Epilogue
Grace would never forget the sight of the Zone 2 border when she arrived eight days later. Sometimes, when she closes her eyes, she can still see it.
The colorful banners, streamers, and balloons blotted out the sky. Bodies crowded the streets as far as the eye could see. The cheering. The screaming. The endless parade of smiling faces.
It took weeks to fully integrate everyone from Zones 399, 404, and 406 into the city, but Grace and Heron refused to leave them until the process was complete. Part of the delay was the difficulty in moving that many people across five hundred kilometers of challenging landscape. Then there was the immigration process itself. Everyone’s biometrics had to be recorded and registered. Housing had to be assigned, furniture procured. And all of that
