It took me three days to convince my mother to let me go up and look for my father. It was a panic time, and she said we needed to calm down first to figure what was the best thing to do. She wanted to go up herself. I had to stop her.

“You said we have to be rational, not make a rash decision because we are panicking,” I told her. “Those are your very words, mother. So, calm down, you are not going anywhere.”

I also told her that if something was to happen to her as well, I would not know what to do with my six-year-old sister. How would I raise the two of them? Actually three of us? I had no idea how to cook and work with all the food appliances since I ran around with my father so much, and he was never very near the kitchen except when it was time to eat. I don’t think I even knew how to fry an egg back then. But I certainly could gut a fish and file it completely in less than twenty seconds.

“Besides, I’m faster and a better shot than you. And I will be back. I promise you that.”

She sighed, and her eyes filled with tears, but she knew it was the right thing to do.

So, I took a plasma rifle that was so good at raising hell in a close-combat and opened the hatch. My father had already created a system where you could use a high-powered vacuum sucker that would suck in all the snow and ice and transport it quickly through a twenty-centimeter wide tube to drop into our water supply. No need for any snow shoveling. Not that I needed to activate a snow sucker anyway. He had already carved an up-sloping path of about twenty degrees, and I decided to follow it, not wanting to waste time creating a path of my own.

It was dark when I got out. The wind whipped me right away and made me feel like the thick layers of clothes my mom obligated me to put on did not exist at all. I never knew that the chill could go through you and bite your bones, make your stomach crawl into a small ball, make you appreciate a cozy place next to a fireplace as if it was the only treasure you ever needed.

It was a cloud-free night, but the wind whipped the snow up and it was hard to see anything. You had to turn around against the wind to be able to see anything as those charming snowflakes were whipped hard in my face and made me feel like they were worse than biting wasps.

Well, even with that wind, some things became instantly clear.

With my gun pressed against my cheek, pointing around, I expected military air vessels, armed and heavily armored units, blood and guts. But I found none of it. Not even footprints in the snow. Not even a drop of blood, not that I could see a drop of blood if it was there.

As my mother told me to do, I stuck a flag next to my snow tunnel and got connected with my mother.

“I do not see anything around, mom,” I told her in my ancient-looking hand radio, the only technology my dad could get his hands on during the last year.

“Nobody’s there?” my mother answered clearly after a bit of static passed through.

“No. And there are no wind turbines either. They did take them away.”

“Your father?”

“Don’t see anything. I’m looking for footprints. But see none of them. I should have done this earlier. The wind is so strong it is just blowing everything away. It must have wiped the footprints off as if they were made of sand.”

“Yeah. And I’m so cold.”

“Do you see any lights around, anything on a horizon?”

“No. Only stars above. They are very pretty.”

“And you don’t see your father anywhere?”

“No. I will make expanding circles around the entrance to the tunnel, exactly like we agreed I should do.”

“Don’t stop talking to me now.”

“I won’t.”

“Please, keep the line open. And if you are that cold, you have to be very careful. Did you put your snow-walking shows on?”

“Yes. I’m going around now, finishing my first circle, still nothing, not in the distance, not in the snow. I can’t see Forman’s Hills. Not any lights in the distance. Everything is dark.”

“We are blind. We do not have heat scanners. Whoever took the turbines and is responsible for what has happened to your father is definitely better equipped than us. They may be watching you as you go. I want you to return.”

“Mom, don’t panic. I’m going to make a bit bigger circles around and then head back. It is cold. I won’t be long.”

I stayed there another fifteen minutes or so, looking around, looking for what happened to my father. The only trace of him I found was the hand radio he carried with him, the one that he was supposed to use to let us know he was all right, the one he never got to use. It lay a few meters away from the opening, almost completely covered in snow. My heart went into my mouth as I looked carefully around. Sincerely, I really did expect to find his frozen body nearby, but to my huge relief, it was all just snow. And wind.

My mother waited for me by the hatch, already opening it up as I skidded down the slope. She gave me a bottle of warm water to defrost my frozen fingers and hands and then sealed us back inside. Then we went to the kitchen and set at the table alone, my siblings being sound asleep all this time.

“Why would he drop the radio communicator?” my mom asked me as I gave it to her.

“We assume he did it on purpose, that it just did not drop out of his pocket, right?” I said. “Because that would be very unlikely.”

