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I find Runner in the kitchen, packing provisions for us both.

‘Hey,’ I say.

‘There isn’t much else you are saying these days but “hey.” Did I shut you up?’

‘No. It’s just…’ I close the kitchen door so Martha doesn’t hear, ‘…too many people for my taste.’

He nods and stuffs more ham into my backpack. There are several new things in there, additional to all the food. I step closer and examine the contents, noticing a woollen sweater and two pairs of woollen socks. They look very nice, soft and warm. ‘Why did you pack these? They aren’t mine.’
 

‘Did you ever wonder why people invite us into their homes and feed us their best food?’

‘No. Well…you are here, so of course everyone wants to provide for you.’

‘Precisely.’

‘The clothes, too?’

‘Micka, Sequencers own almost nothing. All we have is either borrowed or a present.’

‘What? How can you not own anything? I mean, you have a home, so there must be a bed, rooms, clothes—’

‘You’ve slept in my home.’

It takes me a moment before the penny drops. ‘Your tent is your
only
home?’

‘What else would it be? I’m travelling. Carrying a house with me would be kind of stupid.’

‘But…don’t you need…stuff?’

He stops rummaging in the backpack and looks at me. ‘Tell me what precisely you missed on our hike.’

My mouth opens and clicks shut. ‘Um… A warmer pullover and a pair of warmer socks,’ I mutter after a moment.

‘Isn’t it a nice gesture of Martha and Kaissa to provide you with both?’

He must have told them that I almost froze my toes off. ‘Will we see them again when we return from the lowlands?’

‘No, we’ll take a different route.’

I nod, suddenly missing all those people who seemed to crowd my space. ‘I’ll check where our snowshoes are,’ I say and rush out the door.
 

I search in the small room that used to be the place where we slept, on the second floor where Martha lives with her large family, then in the bathroom, and finally I find her in the basement. ‘Martha?’
 

‘Yes, my dear?’ She wipes her hands on her apron. Sand and bits of straw fall on the dirt floor. The potato clamp she’s just dug through spreads scents of fresh earth.

‘Thank you.’ And then I do it. I walk up to her and give her a hug and a peck on her cheek.

‘Why thank you!’ she cries and presses me to her soft bosom. For the first time in my life, I don’t mind the proximity.

‘We are leaving soon.’

‘I know, I know. But you have to have lunch before you go. I’ll make you really fat and happy.’ She grins and piles potatoes in her apron. ‘Take these.’ She points at jars with cooked pork and I pick up two. ‘Two more, Micka. You can’t leave with an empty stomach.’

I wonder who’s going to eat all this, but if I can make a guess, more than half of it will be inhaled by Runner. His system seems to know when it’s time to stuff itself with goodies. I’m more of the constant-nibbler kind. Large amounts of food usually make me nauseous and sleepy.

I help Martha peel potatoes and cut onions. When it’s time to cook, she ushers me from her kitchen. It’s her queendom and bony people put too much pressure on her when she’s in food-production mode, she’s told me.

I try to find Runner, but all I come across is our two backpacks standing in the corridor. His boots are gone. He’ll be at Kaissa’s. I search the shelf for grease and a rag, then begin waterproofing my boots. There are a few cracks in the leather that need special attention and when Martha calls, ‘Lunch!’ I’m done.

‘Where’s Runner?’ she asks.

‘He’ll come in a minute.’ I pick up his plate that’s already loaded with food and put it in the warm stove.

Martha takes a tiny blob of mashed potato and sits down next to me. I point at the comically small amount of food. ‘Why don’t you eat more? Is it poisoned?’

She laughs. ‘I’ll eat with the others when it’s lunch time. Can’t have you sitting here all by yourself.’
 

I check the clock on the wall. It’s quarter to ten in the morning. Runner said we have to leave by ten.
 

A moment later, he’s rumbling through the entrance door and kicking the snow off his boots. I don’t look at him when he enters the kitchen. It feels like intruding on his privacy.

