2055, September 1^st
Collapse + 6 years

It was in biology class two periods later when the call came. Mr. Belview had just begun lecturing when a wiry freshman poked his head in the door.

“Uh, Winnie needs to go to the headmaster’s office.”

Winnie looked up from her current design doodling.

Mr. Belview scanned for Winnie and motioned for her to go. He resumed class before she was out the door.

The halls were empty. Voices came from behind classroom doors. Winnie’s shoes echoed on linoleum as she walked to the office. She wore her coat. Warm as it was, she didn’t need Mr. Myers seeing her dress. She considered slipping in the bathroom to change back, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. He’d ordered her change back a few times before, but he didn’t really want to stifle a student’s creativity.

The Assistant Director’s office was before the principal’s. Winnie sat on the row of seats where troublesome students waited their turn.

The director glanced up from her work. “You can go right in. They’re waiting for you.”

They?

Winnie entered the principal’s office. Somehow, she knew who else was there before seeing the education inspector sitting across from Principal Myers.

“Ah. Winnie. Please, join us.” Myers indicated the chair beside the inspector. “Do you remember Mr. Matthews from assembly?”

Winnie nodded.

“He wanted to speak with you. Come. Sit.”

Winnie dropped her backpack beside the chair and sat. Mr. Matthews held a tablet in his lap with his hands casually crossed over it. Her heart skipped.

It was bulky. LED lights shined on the edge. She’d seen a tablet like that before, three years ago when a man in a tent decided her fate—the exemplar. Winnie became aware of the thoughts she was thinking.

“What about?” she asked.

Myers glanced at Matthews. “Well… perhaps, Mr. Matthew, if you’d like to explain?”

Mr. Matthews face lit conversationally. “Absolutely. However, I would like to speak with Ms. Cho privately.” He gave Myers a friendly smile.

Something about the principal’s expression struck Winnie. Before, whenever she saw him, he was either frowning down at a student for misbehavior, or smiling in what he probably thought was a grandfatherly way. Right now, his expression was dead neutral. Winnie was not alone in recognizing who Mr. Matthews really was.

“Of course. I’ll just be in the other room.” Myers headed to the door. Pausing, he turned to say something, and thought better of it. He bowed to Mr. Matthews before shutting the door. His footsteps faded.

Matthews turned to Winnie. “Hello. My name is Jordan Matthews. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He extended his hand. They shook.

“Nice to meet you,” Winnie said.

He smiled. “You can relax. You’re not in any kind of trouble. I can tell you know what I really am.”

“You’re an exemplar.”

“That’s right. What was it that gave it away?” He held up his tablet. “Was it my plaque? It does stand out, doesn’t it?”

“And your suit.”

“My suit? This isn’t our uniform.”

“No, but your clothes were stitched from bolts. which means they were made with threaded fabrics. Most people can’t afford it, and it’s mostly a status thing. I didn’t think a school inspector would have a suit like that.”

Matthews looked over his clothes. “Huh. Nice catch.” He looked at her and smiled. “Clothes, right? You’re a designer.” He tapped a button on his tablet. It lit, and he navigated to a browser. Winnie’s clothing site was on the displayed tab. “You must know all about clothes.”

“You know about my site?” she asked. Is that why he singled her out?

“Mr. Myers was just telling me about it. Apparently you’ve become quite infamous for your dress code violations. I like it though. Not my style, of course, but I suppose my daughter might wear it. I wish she’d get into something like this, maybe do something besides spend all day on the internet. Though I’m not sure I’d let her out of the house dressed in half these things. Your socks are nifty. How’d you get into this?”

Winnie shrugged. “I just did. I downloaded the Studio a couple years ago and just played around.”

“Yeah? Do you get a lot of business around here?”

“Most of my subscribers are from South America, I think. I’m not really sure.”

“That makes sense. There’s more money for luxuries in the home continent.”

“They have their own assemblers there,” Winnie said.

“That too. Does your family have an assembler?”

“Not here, but my mom used to have a series I at our old place. We didn’t use it after the Collapse though. It didn’t work on solar.”

“So you’re making your dresses… how? The local station?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh.” Matthew browsed her site for a few pages, then dimmed the screen. He set the tablet on the table with a heavy thunk. “I bet you’re wondering why I called you here. How much do you know about the Exemplar Committee?”

“Nothing really. People say you guys read minds. You go around to towns after you take over and decide who gets dragged off.”

He winced. “Well, yes. When the queen folds a settlement into the union, exemplars come in for threat analysis. Those we think are at high risk of making violent attacks are taken to a secure facility. It’s not a pleasant business, but it’s better than having a rebel or terrorist attack that could potentially hurt a lot more people. We’re also able to sense the presence of nearby hostiles.”

“But you can read minds?”

“Oh yes. We call them screenings. Our main purpose is to root out corruption. We work side by side with the military to keep their ranks clean, and we handle internal investigations. In other words, we set the moral standard for the empire. Hence our name: the exemplars.”

“What if an exemplar is corrupt?”

“Fantastic question. We have a chain of accountability. There are a few hundred exemplars throughout the world performing screenings and other tasks. Each exemplar, myself included, is assigned to a High exemplar. They are the people who screen us.”

“And who keeps them straight?”

“There are only four of them, so the queen scans them personally.”

