Alex Konig

It is more than dangerous in the chaos of the new world, to be a female.

Girls were worth more than food. Worth more than the bits of weak sunlight, and even heat.

They were knocked back on their socio-economical evolution. Returned to breeders and whores. A woman's only worth was how many children they could produce.

Or in some cases, food.

Used no less than breeding stock. They held little, if any, power. Children meant survival. Even in a world on the brink of extinction, a man's primal need to have offspring was strong. To make sons to carry their lines, to make daughters to breed it.

It was easier in the larger colonies, though not by much. Only two choices ever came to a woman; submit or walk the ice. That was, only if there was an opportunity to get free.

Or if they had never been captured at all.

It was always easier to look like a man. Hidden under layers and layers of clothing to hide her shape, insulated with old military armour fabric. Her dad had been someone important, her mother a genius of horticulture and gene splicing before everything went to shit. They had survived when the world fell - for a time.

It gave her an advantage in the ice, those things she had been blessed to pull out of storage trunks instead of scavenging, but her luck started to wear out.

Protection came from bulky layers, the mask over her face part of a military helmet that warped her voice and kept her safe from frost burn. It also kept her strong and agile. When a woman walked miles upon miles carrying a kit that weighed nearly what she did, it forced that athleticism. It also helped to have a gun on her shoulder and a snap-trap at her belt. You didn't fuck with someone that had a working gun.

It was an older model, good old fashioned kinetic energy, fire, and shot. It was wrapped tight to keep it warm. Moisture would make the hammer stick, but enough oil prevented that problem. It was worth, perhaps, even more than a female. Colonies could rise and fall in the primal battles of resource scarcity, but a gun would change dynamics swiftly.

She took it apart daily. Once in the morning, once at night. Each piece dissected and reassembled to make sure she could use it. Ironically, shot was not that hard to find. Bullets were plentiful, guns were not.

It helped to survive the first decade of death in sequestered luxury. As luxurious as one could consider a bunker with a military leader.

Even privilege helped in the end of the world.