WaferMesh. On Winnie's website, several of her dresses used it. Living up north after the Collapse meant year-round winter, so unless people wanted to bundle in mittens and scarves for eternity, they used WaferMesh. Several version came out over the years, and each had its own variations in warmth, texture, and durability, but they all used the same general principle: instead of using thread, it was a lattice of synthetic fiber that created air pockets within waffle like layers. It was kind of like a sponge, but texturing kept it looking like fabric. The advantage was insulation without thick layering, so if anybody wanted to show off their form in the nuclear winter, they needed WaferMesh.

Winnie liked to think that was the reason her website was popular. Her clothes used WaferMesh, which wasn't popular with designers down south, but vital for people farther north like she was. Also, she'd customized her site so that users could specify a kind of mesh before assembling, or even use standard synthetic cotton for those people in warmer climates.

Her experience also made her particularly apt at selecting outfits for herself and Victoria as their drifter car traveled farther north. She'd wanted to pick things from her own website. The sense of familiarity would be nice, but Victoria forbid it after one glance at her modeled clothes. Instead she picked a few bottom-line no-design long sleeved articles from the core library that not even a nun could complain about.

Then Victoria turned her nose up at the colors Winnie had picked.

"I asked you if you had any preferences," Winnie said.

"I assumed you'd pick... earth colors." Victoria held up a pair of bright yellow leggings.

"Color is in right now. We'll look fine."

"I suppose it will do." Victoria peeled off her teeshirt and worked her arms through the sleeves of a green long sleeve shirt. "Change now."

While Winnie was off collecting the clothes from an assembler station near their current rest stop, Victoria had inputted Ottawa into the car's guidance system. It might be below freezing outside, but the guidance said they'd be spending another three toasty hours in the car.

"Why now?" Winnie asked.

"Because we're not taking the car from here. We're walking the rest of the way."

Startled, Winnie looked around their vicinity with her mind. They had stopped in a community in upstate New York. It wasn't much different than Redding—the town the Lakirans relocated Winnie and her mother to. It was large enough to reestablish a complete school and a hospital, and an assembler station where Winnie made the clothes. Also like Redding, the Lakirans had gathered all local holdouts of nuclear winter survivors and put them here to better manage law and resources. Being anywhere else in the region was against the law, at least it had been in Redding. Many people complained about that back home, but it made sense the way the Lakirans explained it. People outside of the city were outside of the empire's thinly spread control. The empire couldn't police them or protect them. The only people who'd realistically want that were raiders or warlords. And North America used to have plenty of both.

This meant that the only thing around this settlement were miles of abandoned towns, broken down roads, and forests of dead trees. But if their destination had been in town, they wouldn't need the clothes. The community was small enough that they could have walked there by now.

"How far are we going?" Winnie asked.

"A few miles. Did you get my other package?"

"This?" Winnie took out a small assembled radio pack. "What's it for?"

"You'll see. Change."

In the warmth of the car, they donned insulating clothes. Victoria opened the door and ushered Winnie out. Before stepping out herself, she instructed the drifter car to begin its trip. Once the door was closed, the car lifted and silently glided out of the parking lot. All drifter cars were capable of driving themselves; it made returning rentals easy. But it was still a spooky sight for Winnie. The purpose was clear. If anyone tracked down the car, they'd be in the wrong country.

Thus began their hike. They climbed on hands and knees over a snowbank alongside the parking lot. Beyond that was a forest with two feet of snow encrusted with ice. With every other step, Winnie would crunch through into soft snow beneath. Powder would clump along the rim of her boots. Five minutes of walking and her red WaferMesh leggings were soaking through. Wet cold was creeping down her ankle.

"My socks are wet," she said.

"Deal with it."

"I wish you would have told me we were going to walk through snow."

"These clothes will do fine. It's not much farther."

Or so Victoria said. Winnie scanned ahead. If Victoria was bee lining to their destination, which it seemed like she was, that put at least another three miles of snow slogging ahead of them. After that, an abandoned town.

Winnie occupied herself by darting her mind from building to building looking for wherever they may be going to. It didn't take her long. Footprints in the snow ambled all about the abandoned town ahead. Some followed circuitous paths back to the community they'd traveled come from. Winnie traced the prints to a cellar door. Inside was a makeshift living arrangement for one: a floor mattress, piled wood, coolers full of assembled food supplies. The resident was a woman who sat on the mattress curled up in blankets. She was reading a book with an electric lantern which rested on a nearby cardboard box. By the bed was a wood stove with a belly full of ash. The woman would only use the stove at night, when no one would see the smoke coming from the chimney. Winnie knew this because this was exactly how she lived years ago when it was just her, her mother, and a handful of famine survivors.

This woman was hiding from the Lakirans.

"Who is she?" Winnie asked.

Victoria kept walking. "High Exemplar Liat."

By the time they arrived, Winnie remembered what it was like to be truly and miserably cold. It hadn't been so bad in the woods. The trees had sheltered the wind, but in the ghost town, it cut through every bit of exposed skin she had. Her cheekbones ached. Her boots were soaked through, and her legs felt like two dead slabs of meat.

Victoria stopped one block from the cellar door. She was poised as though stalking a prey. Winnie came up behind her, sniffling and shivering, too cold to care.

"Liat Delacroix!" Victoria yelled.

Inside the cellar, Liat startled. Dropping her book, she pulled a magnum pistol from behind the mattress and took aim at the door. Winnie now understood now why they hadn't just walked in. Liat scurried to a ladder leading into the house. She was going to run for it.

Victoria sighed. "Stay where you are," she murmured to Winnie, then proceeded forward. Liat clambered into the kitchen. Ducking low, she scurried through the living room of the dilapidated house, glancing about as though under fire. One peek out the back window revealed the backyard to be clear, so the woman burst out the back door and sprinted toward the woods.

Victoria was right there. The woman spun in surprise. The gun raised.

"Drop your gun and kneel to me, Liat Delacroix."

The magnum fell into the snow. Liat dropped to her knees. The words Victoria spoke had caused the hairs on Winnie's neck to stand on end. They were the same words she'd used on Winnie's mother; they had to be obeyed.

"...Your Majesty?" Liat asked.

"Yes."

Liat fell to her hands and crawled through the snow. She hugged Victoria's ankles as though she'd never let them go, and she cried hysterically.

"Victoria, I'm sorry," she said. "I thought you were dead. I couldn't reach the others. Bishop said they were killing us, and then the army came after me." She sobbed. "I didn't know what to do. I just... I ran. I hid. I was going to—"

"Enough of this, Liat. Behave yourself." Victoria shook Liat off her feet.

Liat smiled at this. "Sorry, Your Majesty." She sat back on her haunches and took a deep solid breath, purging any emotional remnants. "I'm just really happy to see you." Liat looked over Victoria's teenage body. "How did you survive?"

"I ran out of bad luck at the last moment."

"And Sakhr? Is he still...?"

"Yes. There is a buffoon on my throne."

"Do you have a plan?"

"Of course I do."

Liat nodded. "Good. I am yours if you'll still have me. After taking orders for so long, I'd forgotten how exhausting life is figuring things out for yourself. Thank God you're here." She pressed her forehead to Victoria's foot.

Victoria shook her off. "I said enough of that. Get up."

Liat climbed to her feet. Snow caked her leggings. Winnie encroached on their little reunion. Both turned to face her.

"This is great and all," Winnie said, "but can we go inside?"