“And if she’s corrupt?”

He grinned. “She’s the one who decides what is and isn’t corruption. If she does something, it’s what the empire is meant to do.”

“That sounds…”

“Problematic? If she were corrupt, it doesn’t matter how the Exemplar Committee is set up, the empire would be in trouble. But remember, she was the one who created the Committee in the first place. We are her eyes and ears. After all, she’s the one that gave us our powers.”

“How do they work?”

“Another fantastic question. Most people assume it’s some kind of brain wave scanning technology, but the truth is much more interesting than that. I could explain it to you, but how about I let you see for yourself?”

He picked his tablet off the table and handed it to Winnie. It’s weight surprised her. She turned on the screen. It showed her clothing website.

“No, no,” Matthew said. “Just hold it.”

“And what?”

“Clear your mind and focus. It’s already happening. You just have to notice it.”

Confused, Winnie looked at him, but Matthew was staring into his lap.

“Close your eyes,” he said. “It helps.”

She did so. Following his advice, she tried to clear her mind, and the first thing she noticed was that her mind wouldn’t clear. She had the distinct impression of being watched. All around her were eyes through the walls. They were the students. It was as though everyone had stopped, turned, and were now staring at her through concrete and plaster. She yanked her hands away from the tablet. The sensation didn’t go away.

“Put it back on the table,” he said.

She did, then pulled away as though it burned. The sensation faded.

“Startling, isn’t it?”

“What was that?”

“We can sense auras. It’s how we detect hostile threats. We call it our Empathy. Everyone experiences it a little differently, but let me guess. Suddenly, you felt like you were standing on stage without your clothes, right? Don’t worry. It’s a one way street. No one else can sense you. All you felt was a connection with everyone nearby, and your brain wasn’t sure what to make of it. Want to try again?”

Winnie placed her hand back on the tablet. Again, all eyes were on her. This time, she didn’t lash away. Matthews was right. They weren’t aware of her, but her mind seemed absorbed in theirs, and it gave her the impression of looking in on one’s self. When she had startled, it was like being startled by her own reflection staring back at her. She focused on one. The aura was bored, focusing on something entertaining, but the enjoyment was mere droplets in a pool. This was someone in a class. They weren’t paying attention, but distracting themselves somehow. They could be on a phone, or twiddling their pencil. Whatever it was, their boredom was her own. That class was dulling her just as it dulled them.

She focused on another, and another. With each one, it was as though connecting her brain to someone else’s. Sharing the same soup of emotions, she would be that person and look back upon herself. None were particularly powerful, but one stood out. It was close. When she embodied it, she felt fidgety energy that made her want to get up and pace. The mood was short of breath, and wound tight. The stress bled into her, so she let the mood go and observed it distantly. This person was behind her, in the hallway right outside the school office. It was Principal Myers.

She took her hand away.

Matthews took the tablet and held it up. “This tablet—this bulky workout of a tablet—we call it our plaque. It’s tablet part is actually a secondary feature. It’s just so this brick does something other than improve our upper body strength. If you were to open it up, and somehow bypass its security measures, you would find a plate of thin, silicon wafers. Drawn on each one would be a symbol which was hand drawn by Queen Victoria herself. They act as totems for these gifts of hers. Possessing them is what grants us our abilities.”

“But why does it do that?”

“I don’t know. Our scientists have used every instrument known to man to analyze these glyphs. So far as they can tell, they’re nothing more than a design on a surface, and yet they work. It’s something special about our queen. If I were to draw the same symbol, nothing would happen. It has to be her.”

“You make it sound like she has a superpower.”

“We call it a flair. Some people are just born with them.”

“If that’s true, how come nobody has heard about this?”

“Because those who have them are so few and far between. And even when they do, they could go their entire lives without knowing they have one. It takes awareness, and practice. And flairs are more subtle than what comic books would have you believe. We exemplars can’t defy the laws of physics.”

“But still,” said Winnie. “If anybody had ever had a power, it would be huge.”

“Yes. Our queen has built an empire with her flair.”

“No. I mean before that. If there were other people with powers, somebody would have showed up. They would have proved it. Even if it happened just once in the world, people would know. Why aren’t there other people with powers?”

“There are. Every power that the queen grants to us comes from someone else who has it naturally.” He paused. “And that brings us back to the question of why I’ve invited you in here to talk.”

“You… think I have a power?”

“I think you do.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. All I can tell is that you have one.”

“How could I not know about it? If I had telepathy, I think I’d have figured it out by now.”

“Not necessarily,” Matthews said. “Let’s say you did, and you look into somebody’s eyes. Thoughts fill your head. They might be indistinguishable from any other thought you have, except these just happen to be their’s too. For all you know, you figured out what they were thinking through your own intuition. They’re happy. They’re sad. They like you. They don’t like you but are pretending to.”

“I would completely know it was them,” said Winnie. “It was so obvious when I was touching your plaque. I felt connected to everyone else.”

“Yes. Empathy is noticeable, but the original empath spent years honing their talent. Before they knew what to focus on and what mental muscles to build, they might have thought they were simply good at reading people. It’s rare for someone to discover their talent on their own.”

