Winter

“I told yer ma, that’s a season — tain’t no name for a girl,” her father used to tell her when she was young, before he had choked on all that ash that started falling from the skies and died. He was never one to wear a mask, and refused to cover his face after the Ashfalls began. The particulates, buried deep under the earth until recent years, made quick work of his cigarette-ravaged lungs.

“I n’ver did know why she gone did that, but she made me promise to name y’that after you was born.”

“Maybe it was because my hair was white as snow?” she would always suggest, knowing the answer even as she said it. It was a game they played, this conversation of theirs.

“Girl, she ain’t n’ver seen not a hair on tha’ hed yours,” her father would say. “The only time she done got to see ye was when ye was bald as t’day is long. Yer hair dinet come in ty’all was but six months born. She was gone by then.”

“An’ she n’ver seen no snow nohow,” he added. “Asides, she dinnet call you Snow. She wanted you name t’be Winter.”

In spite of Winter’s mother only having known her daughter for moments before dying, the woman had given her a name that seemed self-evident once you knew what they called her. Her hair was so ashen white as to make snow look yellow in comparison, and her skin near as pale, although rosy red in all the right places so as she never appeared unhealthy — just left wanting, perhaps, in the melanin department.

She was on watch duty atop the palings again. Watch duty was boring as fuck, which is why it was assigned to troublemakers as punishment.

Her transgression this time had been to ask out loud during a community meeting why they did not at least leverage oldtech to their advantage. Like her father, Winter found her faith and trust in artificial intelligence lacking. Unlike her father, she saw no reason why dumb oldtech should be banned from use as well — it seemed like the proverbial baby and bathwater problem where the logic did not add up.

“Because, my child,” explained Elder Harris. “Oldtech is vulnerable to AI incursions.” Heads throughout the room nodded in agreement. “Next thing you know, that simple computer is infected; either because someone maliciously infected it, or because of an innocent mistake. Before you know it, all of our work over the years has been for naught, and we are once again plagued by artificial intelligence in our midst.”

“We need to keep our minds clear!” shouted someone not brave enough to stand up to be recognized by the Elders before speaking.

‘That we do,” agreed Harris. “We can’t have the influence of AI making our brains and muscles soft like it did before Ashfall. The struggle continues.”

“The struggle continues…” parroted the crowd.

“But—” Winter started to say but was interrupted by Elder Lucien.

“Perhaps you might need some time to meditate on the wisdom of keeping your mind uninfluenced of computers and thinking machines standing guard up on the wall for the next month. I understand it is a great place for reflection on such matters. A month should be plenty of time to come to an understanding as to the wisdom of keeping oldtech out of the hands of our people.”

And guard duty up on the pales was a great place for reflection in that there was little risk of anyone traversing the ashes to cause mischief for the Scythe Branch. Regular patrols of the area made guard duty a pointless task for anyone standing watch.

Winter was twenty-six days into her “time for reflection” and she was ready to throw herself over the edge to stop her boredom. Her only companion all those nights had been the waxing moon hanging low over the ashlands, so bereft of features as to not have anything to cast a shadow against the ghostly pale landscape. That and the hourly check-in with Command.

For the millionth time, she wished she had not said anything at all about oldtech.

For the two-millionth time she wished something, anything at all, would happen to at least make the night interesting. Even if it meant a skirmish with the rare reavers that penetrated the patrols to their walls. At least she might get shot and put out of her boredom.

Which is why she thought she was hallucinating when she saw a solitary figure gliding across the ashes towards the encampment. As the figure crept closer, she could see it was a young woman or girl, with a bright crimson scarf wrapped around her face against the ash drifting on the light night breeze.

She keyed her walkie talkie’s transmit button. “Echo 13 checking in with a report. Over.”

The was a crackle of white noise on the speaker before the command responded. “You’re about eleven minutes early with your report, Winter. But okay. Let me guess: same old, same old. Jotting down in the log the log that all is quiet. Over.”

Winter hesitated, waiting for her eyes to change their mind about seeing the young woman drifting towards them. Nothing changed.

“Actually, I want to report that we appear to have a visitor approaching. Not reavers. Single subject, likely female. Over.”

“Bullshit. You’re imagining that. Over.”

“You tell her that, she’s almost at the gate. Over.”

Winter waited for someone above her pay grade to decide what to do about their visitor. The last thing she wanted to do was think herself into another months stint up on the pales. She had done her job in reporting her observations.