‘Thanks, Martha,’ I mumble through meat and potato mush in my mouth, stand, and put my plate in the sink. ‘Have to fix something before we leave.’

‘What’s up with her?’ I hear Runner ask when I’m out through the door. His boots are wet with melted snow. I rub them dry and take care to get all the slush off. Then I waterproof them. Can’t have him wearing leaky boots and then sticking his icy feet under my armpits.

‘Thanks, Micka,’ he says and I jump. I didn’t hear him approach.
 

‘No problem. Are we ready to leave?’

‘Yes.’

And suddenly, it’s hard for me to go. I pull on my boots, coat, and mittens, strap the backpack on, and we are back in the snow in minutes.

‘Do you miss them?’ he asks, and I answer, ‘No.’
 

I’m sure he knows it’s a lie.

‘What’s this?’ I ask, pointing at two shiny metal things that stretch through the valley. ‘And who would brush off the snow…
all
the way?’

‘Train tracks. We wait here.’

‘What? What are trainracks? And why—’

‘Train
tracks
. Trains have been around since the nineteenth century; they transport people. Some train tracks reach more than two thousand kilometres.’ He takes a thin rectangle from a side pocket of his backpack and flicks his index finger across it.
 

‘User login,’ a female voice says.
 

I jump. Runner arches an eyebrow at me. ‘Runner,’ he says to the small machine and she answers, ‘Runner. Logged in.’

He runs his fingers across the smooth surface again and I hear a bleeping. ‘We are in position. Sending coordinates. Please acknowledge,’ he says.

Tat tat tat.

‘Acknowledged,’ a male voice says. ‘The toy you requested is on board.’

‘Thank you.’ Runner swipes three fingers across the thing when I step closer. The screen goes blank. I’m not sure, but I think there was the face of a bearded man on it. ‘What
is
this?’

‘A SatPad. I use it to communicate with others, to receive the weather forecast, and to see where we are, among other things. Tonight, I’ll show you how to work it.’ He steps forward and puts his ear on the train tracks. ‘They are close.’

Soon, I hear a buzz coming from the tracks. Runner nods south, towards a long silver bullet that’s approaching fast. The thing has so much speed my legs take several wobbly steps back. He remains rooted to the spot, right between the two metal ribs. The man must be insane. In a few moments, he’ll be mush. ‘Runner?!’ I cry, unsure if my voice can drown the hollering of my heart.

A screeching sounds when the bullet slows down. The thing is very fast and he’s still not moving. ‘Runner!’
 

He grins at me while the massive train screams to a halt a mere two metres from him. A hatch bangs open at its front.

‘Fuck, dude! Every single time! Get off my track!’ A man with a grey ponytail and a gap in his front teeth spits in the snow.

‘Hey, Aristotle, how’s the wife?’

‘Don’t you
Aristotle
me, dude! Who’s that?’ He points at me.
 

‘This is Micka. She’s an outsider,’ Runner answers.

The man eyes me, spits again, then slams the hatch shut.

Runner stomps through the snow to the door closest to us. He presses his palm against it. It bleeps and hisses before it permits us.

‘We don’t have much time,’ he says once we climb in. He strips himself of his backpack, his coat, and mittens. ‘Drop your stuff right here and follow me.’ Then he shoulders his air rifle and I wonder what the heck he’s planning to shoot.

The train begins to move and we walk in the opposite direction, along a corridor, through doors and small compartments that connect wagons — as Runner calls them. Everything is made of metal, shiny and polished with diamond patterns hammered into it. No dirt anywhere. I’m inside a huge machine and I’m loving it, the scent of metal, the quiet grinding noises, and the hum of power. Only the smell of grease is missing.

He holds his palm against a small red screen until a heavy steel door groans open. Lights flicker on, and we enter a room filled with weapons. Large rifles hang on the walls. Below them are boxes and drawers labelled with “ammunition” and a number-letter combination indicating specifics of whatever nature. Runner places his air rifle on a counter and begins searching the drawers.

‘What’s this?’ I ask, pointing at things that look like bullets the length of my arm and twice its width.