“Oh.” Winnie cleared her mind again. She focused, as though she might detect something now she never had before. Nothing was there. She didn’t expect there to be. If it weren’t for Matthew’s demonstration of power, she knew she wouldn’t believe any of this. Even now, she felt as though she’d just been told she’d won a lottery she never entered.

“Okay, so let’s say I do have a power,” she said. “How do I figure out what it is?”

“For that, you would need to see someone who understands these powers far better than me: The queen.”

“Like, personally see her?”

“Yes. She’s the expert. You’d meet with her one on one. She’d evaluate your flair. She’ll determine what sort of power you have, and help you develop it to it’s maximum potential.”

“How long would it take?”

“Years, most likely. We would relocate you to the empire capital campus and enroll you in the International School of Porto Maná. It’s currently the top school in the empire. You’d be with other flairs such as yourself, and—”

“Wait. You want me to move?”

“Obviously, it’s your choice, and no one would expect you to make a decision until you’ve met with the queen and had a chance to see what you’d be getting into.”

“What about my mother? I can’t just leave everything behind and go live in the capital.”

“We can relocate your mother too. For her however, we wouldn’t house her on the imperial campus, but in the surrounding city.”

“Or I could just live with her.”

“The queen would prefer if you were on the campus. It’s better for security since you’d be visiting her frequently, but don’t worry. You’d be able to visit your mother easily. Public transportation in the capital is a marvel unto itself. Our repulse grid has the highest resolution in the world. Anywhere you want to go, all you have to do is flag down a coach and input your destination. The grid will float you anywhere within the city in minutes. The capital is one of the most happening cities in the world, and might I add, the heart of today’s fashion.”

“You’re really serious about this.”

“Of course. The first step will be to fly you out to meet with Her Majesty the Queen. It will probably be a day long trip. I’ll make arrangements with the school for your absence, but we should have you back by tomorrow night.”

“Today? You want me to leave today?”

“The queen would like to meet you tonight, and it’s a six hour flight. My plane is standing by at the Hampton Airstrip. My driver is outside.”

Winnie laughed. “You’re serious? I haven’t even told my mom. I… this is all so ridiculous.”

“We can stop by your house if you’d like. You can pick up whatever you need for the trip. I can explain everything to your mother. If it makes you more comfortable, she can come too. But like I said, it’s just a quick trip. You’ll be back by tomorrow.”

Winnie imagined arriving home in what was probably a limousine. Hi, mom. This guy at school says I have superpowers. Is it okay if I fly across the continent with him to meet the queen of the world? You can come. I promise to do my homework on the plane.

“Are you really that convinced I have a power?”

“I’m certain,” Matthews said. “I don’t know what it is, but it doesn’t matter. Even if your power turns out to be dud, the queen will still invite you to relocate to the capital.”

“A dud?”

“Not all powers are useful.”

“Does that happen a lot?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why not? How many people have you found with useless flairs?”

“None.”

“So it’s rare.”

“No. Flairs are rare. I’ve never met another flair outside those whom the queen hasn’t already found.”

“But I thought this was your job.”

“It is. I go from community to community, checking schools, nurseries, colleges, even prisons. I spend about two or three days in each town, so in the course of my three and a half years, I’ve visited… hmm, several hundred towns. And I see several thousand people at each.”

“I’m the first you’ve ever found.”

“In my three in a half years, you’re the first anyone has found. I’m not the only exemplar assigned to scouting.”

He paused as Winnie considered this.

“I think,” he said, “you’re starting to realize just how special you are.”

2055, September 1^st
Collapse + 6 years

Winnie pressed against the glass door of the Redding assembler station. Her breath fogged the glass as she cupped her mittened hands around her eyes to peer inside. The door was locked, as it wasn’t eight o’clock yet, but the lights were on. Wendy should be in there. Winnie tapped the glass frantically.

From the backroom, Wendy appeared, a middle-aged woman dressed in the assembler station uniform bearing the Lakiran Humanitarian League logo. Winnie jiggled on her toes and pantomimed shivering. Grinning, Wendy unlocked the door and ushered her in.

“I figured that dress was yours,” Wendy said.

“Is it ready yet?”

“Yes, yes. It’s done. It’s in the back.” Wendy led Winnie past the help desk to the back room, where rows of assembler machines hummed away building products for the town. The room always smelled of oiled metal mixed with the pungent acetone and ammonia smell given off by the reclamators along the side wall. The room looked like an office, but it made Winnie think of an old laundromat.

In the back, Food Ready assemblers filled canisters with pastes. The rest were earlier models, making everything from laundry detergents to carbon steel silverware. The station was only open from eight to five, but the machines never stopped running. Most assembly orders were necessities that shops or suppliers needed for distribution, but the townsfolk were allowed to submit their own print requests online for a price. The machines would take the orders as they came available, and a notification would be sent to the submitter when their orders were ready to be picked up.

Winnie had woken this morning to find her order had started during the night. It always took days for her, since her requests required one of the fabric-capable machines, and those spent most of their time assembling basic clothes for distribution.

There it was, in a bin beside the other clothes. Winnie knew it immediately as the only bright red object in the room. She picked it up. The dress unfolded neatly. No wrinkles. The synthetic WaferMesh fabric was resistant to that, as well as stains.

“If you’re going to change into that here,” Wendy said, “you better hurry. You’re late today.” She glanced at the wall clock. 7:53. And it was as a ten minute walk to the high school.

