "We're just researchers. Not military. They just asked us to help out with what they're doing. So we're not combatants. Just researchers."
The man shrugged. "You came here with your military to steal our equipment. Our researchers put years into building what you stole. So if you're not military, you must be thieves."
Andrea grew defensive. "But you were just deploying the comms nodes so that you could claim the Arctic and exploit its resources. We're not the bad guys here."
This caused the man to laugh. "Bad guys versus good guys. America is full of hero stories. John Wayne versus the Indians. Mel Gibson versus the British. Will Smith versus the aliens. Every story in America is a good guy versus bad guy story. What if, sometimes, it isn't that simple?" The man turned to leave them alone in the room. "You're being taken back to Qingdao until we figure out what to do with you thieves." They could see his smile through the back of his head as he left the room.
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