“Stay away from the exhaust vents,” she called back, “and be careful if the wind changes and starts to blow it toward us. That turpentine smoke is poisonous like you wouldn’t believe.”

The mouth of the bay was choked with small sandbars and islands, and they maneuvered through them carefully. By the time they reached the sound it was already night, and they were forced to rely solely on the gasoline as they thumped through the choppy water. The boat had a convertible canvas awning that raised up over the pilot’s station, but the years had not been kind to it, and it cracked nearly in half when they tried to unfold it. Green found a baseball cap belowdecks and gave it to Kira to keep the snow out of her eyes while she steered, and when she needed a break she passed both controls and hat to him. They steered slightly westward as they drove, and made land in Huntington Bay sometime around midnight. The beach was wide and pebbly, and they beached the yacht carefully in case they needed to use it again, tying it to a sturdy upright log that had once been part of a dock.

The snow was getting thicker, and with the storm clouds blocking out the moon, they could barely see enough to walk. They took shelter in a massive mansion just off the water, sleeping soundly in a small bedroom with all five of them huddled together for warmth. In the morning they scoured the house for canned food, finding some garbanzo beans that hadn’t gone bad yet, and shared the meager fare before trudging back outside into the snow. The world was covered with a thick, white carpet, with more still falling in a slow, steady curtain. They didn’t walk far before Falin stepped on a small bump and jumped back with a curse.

“That’s a body.”

Kira looked up quickly, glancing around to see if there was danger she hadn’t registered yet, perhaps some ambush from the storefronts, but she saw nothing. She walked to the group, clustered around the prone body, and knelt down next to it. Now that she was looking closely, she could tell it was a vaguely man-shaped outline, lying on his side in a fetal position.

“Not a Partial,” said Green. “No death stamp on the link.”

Kira brushed away the snow and frowned as she uncovered more and more dark, frozen blood. Whoever it was had died violently. She wiped the snow from the dead man’s face and gasped in horror.

“You know him?” asked Green.

“His name is Owen Tovar,” said Kira. “He was a member of the group that rebelled against our government a couple of years ago, and then a senator after his rebellion was successful. I didn’t know him well, but . . .” She shook her head. “I liked him. He was a good man.”