“Yeah, I know. I’ll be fine.” Winnie hurried to the employee bathroom and shut the door. She shucked away her winter wear, carefully hanging each piece up on the door hook. She stuffed her clothes into her backpack, then donned the dress. Standing before the mirror, she corrected the frills.

It fit perfectly. Awesome. Fabrics sometimes expanded after printing, so measurements in the Assembler Studio app didn’t match up with reality, but the developers were getting better about that. The frills looked fine too. They ran from just beneath the breast down to the hem of the dress. She twirled, and they fanned out, giving her body a corkscrew look, then fell right back into place. Again, perfect. Anyone who wasn’t experienced with the Assembler Studio could never have gotten that right. The fabrics plugin was still beta quality. It didn’t crash all the time anymore, but its physics simulation was pathetic. When she ran it, the frills fluttered about like a palsy-stricken sea anemone.

She threw her winter gear back on and headed out.

“Don’t I get to see it?” Wendy asked as she passed.

Winnie draped her coat off her shoulders and spun.

“Goodness, girl. You sure a young lady your age should be wearing that?”

“I’m sixteen, Wendy.”

“My mother would never have let me wear something like that when I was your age.”

“My mom hasn’t seen it.”

“You’re still going to freeze out there.”

“No I won’t. It’s the new WaferMesh.”

“If you say so. I don’t want you getting in trouble at school about that.”

“I’ve worn worse.”

Wendy chuckled. “That you have. Run along now. You’re late enough.”

Winnie sprinted to school. Cold wind whipped under her coat. Goosebumps broke out over her bare legs. Maybe Wendy was a little right, but it wasn’t that bad. This was the warmest winter yet since the bombing. And California winters were certainly a far cry from the bitter death Washington State offered.

Everyone had been so against the relocation. The Lakirans had said they wanted to collect all the surrounding pockets of survivors into a more centralized location “for defense and infrastructure”. The town had thought they were pushing their weight around, but it really was for the best. Besides being warmer, Redding was an actual town, not a paltry collection of survivors growing vegetables in their houses and scavenging nearby towns for parts. There was an honest-to-goodness hospital here, with fresh, plentiful supplies. And there was a school—not a schoolhouse where all kids from ages six to eighteen collected together—but a school, with a curriculum, and a basketball team, and a cheerleading squad with weekend practices that took too much of Winnie’s time.

Most importantly, the town had internet, an amenity Winnie had given up as a relic of the pre-bombing days.

Wednesdays was school assembly day. After three classes, the student body collected in the auditorium. Winnie found a couple of her fellow cheerleaders. Before sitting, she twirled, giving them the full effect of her dress.

“Oh, pretty,” said Bethany.

“You like it?”

“I do,” Lexie said. She and Bethany felt the frills. “That’s really thin.”

“Do I get one?” Beth asked.

“Yeah. It’ll probably be ready by Friday. I made yours blue.”

“What about me?” asked Lexie.

“You can buy yours once I put it up on my site.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Beth gets one because she’s going to help model them for me.”

“I can model.”

“Okay. I’m doing it this Friday. I can probably get you a lime green dress if you give me your measurements.”

“Ew, no. Why can’t I have red? Don’t you think I’d look good in red?”

No, Winnie thought, Lexie wouldn’t. “You would, but I need to model different colors, and I’m red. I’m paying to get these printed.”

“But you’re the one with the website making money.”

“I’ve got, like, five hundred followers. It barely covers my expenses.”

Not entirely true. These past months her subscriber base on her assembler public library page had nearly doubled. She was making decent pay now, even if most of her sales were from her novelty socks. She was still happy to use funding as an excuse. Lexie was a good friend and a fellow cheerleader, but she didn’t have a body that would sell clothes. Bethany did however, and she was tall, which made a good alternative to Winnie’s short stature in the online examples.

Winnie’s mother, after many discussions about decency, had finally agreed to let Winnie post pictures of herself and her friends modeling clothes, so long as no picture included their faces—another good excuse for Winnie. Bethany had a good body, but not a great face.

The speaker system came on. On the stage, Principal Myers called for everyone’s attention. Winnie sat with her friends. Myers made announcements. The basketball team won North West regionals. The drama club was starting a new play and was looking for people to audition.

While Myer’s spoke, Winnie’s friends poked around on their devices. Winnie’s tablet was an older model that she couldn’t hide it in her lap like her friends could. With her site picking up though, she could soon afford a newer model that her mother’s market job could never afford. In the meantime, she was left gazing off during assembly.

She noticed someone new sitting on stage with the faculty. He was at the end beside the Dean of the Disciplinary committee. His hair was trimmed short in a style popular in South America. His suit fit him perfectly. Winnie could see seams along the shoulder, which mean the suit was hand-crafted fabric as oppose to machine-assembled texture. Even if it were made from Environmentally Adjusted Cotton, it would still be astronomically expensive. Cotton could still be grown in only a few places around the world. Suits like that were only available in the heart of the empire.

He looked directly at her. His eyes didn’t skirt the crowd at all, as though he’d known she was looking. Winnie snapped her attention to Bethany’s phone. Principal Myers made more announcements. Winnie glanced back. The man was still watching her.

