“Someday they’ll have to,” said Samm. “When it comes down to trust or extinction, to trust or oblivion, they’ll see that they’ll have to and they’ll do it.”

“That’s one of the things I like about you, Samm,” said Kira. “You’re a hopeless optimist.”

For the first few days the road was straight and flat, almost disturbingly so. Farms crept by on either side, reclaimed by grassland and herds of wild horses and cattle, but each new sight seemed the same as the last, a single farm repeated ad infinitum, until Kira began to feel that they were making no progress at all. Occasionally the Illinois River on the south swerved close enough to be seen from the road, and Kira began to track their progress this way. They traveled slowly, keeping the horses fed and watered and Afa well supplied with medicines. His wound was healing poorly, and Kira did what she could to keep his spirits up.

Three days outside of Chicago they came to an island city at the conflux of two rivers; they crossed the Rock River into a town called Moline, finding it swampy but navigable, but the river on the other side stopped her cold. It was the Mississippi, and the bridges were gone.

“Not good,” said Kira, surveying the wide river. She’d heard of the Mississippi, more than a mile wide in parts. Here it was narrower, though its widest gaps looked to be at least half a mile if not more. Much too far for the horses to swim, especially with Afa. “You think this was the war, or just wear and tear since then?”

“Hard to say,” said Samm.

Heron snorted. “Does it matter?”

Kira watched the water roll by and sighed. “I suppose not. What do we do?”

“We’re not getting Afa across without a bridge,” said Samm, “plus we’d soak the radio, and I don’t trust its claim of ‘water resistance.’ I say we follow the riverbank until we find a bridge intact.”

“North or south?” asked Heron. “This time the question actually does matter.”