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. . . now I did look, averting my helmet so as not to shine the light directly into the mirror. My red hair was slicked back from my underground-pale face, making me too stark, too hard. On my skin, I searched for any sign of scars, although I knew none would be there.
    I shrugged one shoulder, as if using it to hide the cleared skin on my neck. I could still feel the scars, old and new, itching just beneath the surface.
    The light flashed in the mirror at me, a reminder that I was lollygagging, and I turned from the image, the woman I didn’t know anymore—the true stranger—and descended the stairs, the ominous drip of water tapping and echoing against the rock below. My helmet’s lamp provided a fuzzy glow, creating dancing fingers of shadow. The lower I went, the cooler the air became. That was why I liked it down here; outside during the day, I would’ve needed cool-modifiers to stay healthy. Here, hidden away, I had everything a person might need.
    Actually, we did get occasional rainfall in the New Badlands, and that resulted in the area holding just enough water for survival, although who knew how long things would last for the Badlanders and the wildlife, most of which consisted of mutant animals that had come out after the changes because they were better able to survive than the old species in these conditions. But, for the time being, me and the others depended on pumping liquid from aquifers, where water collected in porous layers of underground rock. My dad, even after losing his faith in the science that had employed and sustained him, had devised a hand-pump system, as well as the camouflaged solar panels that provided what little electricity we required.
    When I reached the bottom, I headed toward a small opening that led to a massive cavern. A network of hand pumps decorated the rock walls opposite a UV-lighted, climate-controlled hydro-garden. Upright tubes stood filled with homemade nutrient fluid, most of the ingredients gathered as a result of trading with the locals. I normally left water from my abundant claim near the common-area tunnel leading to my home, and my neighbors left what I needed in return without face-to-facing—things like seeds, meat, materials they’d salvaged from outside. As a result, my garden gave me items as varied as tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, and even strawberries and melons.
    I prepared myself for some hard labor, not only out of necessity but because . . . hell, I was the first to admit that it often cleansed away my reality. So I spent hours working the pumps, farming as much water as I could directly into my container packs, which I’d use to transfer my booty back home. After that, I’d repeat the process with more packs kept here below.
    When I’d run five packs to the stairs, I returned to get more water, to complete my afternoon until night came round.
    Night, always night. It never failed to arrive, with Stamp and his men, with the bad things lurking out there . . .
    Throwing myself back into the flow of labor, I retreated to a corner of the cavern—a workshop Dad had created. I cleared the area of the chains I’d recently brought out from storage, tucking them in a chest, my throat tight. Then I resumed work.
    Cleansing, wonderful work.
    I shaped revolver ammunition out of the cache of lead my father had come upon once during a salvage trip. He’d found a store of it under the frame of a broken house and, since we’d never had much cause to use weapons before Stamp arrived, the ammunition had lasted. But now I didn’t want to be caught lacking.
    After melting and then molding bullets, I tended my garden, plucking out enough to normally appease me and Chaplin . . . and now our guest, too, I supposed. Then I transferred all but one of my waterpacks upstairs.
    Exhausted, but in a bone-weary way that meant I’d worked a good day and might just sleep like a rock, I strapped on that one last pack and returned to my living space, where Chaplin rested at the