“And one last thing,” Principal Myers said. “We have an education inspector with us today from the empire.” He gestured to the man who still stared at Winnie. “You might see Mr. Matthews sitting in on a few of your classes. Be courteous. Answer any questions he might have.” He turned to Mr. Matthews. “Do you have anything you’d like to say?”

He glanced at the principal and shook his head.

“Okay then. In that case. Assembly is over.”

Everyone stood and filed toward the auditorium exits.

“Does anyone else think that inspector is creepy?” Winnie asked.

“Who?” asked Bethany.

“The guy Myers just announced.”

“Oh. I wasn’t looking.”

“He was looking at us though. I think he was looking at me.”

Lexie glanced at him. Matthews was in conversation with the Dean of the Disciplinary committee. “You’re the only one wearing a bright red dress.”

“Oh, yeah. I guess so.”

As they were leaving the auditorium, Winnie glanced once again. The man was definitely looking at her.

2052, October 14^th
Collapse + 3 years

The town mall wasn’t used anymore. It was too big to bother maintaining, and too cold to use as it was. Looters had long ago taken anything useful. Everything else was strewn about the shop floors. Squatters had moved in occasionally, setting up makeshift homes in the backrooms. The town always drove them out, but not before their refuse contributed to the grime.

The Lakirans had done a quick job of cleaning out the food court. In place of tables and chairs were now four military tents. Warm light shined inside them. Using stanchions, soldiers directed townsfolk to get into orderly lines and directed them into tents as soon as they became available. It was streamlined. The soldiers were bored.

Winnie and the others had hoped they could prevent the Lakirans from coming into their lives, but they never had a chance. For the Lakirans, taking this town was rote.

As each townsfolk finished in a tent, they left out the back, where the soldiers led them to another holding area farther into the mall.

But then came a man whom they took elsewhere. Winnie hadn’t noticed until he started yelling.

“Hey,” the man said as the soldiers directed him toward the exit. “Hey, where are we going? My wife is over there.” Everyone looked. He was one of the town watch. “My wife is over there.” He jerked out of the soldiers’ grip. They swarmed him with batons. He screamed as they held him down.

Several people in the town crowd climbed over the stanchions and moved toward him.

Soldiers blocked them. “Back in line,” they barked, rifles raised.

“Where the hell are you taking him?” a town watchman yelled.

“Get back in line. Final warning.”

Behind the soldiers, the others dragged the beaten man into the cold. Everyone saw through the glass doors as they loaded him into a steel pod. It sealed. A small hovering plane hooked it and airlifted it away.

“Where is he going?” the watchman yelled.

“Get. Back. In. Line.” The soldier shoved the man toward the stanchions.

Processing continued. That man was the first of many. Nearly every person who had been on the city watch was dragged away to pods, as well some of their wives, and their children. They took some people away who weren’t connected to the watch at all. To Winnie, their choices seemed random. With each person taken, her mother’s grip tightened.

They slowly shuffled along the line. Each citizen took minutes. Between four tents and four hundred townsfolk, Winnie was in line for hours. At least it was warmer in here. Her fingers burned as feeling returned.

Finally, their time came. A soldier signaled. Cautiously, they moved forward.

“One at a time,” he droned.

“She’s my daughter.”

“One at a time.”

Her mother’s grip slowly released, though neither moved. Only when the soldier approached did her mother finally step forward. She glanced back at Winnie before disappearing into a tent. Another one freed up. They called for Winnie. One foot before the other, she approached.

The tent was heated. Four men were inside. Two soldiers guarded the entrances, and a man who looked like an accountant sat behind a propped-up tablet. Beside him was a man who wore white—an exemplar.

“Please, sit,” the accountant said. “We’re going to ask you a few questions. I’d like you to answer as simply and honestly as you can. Please,” he pointed to the seat across from him. She sat, hands clutched in her lap to keep them from shaking. The exemplar’s eyes were trained on her. His expression was blank.

“What is your name?” the accountant asked.

“Winnie.”

“Full name, please.”

“Cho Eun-Yeong.” She spelled it. “My name is also Gwyneth, but everyone calls me Winnie.”

“Are you a resident of this town?”

“Yes.”

“Were you a resident here before the Collapse?”

“No.”

“Where, then?”

“My mom and I are from farther north in Washington State. We came down here because—”

“Thank you. So you were a United States citizen?”

“Yes.”

“What is your date of birth?”

Winnie gave it. The man continued asking routine questions. She answered. All the while the exemplar stared directly at her. In his lap was a tablet device, but it stood out to Winnie. It had a thick steel frame, and old fashion LED lights on the top indicating power—bulky and ugly, unlike the rest of the Lakiran’s sleek technology. Even Winnie’s tablet was prettier, and hers had been cobbled together by the town’s decrepit assemblers.

The exemplar was still staring intently, as though he saw something curious on her face.

The accountant finished. “Thank you. If you could just look here…” He held up his tablet and pointed to a small camera on its back. Winnie hardly glanced when it flashed. “Thank you. While I print you up an ID, he’s going to ask you a few questions.” He gestured to the exemplar, then typed away at his tablet.

“Look me in the eyes,” the exemplar said. Winnie did so.

But then the questions didn’t come. He merely stared. Was this the mind reading? Was he seeing her thoughts right now? The rifle. It was on the ground in that cellar. She was going to use it against the Lakirans. She’d vowed she would never stop fighting them. Was he going to see this? Was he listening to her train of thought? She tried to clear her mind.

