It had taken them nearly a month to get there, anticipation rising with each new day. All their solar panels were gone, powering a string of radio repeaters behind them—if the records they found included a way to extend the expiration date or synthesize the cure for RM, they could radio it home in seconds instead of traveling another month back through dangerous country. Afa grew more eager as the city appeared before them, a giant metropolis that seemed even bigger, if possible, than New York City. It sat on the shores of another giant lake, curving around the eastern and southern sides, and spread out into the plains as far as Kira could see—towering skyscrapers, elevated trains and monorails, vast factories and warehouses and endless rows of houses and offices and apartments.

All crumbling. All mired in oily, swampy water.

“Is it supposed to look like that?” asked Kira.

“Not a chance,” said Samm. They stood on the top of an office complex on the edge of the city, surveying the scene with his binoculars. “It’s not all flooded, just most of it; looks like there are rises and falls in the terrain, though nothing huge. I’d bet most of the water’s just a few inches deep, maybe a few feet in the worst places. Looks like the lake overflowed its boundaries.”

“Chicago had dozens of canals running through the city,” said Heron. “Some of your shallow streets are going to be deep rivers, but they should at least be easy to spot.”

“Those canals were the most heavily engineered waterways in the world,” said Afa proudly, as if he had engineered them himself. “The old-world engineers actually reversed the flow of one of the rivers—those are the glories we used to have, when mankind kept nature under tight control.” His eyes glowed, and Kira could only imagine what the thought did to him; after four weeks in a wilderness run wild, a city so fiercely technological must have felt like an answer to a prayer.

“Nature has fought back,” said Heron. “Let’s hope it hasn’t flooded your data center.”

“Here’s the address,” said Afa eagerly, pulling a folded piece of paper from his backpack; another email printout, with a street address circled in red near the bottom. “I’ve never been here, so I don’t know where it is.”

Samm looked at the paper, then at the gargantuan city ahead of them. “Cermak Road. I don’t even know where to start looking.” He glanced back down at his paper, then down at the streets below. “We’re going to need a map.”