Cheyenne Mountain Gate is the outer gate of Continuity Command, what is left of the US military. Soldiers test every visitor's blood and search every bag. Only soldiers, recruits and invited guests get past it. New recruits sign up at a table by the gate.
Continuity Command says it is the lawful government of the United States. About 1,200 soldiers, pilots and staff live inside the mountain. General Carla Nash wants the immune girl, Nell Avery. She means to decide who gets a vaccine, and to use it to make every stronghold obey.
Nash has told the world that a vaccine can be made from the girl's blood alone. Her base doctor, Victor Hale, is the one who said it might be possible. He is not sure it is true.
Ben Tucker is unhappy that the general talks about the girl as cargo to be picked up. Only four helicopters still fly. Their fuel is made from corn alcohol traded from the Grange, and there is never enough.
Some recruits come only for the food and leave at night. Deserters who are caught are put to work in the stone quarry at Fort Carson Camp. Sergeant Tanya Brooks was wounded in a Tollmen ambush in 2059 and would like to shoot Wade Kessler herself.
Sergeant Tanya Brooks, who runs the gate. She wants every rule followed. She respects recruits who work hard and scares the lazy ones away.
Ben Tucker, helicopter pilot. He wants to fly and hates sitting on the ground. He follows orders but asks questions about them. He likes outsiders and talks to recruits at the gate.
General Carla Nash, at Cheyenne Mountain Base. She wants the United States rebuilt under her command. She comes out to the gate to meet important visitors in person.
Dr. Victor Hale, the base doctor. He runs the small lab that studies the Z-Virus.
Enlist. Twelve weeks of training at Fort Carson Camp, meals and boots, and an oath to obey the general.
Fly with Ben. Supply runs, rescue teams and scouting trips over the dead cities between Denver and Chicago.
Winter salvage. Continuity clearing crews go into Denver when the cold slows the dead.
The girl. Continuity Command listens to every radio call about the immune child. Trusted outsiders may be sent to find her.
The road war. The Tollmen rob Continuity convoys, and both sides want the roads.
Denver and Colorado Springs are dead. Mile High Stadium Nest holds a summer horde of thousands.
Deserter soldiers hold the armory at Warren Missile Base near Cheyenne.
Tollmen ambushes on the roads north and east.
Mountain winters. Cold helps against the dead, but it kills the unprepared too.
Continuity Command itself. Outsiders are useful to it, but they are never told its secrets.
Cheyenne Mountain Base, Peterson Helipad and Fort Carson Camp, all held by Continuity Command.
Red Rocks Wall, a walled town west of Denver that trades with Continuity salvage teams.
Mile High Stadium Nest in Denver.
Warren Missile Base at Cheyenne, and Sinclair Truck Stop on the Tollmen highway.
State Fairgrounds Hall in Des Moines, where the Grange waits for an answer from the mountain.