The truckie didn’t seem too concerned at the prospect of helicopter gunships hammering down on them while they picked through a camping-goods store. She bounced in the seat as they pulled out of the Flying J Travel Plaza and turned westbound down Front Street, passing under Interstate 435.

‘Hauling road freight can be a dangerous business, Sofia,’ Cindy explained. ‘Seattle needs that freight hauled, especially with all the trouble they’ve been having on the railway lines. So any informal arrangements that smooth the process . . . well, the people in the field tend to look the other way. I suppose there’ll come a day when this is all less of a frontier . . .’ She waved at the darkness outside the truck windows as she spoke. ‘But for now, frontier rules apply.’

Sofia turned sideways in her seat, leaning against the padded headrest behind her. ‘And what are the frontier rules?’ she asked.

‘Whatever it takes, hon. Whatever it takes.’

‘I am familiar with that rule,’ said Sofia in a quiet voice.

The driver appeared to measure her up with a long, calculating look. Long enough that Sofia began to worry that Cindy wasn’t paying attention to the road. But she seemed to know where she was on the highway, even though it was covered in snow. Warehouses flanked both sides of Front Street, many of them still dark, deserted. Every so often, an island of lights would appear in the inky, snowy night where someone had established a business of one type or another in the ruins of the old civilisation.

‘Yes, I imagine you are familiar with it, Sofia,’ she replied, before turning away to check her rear-view mirrors. By leaning forward a few inches herself, Sofia was able to find the other trucks in a small convoy strung out behind them.

They passed – bounced perhaps was more accurate – across the Chouteau Trafficway intersection. Kansas City Power and Light maintained a large facility of spare parts at the north-west corner of the intersection. Rows of repair trucks idled in the yard, waiting for the stressed power grid to fail under the weight of the blizzard. Down the road, it was just possible to make out the grey skyline of Kansas City’s skyscrapers. Most of the roads had long been cleared of debris and wrecks.

Trains powered through the yards on the south side of Front Street bearing the logos of Kansas City Southern and Union Pacific. Sofia remembered how her father would take her down to the railroad tracks along the Missouri River, back when they’d first arrived here, to watch the trains rumble by. It bored her witless, but Papa seemed to find the sight reassuring. ‘They are stitching the wounds of this land together,’ he would say.