‘Explosive warheads. They are fired with a rocket launcher.’ He bends down and opens a hatch in the floor. ‘This is a rocket launcher. Our trains are equipped with one in each wagon. This one here is the spare.’

The thing is enormous. I step closer, stretching out my hand, but he snaps the case shut before my fingers can touch it.

‘The BSA,’ I say. It’s not meant as a question.
 

Runner nods. He picks a rifle from a table at the centre of the room, hands me two boxes of ammunition, and takes two himself. ‘And why do we need this one?’ I ask.

‘Dogs.’

‘I heard about them. Are there many wild dogs in the lowlands?’

‘Yes.’

I hate it when he’s in his one-word-sentence mood. ‘And they like to eat humans?’ I try.

‘Sometimes.’

The room echoes my impatience with a loud
smack
, when my palm hits the top of the counter.

Runner raises an eyebrow. ‘They have little incentive,’ he explains. ‘Enough deer, wild boar, foxes, rabbits and the like, are available to hunt in the lowlands, except when the winter is hard. When they are starved, they get desperate, and have less fear of humans. The dogs are replicating fast and might soon go higher up into the mountains. We believe their population to be close to fifty thousand now.’

‘This winter is a hard one,’ I remind him. ‘Shouldn’t we have two rifles?’

He hands me the one he just picked. ‘Hold it up and aim for a minute. If you can do it without trembling, it’s yours.’

I take the weapon from his hand, press its butt against my shoulder, and lift the barrel. It’s heavier than I thought. My right arm quivers after a few seconds. Runner extracts the gun from my grip and leaves the room. Topic closed.
 

If push comes to shove, I’ll have to use my air rifle as a club, or defend myself with my hunting knife. A shiver crawls up my neck when I think of dogs so close that they can rip my head off.

We keep walking through the corridor, entering and exiting a series of wagons, and I notice that the train is more a storage area than a means of transportation. We sift through dried food items, clothes, and other useful things such as torches, knife sharpeners, can openers, snow goggles, and first aid kits. ‘We’ll leave our rain jackets here. They aren’t needed to cross the lowlands,’ Runner says.
 

When I ask him why I can’t have a small and light weapon to defend myself against dogs, he nods to the new rifle and answers, ‘This is the smallest weapon they’ve got, and it’s on board only because I requested it for us. All others are heavy-duty assault rifles. Should you ever see anyone with such a weapon, you hide and run. Do you understand?’

I tip my chin. ‘No one in my village ever mentioned the BSA or attacks by whatever groups. I’ve always believed that war is stuff from the times before the Great Pandemic. So…’ I swallow. ‘…if the BSA is only in the lowlands…or even farther away, why’s the train heavily armed?’

‘Heavily armed looks very different.’ A bitter grin flickers across his face. ‘The BSA hasn’t been in this area for years, but the train occasionally enters their territory.’

We pack our food. Runner straps the new snow goggles on our backpacks for later.

‘Does the BSA have trains?’ I ask.

He nods. ‘At the moment, they respect our big guns and we respect theirs.’

‘But the dogs won’t. Unarmed, I’m left unprotected. You could have asked for two rifles.’

‘One rifle is more than enough for the two of us. I’ll protect you.’

Thank you very much, I’d rather be able to shoot than to wait for someone to do it for me. I guess I’ll have to eat more and work harder. Maybe my body will grow out of its bony phase. In the meantime, I’ll find out what problem Runner has with handing me a decent weapon.

‘We have another three hours before the train drops us off. We should eat and rest. Come.’

We walk through another wagon and enter an open area that smells quite delicious. And it’s populated. People chat, eat, and smoke.

‘Hi,’ is all he says when we enter. I wave a hand in greeting. People step aside, a few brows are crinkled, smiles fade, and conversations stop.

We reach a bar with a man behind it. He wipes his hands on his apron and stares at Runner. ‘You’re in a hurry, I’ve heard,’ he grunts.

‘We are,’ says Runner. ‘Give Micka something with lots of fat and meat.’ He tips his head at me.