“Yes. He dropped it on purpose.”

“But that wind outside, mom… It could have been…”

“I think you do not know fully what kind of man your father is. You know, there is a reason your father stopped eating that much two months ago. You saw how skinny he got, right?”

“Yes.”

“He did it on purpose. It was not true that he didn’t have an appetite. He did it thinking that sooner or later he had to face other people and he did not want them to think that he was someplace where there was a lot of food. He wanted them to think that he was starving. That’s why he did not even shave for days before going outside or why he wore only rags. That’s why he did it. He was that careful. He would have never left that radio there unless it meant something.”

“Well, if there was someone that pointed guns at him, all around him, he would not have a chance to fight. Not even a chance to let us know anything. And he… he could have dropped it to try and conceal it. I mean, it was half-buried.”

“It was not snowing last few days. I can check, but I’m certain.”

“So, then he tried to conceal it, probably from people that he found outside. They must have been armed, armed better than him, or else, there would have been a gunfight. But I saw no traces of it.”

“Good.”

“And if they circled him around, he could have just pretended like what you said, that he was just a desperate, lonely man, climbing out of his hole where there was no food or anything anymore, looking for a chance to survive outside. If he said that and had a radio on him, that would be a problem, right? Does that make any sense?”

“Yes. It would mean that he was not alone here. And I bet he did not want anyone to come and check on us.”

“It means he did not trust them. Did not like them.”

My mom shook her head and poured me another cup of tea. “A lot of guessing here. I do not like to guess.”

“Well, there are some things we do know. We know he did not just wander off,” I told my mom.

“True.”

“And we know he did not freeze next to the tunnel or was murdered there. And did not have a chance to use the radio either.”

“That is all true.”

“Now, I think he was taken away. I just do not know why they would not try to enter our compound once they got him. That does not add up.”

“Maybe they were in a hurry, and will return later.”

“Maybe we should wait for them, be ready for them. And then, maybe we can find out what happened to my father.”

My mom walked nervously from the table and brought us some freshly baked biscuits. A cup of steaming tea was refilled as she shook her head. “You know, your father would go outside at nights very often.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Only at nights.”

“That makes sense. That exit path was done well. But why?”

"He would take a special high-powered radio antenna out to see if there was anything that we could hear, the news about how things were going. Now, with the net going dark, we wanted to know what was happening to the outside world. Then he would bring it back down before the sunlight. He said that having turbines was bad enough, that having an antenna would certainly draw unwanted attention.”

“Why was I not told about this?”

“For several reasons. First, you would have wanted to go out with him. Secondly, we did not want to scare you and your brothers too much if we hear something bad happening.”

“Well, I would have told him to use the turbines as an antenna. That could be done easily.”

“He thought about that, but decided to leave it for next year when the snow would melt.”

“Okay… So, what is happening, mom? Have you guys heard anything?”

“Yes. There is this channel at the 900 MHz frequency. A man there spoke of new governments being formed, new law being passed, things have been falling apart.”

“Nothing surprising there. We are expecting all of that.”

“I know. So, it might have happened that our military had been already fractioned among different states and that there is no central authority that can guarantee us our basic rights.”

“You are telling me this because you think one of those militaries had taken him?”

“Yes. They were talking like they instituted this sort of Emergency Law that permitted them to take anything they want around.”

“That does not surprise me.”

“I expected us to sink into an anarchy, but seeing it happen, just scares the shit out of me."

"I know. But we have to stay focused."

"You are right. We have to know what is important. And the only thing that is important is that he is still alive and that you guys are safe. I don’t care what happened and what will happen. Let us just hope he is still alive. As long as he lives there is hope.”

"I think he should be alive. I mean, it makes sense. The people who took wind turbines from us might have needed someone that knows how to install them and maintain them. They would need him. And obviously, they set up a trap, waiting for him to come out."

"You're right. Your father is a very resourceful guy. It would be crazy to... just kill someone like that." The last words came out hard, her mom having a problem to speak about the possibility of her husband being killed.

“Don’t worry, Mom. I will find him. If I have to turn this whole world around, I’ll find him.”

That is the promise I gave her that night, all full of myself, all so determined, ready to plow over the world with my fingertips if needs be, but… not aware at all that at sixteen you really can’t promise shit to anyone since... you do not even know how little you know.