The time following the fall of Pollepel was tumultuous for Barbara Zimmerman. In many ways, she felt like a failure - like she had let down those she was supposed to lead and protect. With the Ferry fractured and her morale at its lowest, she led Ferry refugees on a quiet trek up north to meet with their Maple Brethren, and then like many others, scattered to the wind to figure out what the next move was.
It turned out that for Barbara, the next move was to track down one of her siblings - her twin, Niki Sanders, who had retired to Las Vegas following the events in New York in November 2011. There, she had planned to collect herself - to take some time off from the conflict the Ferrymen were embroiled in, that was beginning to spill out more earnestly into the rest of the world. All eyes were on New York, and that was the last place she wanted to me. This time, she told herself, was for planning and considering.
She barely had time to settle in in Las Vegas with Niki before the sea of change swept them up in the tide. Representatives of the Deaveux Group came knocking on their door, promising the impossible - to take them to meet their mother. What ensued was a series of revelation, the least of which was that their mother, Claudia Zimmerman, was still alive. At the urging of her mother, Barbara agreed to remain at the bunker with Claudia and Niki, but first - she had some work she needed to do, to make sure her friends and comrades within the Ferry network didn't believe she abandoned them.
Using resources and contacts provided by her mother, as well as those she herself still possesses from years working for the Ferry in Canada, Barbara reached out to Hana Gitelman and Lynette Rowan, two members of the Ferryman Council she had worked closest with besides Eileen Ruskin. She gave them reassurances that she would be available, and that there were resources coming for them, as well as what she could warn them about was coming - but that she, herself, would not be in the midsts of the fighting. She also arranged for periodic shipments to make their way across the border and into Ferry hands via Ferry aligned smugglers and contacts. She never told them who her benefactor was, just that if they wanted it, they would be taken care of.
With that business taken care of, two months later Barbara returned to her mother and Niki, and proceeded to ride out the bulk of the conflict that followed with them in the bunker at Coyote Sands. She took to being reunited with her mother well, learning from her and meshing her lessons on how to lead and how to live with her work up in Thompson and lessons learned from Eileen Ruskin in New York.
When the war abated and they stepped out into the world again, Barbara was slower to reintegrate than the others. Eventually, she found her tasked with government work - with Yamagato winning the bid to help rebuild the New York Safe Zone, Barbara was placed into the Department of Energy as a government liason to the Japanese firm, helping oversee the reconstruction of New York City as well as the rebuilding of the Safe Zone's power and telecommunications infrastructure. In 2018, this is still a position she holds, working closely with the administrative staff and other workers at Yamagato to ensure that all matters are proceeding as planned… and to make sure that everything happening is in the best interests of the city and nation, slowly rising from the ashes like a phoenix.