The silence stretch on. The exemplar’s brow furrowed. Was that bad? Was he seeing something he didn’t like? Wasn’t he supposed to be asking questions?

The accountant glanced curiously at the exemplar. Winnie glanced at the accountant.

“Keep your eyes on me,” the exemplar said.

Winnie’s eyes snapped back. She was frozen now. Any sudden movement might spook the exemplar, and he would send her away kicking and screaming to one of those pods.

Please, she thought. She would behave. She wouldn’t fight back. She was stupid to ever think that she would. Stupid and afraid. Please don’t send her away. Please leave her and her mother alone. They just want to live.

“Are you associated with the European Democratic Alliance?” he asked suddenly.

“What? No,” said Winnie. A startling question. That was a group a world away born out of the tempered remains of the EU. She’d heard they’re at war with the Lakirans, but that’s all she’d heard.

“Are you involved in any group working against the Lakiran empire?”

“No.”

“Do you have any intention of resisting or in any way subverting the Lakiran empire, either in this town or elsewhere?”

Her mind shot to that rifle. She cast the thought aside. “No. I don’t. I was… I won’t do anything.”

Her heart jumped to her throat. What kind of answer was that? Even the accountant raised an eyebrow.

The exemplar nodded slowly as he gazed at her. His eyes narrowed. Winnie’s heart beat against her chest, but she didn’t look away.

A machine at the end of the table popped out a small plastic card. The accountant took it and glanced at the exemplar. “You done?”

The exemplar didn’t respond immediately. “Yeah. I’m done.”

“You sure? You didn’t ask—”

“I’m done. Go ahead.”

The accountant handed the ID card to the soldier at the rear tent flap. The guard motioned for Winnie to rise. She did so on shaky legs. He grabbed her shoulder and led her toward the back exit.

“She clear?” the guard asked.

The exemplar swiveled to answer, but paused in thought.

“She clear, or are we packing her up?”

Everyone stared. Still nothing.

“If you have to think about it,” the soldier said, “we pack her up.”

This snapped the exemplar out of it. “What? Oh. Uh, no. She’s clear.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. She’s clear. Put her with the others.”

“All right then,” the soldier slapped the ID card into Winnie’s hand. It showed a picture of her looking startled. He led her toward the group of refugees that wasn’t dragged away. “Go with them. Don’t lose your card.” He gave her a little shove.

Winnie staggered toward her mother. Her legs barely made it before she collapsed. Her mother held her, and for the first time since the sirens sounded that day, Winnie cried.

The sun was coming up by the time the Lakirans sent them home. Tired, hungry, and cold, Winnie and her mother returned. Most Lakiran’s were gone by the time she got up. Those that remained had established themselves in the courthouse the watch used to meet in. They scoured the town for all weapons and food supplies, which they put under their own roof.

Three days later, a Lakiran shuttle arrived. To everyone’s surprise, it contained all the men and women the Lakirans had dragged away.

The Lakiran’s had questioned them all further, but then determined them not to be a threat. That’s all they said on the matter.

2052, October 13^th
Collapse + 3 years

Winnie sprinted down an icy road, until she slipped and fell. Her face struck concrete. She clambered up. A blood smear covered the ground. Wiping her lip, her mitten came away red. Her mouth tasted like copper, but her lips were so numb she felt no pain.

Her eyes started to water. Her vision blurred. The only sound was the town siren. Its intermittent honking seemed to echo as speaker boxes set through the town sounded at different intervals.

She wasn’t supposed to be out here. When the sirens started ringing, she was supposed to turn around and head back to school. It was the closest shelter, but she had to get home. The idea of hiding in the school basement with the other students and teachers was unbearable to her, knowing that her mother would be at home alone.

There was no one else on the streets anymore. The town looked deserted. The Lakirans were coming. With any luck, they would fly by and think this was another abandoned ghost town.

But there would be Winnie. They would capture her, and they would read her mind, and they would know that her family was here, and her friends, and her classmates. They would capture everyone because of her.

She hid the blood on the ground under snow and took off running again. Her backpack waggled as she moved, threatening to pull her off balance. The snow seemed deeper with every step, and every footprint was another bit of evidence that people lived here.

Her street came into view. To her relief, others were still moving about. Lights were still on. If the Lakirans came now, it would not be her fault. Her mother was standing outside Mrs. Ellis’s house across the street from their own. Beside her were two members of the town’s watch helping people get inside. Their rifles were slung over their shoulders. If they were telling everyone to go to the shelters, then that meant they expected fighting.

“Eun-Yeong?” Her mother ran toward her. They met in the street. “Eun-Yeong, you should be at school. What happened to your face?”

“I’m okay.” Winnie wiped her mouth again. Blood had been pouring from her split lip. She hadn’t noticed.

“Come with me.” Her mother pulled her toward the shelter.

“Wait.” Winnie took off toward their own house, and her mother ran after her. Inside, she hurried to her room. Under her bed was a hunting rifle. Everyone thirteen years old or older had one. Winnie had gotten hers on her birthday two months ago along with a three hour lesson on safety. Even now, after going to the watch each week for practice, she wasn’t supposed to use the rifle. If someone from outside the town appeared, or a starved animal came, she was to get help, never to fight. But it was still hers, and if a Lakiran came near her or her mother, she would use it.

