Sleet and snow came down in vast billowing clouds that reduced visibility to just a few metres. The truck finally identified a possible hiding place in a steep-sided arroyo lying to the north. She gave up trying to steer manually and let the truck itself take over, and it finally found shelter less than half an hour later.

There she stayed for more than ten days. Occasionally she thought about ignoring the trucks strident warnings as soon as she suggested possible escape routes to its AI, but one look out of the window at the howling chaos beyond the windscreen was always enough to give her second thoughts. And she had not forgotten Stiless warning either.

Much of her time was spent sitting in the trucks front cabin, a mug of hot coffee cradled in her hands as she stared out at the black sky. As a distraction she tried reading the truck had a database of several million volumes but nothing would stick in her mind. All she wanted was for the storm to be over.

When it finally abated, the truck started to dig its way out of the vast drift that had by then filled the arroyo. Its treads slid and slipped around on compacted snow as it fought its way free like some huge and ponderous beast emerging after a long hibernation. At one point Megan had to get out with a shovel and dig away some of the compacted snow herself, setting about it with a furious energy. She had been stuck on board the truck now for just about as long as she had spent at Stiless outpost, yet she had covered no more than three hundred kilometres with another hundred to go before she could reach the Accord military outpost that was her destination. Once it was freed, after long hours of effort, the truck carried her along the narrow gorge that was the only possible route through the mountains, only to find the way blocked by a landslide that, again, did not show up on the trucks increasingly outdated and useless maps. Megan stared through the windscreen at boulders the size of houses, piled on top of one another, and felt a depth of frustration and anger such as she had never known she was capable of feeling.

The only way to circumvent the landslide was by driving back the way shed come, for a good hundred kilometres or so, then head either north or south to skirt around the furthest edges of the mountain chain. But such a journey would take her thousands of kilometres and long weeks out of her way.

Or, instead, she could walk the rest of the way. Just because the truck couldnt go any farther, didnt mean she herself couldnt.