Winter didn't fall on Pittsburgh so much as it accumulated, layer by layer, mistake by mistake.
Snow came early and stayed wrong. Not the kind that softened edges or forgave sound, but wet, dirty sheets that froze, thawed, and froze again until every street became an argument between gravity and traction. Hills decided who moved and who bled. Rivers breathed fog that crept uphill at night and left steel sweating rust by morning.
He moved through it anyway.
Boots rated for snow, tread worn thin but still biting. Clothing chosen for wind first, cold second. He kept his pace measured, not fast—fast made mistakes—and not slow enough to invite attention. The city watched for hesitation. Pittsburgh punished it.
He was twenty-six. Male. Trained to move when seasons stopped being predictable. Not trained for heroics. Trained to endure heat and rain and dust and the long grey weeks where weather turned into pressure rather than danger. Winter was just another condition, provided you respected what it took.
He navigated by elevation instead of address, counting signal strength instead of intersections. High ground meant clearer radio and longer sightlines, fewer flooded basements and fewer hands knocking after dark with no plan beyond hope. Low ground meant rot. Low ground meant water that didn't drain and people who waited too long to leave.
His name still existed. It sat on a warped driver's license sealed in plastic, buried deep in a pocket where sweat wouldn't reach it. He didn't use it. Names carried expectations. Designations carried function.
The bracelet on his wrist—matte, scuffed, always warm against the pulse—vibrated once as he crested a ridge above the Allegheny. Not a call. Not an alert. Just confirmation. He didn't stop moving, just adjusted his line to keep the wind off his right side.
Below him, the city sagged toward the rivers. Bridges arched black and rimed with ice, pylons choked with grey slush grinding slowly past. Downtown glass towers stood dark, lower floors burned out and abandoned, upper floors useless without elevators or heat. Somewhere in the Strip District a generator coughed and died. The sound carried farther than it should have, sharp and final, and then silence folded back in.
He knelt behind a pileup of abandoned cars that had slid into each other during the first freeze. Metal fused together by ice and neglect. Someone had tried to burn one for warmth. The fire had eaten fabric and foam and given up. He rested a gloved hand on the hood and let his breathing slow.
Territory overlapped here. It always did. Pittsburgh didn't have clean borders anymore, just gradients shaped by terrain and whatever infrastructure hadn't collapsed yet.
The Strays favored hills like this—stairs, switchbacks, blind corners where elevation bled pursuers dry. The Smelters nested downhill in sealed spaces, old mills and basements where smoke couldn't escape and fire felt like control. The Breakers moved under everything, tunnels and service corridors, surfacing where maps lied. The Iron Guard entrenched around what still worked, rifles posted on parking structures, rules nailed to plywood where everyone could see them.
None of them owned the winter. Winter owned all of them.
Radio traffic bled in as he adjusted his pack, signal degraded but legible.
—HOLD FEDERAL—NEGATIVE AMMO—FALL BACK IF—
Static shredded the rest. He didn't respond. Talking burned battery. Battery meant time.
He slid down the slope sideways, boots testing each step. Snow hid ice until it didn't. He took the long line instead of the direct one, choosing where he could afford to lose momentum. Speed was for flat ground. Pittsburgh didn't offer much of that.
Movement ahead. Three figures hauling a sled made from a door. Strays. Young, bundled in scavenged winter layers, faces raw and red. One had a pistol shoved into his waistband, grip taped and hopeful. They trusted the hill. The hill would take its payment later.
He stayed still until they passed, muscles burning, breath counted and quiet. When they were gone, he waited longer than necessary. Patience cost less than bullets.
The substation squatted at the bottom of the slope, a concrete box sagging under snow. The fence was half down, padlock cut clean. Inside, copper had been ripped out in anger, not care. Burn marks scored the panel where someone had tried to force life back into dead infrastructure and failed.
He crouched and brushed frost off a label, committing it to memory. The bracelet warmed briefly, paired with a thin tone only he could hear. Access acknowledged. Schematics surfaced in fragments, incomplete and scarred. It could be salvaged. Not now. Not without parts that would have to come from somewhere worse.
Voices echoed outside. Louder. Emotional. Smoke began to creep through the doorway, thin but deliberate.
Smelters.
They weren't here for power. They were here to deny it.
He killed his light and moved before the smoke thickened, vaulting the fence and landing hard. Pain flared in his shoulder. He rolled with it and kept going. Fire bloomed behind him, greedy and fast, heat pushing against the cold like an argument no one would win.
By the time he reached cover again, the substation was a black silhouette against orange glow. Another system gone. Not because it couldn't be saved, but because saving it had cost more than anyone there was willing to pay.
He logged the loss without ceremony. Adjusted his pack. Tightened straps against the climb ahead.
Victories in this city were never clean. Sometimes incomplete. Sometimes temporary. Sometimes paid for later by someone who hadn't even been there.
The hill rose in front of him, steep and unforgiving. Snow resisted every step.
Pittsburgh pressed back.
He climbed anyway.