Her mother caught up. “What are you doing? Put that away.”

“No. It’s mine.”

“You’re not fighting, Eun-Yeong. We’re going to the shelter.”

“I know. I’m taking it.”

“Eun-Yeong, put it down.”

Clutching the rifle to her chest, Winnie ran around her mother and back into the snow. Across the street, the watchmen glanced at Winnie and her weapon, but they didn’t say anything as she passed them into the house. They had rifles too. It wouldn’t make a difference.

If the people coming were wanderers looking for handouts, or one of those war bands from down south the town had heard so much about, the rifles might have helped.

But this was the Lakiran army. The town’s rifles would be like slingshots against tanks. Lakiran soldiers wore gleaming armor. They lived in cities that floated in the air as though built on clouds. Their ships projected energy fields that caused bullets to veer away.

All of this was thanks to one advantage. Their assemblers could make food. That’s all.

LakiraLabs—the company the empire had been before the Collapse—had only just come out with the Food Ready machines when society decided to end. It was a helpful edge to have while the world’s crops froze during a multiyear winter.

Winnie stepped down the stairs. A single LED lantern sat on a crate of bottled water in the center of the cellar. Dozens of people were huddled up against walls and corners. They wore winter clothes and had blankets wrapped about them. Most were women. Some clutched children too young to be in school. One child was an infant. He mewled and cried as his mother tried to keep him warm.

Winnie settled with her mother by some others. She found a crate of supplies all town shelters were supposed to stock and took out a box of rifle rounds. Her mother tried again to pull the rifle away, but she wouldn’t let go. Hye-jun took the box, but not before Winnie got a handful of ammunition. Obeying an unspoken rule, no one in the shelter spoke, so her mother didn’t argue the point. Instead, she wiped blood from Winnie’s chin.

The last people on the block trickled in. The militiaman who’d been at the door came down.

“Is everyone here? Anyone missing?”

Everyone stared back at him.

“Stay here until the all-clear.” He headed up the cellar stairs and closed the door. Mrs. Ellis crouched forward and turned off the lantern.

They sat in the dark.

The only noises were the whipping wind and the shivered mewling of the infant. People sniffed as noses ran. Hye-jun held Winnie close. Winnie gripped her rifle. If the Lakiran’s came down here, she would fight. She’d never shot anything in her life, but she wasn’t going to let them take her or her mother to one of their detention camps.

She’d heard about them. Refugees fleeing from the east told stories. The Lakirans would come, they would conquer, and they would drag half the people away. The soldiers would say they were taking them as a precaution until strife settled down, but the people never returned. She’d heard those people were sent overseas to camps where they were put to work sorting garbage lines for assembler reclamation.

Winnie didn’t plan to be one of those people. If the Lakiran’s came, she would fight like any one else on the watch. She would never give in.

She didn’t know how long they sat in the shelter. It was pitch black, and there was no way to tell time, but it must have been hours. Her mother’s grip on her never relaxed.

Then came the first distant gunshot. Just one, then another after it. Soon they all came, as though a dam had broken. It could only be the rifles of the town watch. Winnie had once seen a traveler with a Lakiran military weapon—an object only vaguely resembling a rifle. Instead of bullets, it used narrow cylindrical darts that the traveler called flechettes. Equipped with batteries and an array of repulse nodes along the barrel, the gun hardly whispered when he fired it.

How many flechettes were flying up there for every bullet the watch fired? There might be one Lakiran, or a thousand. Winnie imagined hundreds of soldiers dressed in chrome and white armor. They didn’t skulk through the snow like the town watch, but drifted in on floating platforms, hardly visible from the ground. They cast down their flechettes as though throwing lightning upon mortals. Their guns made slight clicks, nothing more. The watch fired back into the sky, barely knowing where to shoot.

It couldn’t be like that though. Rumors were always overblown. It wasn’t that bad. It couldn’t be.

The sounds of bullets continued. They’d settle for a time, then a burst would happen. An explosion caused the shelter to tremble. She had no idea what it was.

Eventually there was silence.

An eternity passed. The town watch might have repelled whoever it was. If the Lakirans won, she’d hear tanks rumbling by and marching boots, right?

There came voices—two people talking conversationally. The fighting had to be over.

The voices neared the cellar door. Just as Winnie realized that they weren’t speaking English, light streamed in through the cracks of the door’s frame. The door tore open, and the light blinded Winnie. It came from a ship floating in the sky. It seemed fixed in place, as though the top of a structure, but she knew that underneath it was nothing but empty air. Figures stood in the doorway. The light behind them obscured their features, but their silhouettes were bulky, as though dressed in spacesuits.

A voice boomed out. “Everyone inside, come out one at a time with your hands above your head.” The speaker’s voice was amplified. They spoke sternly, but rote, as though they’d been repeating the line all day.

The baby started crying again. Everyone else was frozen in place. Winnie’s fingers had long since gone numb around her rifle. Her mother’s grip was nearly choking her.

“Everyone come out now,” the voice boomed. “This is your final warning.”

“Wait,” yelled a woman closer to the stairs. She staggered up the steps clutching the banister and holding her other hand up to shield her eyes. “We’re coming. We’re coming.”

At the top of the steps, the soldiers by the stairs yanked her out of view. One by one, people in the cellar moved to leave. Each climbed the stairs with wobbly legs.

Winnie couldn’t move. This was the moment when she was supposed to fight back, but she now realized what would happen. They wouldn’t come down for her. They’d fire their flechettes from up above, and tear her and her mother to pieces.

Her legs were jelly. If her mother weren’t clutching her, she would sink to the ground and curl up. She’d promised herself she would fight, but that part of her had vanished. There was nothing left in her with the strength to lift her rifle. But she couldn’t bring herself to drop it.

Soon, only Winnie and Hye-jun remained. Someone came down the stairs. With the light reflecting off the chrome of his armor, he looked like a being from another world come to take them away. He held a weapon, just like the one the traveler had carried months before, and it was trained on them.

Winnie’s rifle shook wildly in her hands.

“Put it down now,” the soldier said.

Her mother squeezed her. Bit by bit, Winnie’s fingers unfolded. The gun clattered to the ground.

The number of people in the town was small—about four hundred including infants and the elderly. Whenever the watch held a town meeting, they had used the old school gym, and the town hardly filled the bleachers.

Yet they vastly outnumbered the Lakirans. The invaders gathered everyone in the parking lot outside the town mall. Hundreds of civilians and watchmen huddled together for warmth. Only six soldiers watched over them from a floating platform like the one that had shone its light into the cellar.

Winnie could see it better now. It was shaped like a triangular saucer with a balcony around the rim from where the soldiers stood watch. Its center was covered, presumably where the pilot sat, though it didn’t look like a moveable ship. The platform was fixed in place as if invisible poles supported it.

No soldiers were in the parking lot with the townsfolk. There didn’t have to be. As soon as they’d collected everyone, a dozen drones the size of beach balls floated down from the saucer platform—tetrahedrons, their edges rounded. They spaced themselves around the crowd like numbers on a clock, then locked in place above their heads as securely as the platform. The Lakirans didn’t explain what they were for, but when a member of the watch later crept near the drones’ perimeter, an invisible force shoved him back. Winnie felt a gust of wind against her face.

The cold had sunk into her. It was three in the morning. Her eyes drooped. Her cut lip cracked open every time she moved her mouth. She couldn’t stop shivering. Whenever the soldiers did anything, a knot in her stomach would swell as she worried what they would do next. The most frightening of all was a man who stood upon the floating platform studying the townsfolk. He wasn’t dressed in armored fatigues like the soldiers, but rather a white coat with a hood and two rows of shiny buttons down the front. It looked warm, but clearly a uniform of its own.

Everyone had heard about the white coats. They were called exemplars, and could read minds, or so everyone said. They were the ones that decided who the soldiers carted off.

Another man stepped into view on the platform. His coat didn’t reflect any uniform. When he spoke, his amplified voice boomed out over the parking lot.

“Greetings, people of Norfolk. I know you’re cold and tired, so I’ll make this quick. As I’m sure you’re already aware, we’re from the Lakiran Empire, based in South America. We serve Her Majesty the Queen of Lakira, Victoria Palladino. The empire is now fourteen million strong. We live in first world conditions, enjoying technologies and luxuries that didn’t even exist before the Collapse. We’re not just surviving. We’re thriving. We’re innovating. We’re moving into the future, and now we’ve come to help bring the rest of the world along with us.

“The first step is to establish peace and security. I know you don’t see it that way now. You have a nice little place here, and you probably see us as invaders, which might be why you attacked. If you’d have let us, we would have had this conversation without anyone getting hurt, but we don’t blame you for fighting. There are some bad rumors going around about us. And there are sure as hell a ton of bad apples out there. Just a few hundred miles south of you is a warlord calling himself Magellen, like the explorer. He’s a real nasty piece of work. Built up a whole civilization by raiding settlements such as yourselves for food and slaves. We just came here from liberating that place last week. We set the slaves free. Maybe you’ve heard of that New Day cult out east in the breadbasket. They’ve been putting towns to the torch. Killed a lot of people. Started a whole bunch of wildfires. It was hell putting those out, but we did, and we’ve stopped the cult from hurting anyone else.

“I know you guys don’t want us here, but sooner or later, someone was going to come. You should be damn glad it was us. All we’re doing is restoring order to the world and shutting down all the dictators who have popped up. After today, you’ll go on living just the way you were, only now you’ll benefit from the protection of the Lakiran army. And once we can, we’ll start connecting you to the rest of the civilized world. We’ll get you food and medical supplies. We’ll help you rebuild your education and healthcare system. All we’re asking of you is your cooperation.

“Work with us. Help us root out trouble and keep the peace. Someday soon, you’ll rejoin us in the first world.”

A soldier leaned over and said something in the man’s ear.

“I’m getting the all-clear. Our men are going to move you into the mall now. Should be warmer in there. We’re going to process you. Get you into our system. Then we’re going to ask you a few security questions. Be honest and forthright. We may need to transfer some of you to a more secure location for the time being. If we do so, we’ll bring you back home just as soon as we’ve stabilized the region. That’s all. So come along, everyone. You must be freezing. Let’s get you inside. Get this done, and you can all go to bed.”