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curved gargoyles. A hint of what it had been, but enough to know it had been… breathtaking.
    Some of what lay in ruins was familiar. A dome here. A colonnaded entranceway there. Broken windows that had at one time been so much like those of Ohrikee. I saw our history. I saw our past. And it was shattered.
    How did we recover from this?
    Wánměi had survived. Why? Hammurg, just a short distance away from Lunnon, had survived too. Why? Had we been the aggressors as we’d been led to believe the Uripeans had? Were we as bad as the u-Pol?
    And where did that leave Merrika? Good or bad? Survivor or victor?
    I had so many questions and there was no one who I could ask.
    Chew-wen had not so much changed our history, but removed it. Would returning it solve a thing?
    I rubbed at my forehead as we continued to walk down rubble strewn streets, climbed over fallen masonry, crawled through broken windows and abandoned buildings, and dirt filled alleyways. There was no sign of life anywhere, but those Lunnoners had to have come from somewhere.
    “Our scouts managed to follow their trail to here,” Cardinal Beck advised quietly to my side. “It is hard to say which direction they came from, as their tracks have been washed clean in recent rainfall.”
    I stared at the crossroads we stood at, if you could call the open space an intersection. Several buildings lay across it, the remains of vehicles crushed in the middle. Wide pathways covered in dust and debris. Plant life making a valiant attempt at replacing what had at one time been mere concrete. How our scouts had tracked the Lunnoners this far was a miracle alone. But the options for where they would have come from were still limitless.
    “Where have we covered so far?” I asked, shifting in my crouch to allow blood flow to my feet. We were hidden, in case we could be seen. But whether or not there were survivors to see us, remained a mystery.
    I hoped so. Everything hinged on finding them. Whether our reception would be just as lethal as that given us by their counterparts was debatable. Had that been their only security?
    “We’ve covered the east along our entry point and to the west, farther along this thoroughfare, but nothing stood out.”
    “So we go north?”
    “There is a large structure to the north, undoubtedly a palace of some description,” Beck advised. “Satellite imagery shows it is utterly destroyed, but the footprint would indicate it had at one time been impressive. The land surrounding it is vast, and for a city of this size, land would have been at a premium.”
    “Destroyed enough to not provide a possible haven?”
    “It is hard to say, but south of here has also been heavily ruined. In all honesty, I don’t think there is anywhere suitable for a permanent settlement.”
    “We found somewhere.”
    “Our current base is heavily guarded. Your father’s soldiers are stretched to their limit to protect it and yet it is still out in the open. It is an obvious choice for us,” the Cardinal hurried on to explain. “As falling back to the river is possible. But we have a means to navigate the shipping lane, with a boat lying out off shore waiting to back us up. Those who have chosen to stay here do not. We have seen no evidence of a vessel, small or otherwise, which could offer that kind of cover.”
    “Your suggestion then?”
    “Would they have had a Rap-Trans?”
    A rapid transit system like Wánměi’s. My eyes darted down to the dirt strewn ground at my feet and I smiled. Of course they would have had a way to navigate their streets. Or more precisely, a way to avoid the crush that would have existed on their streets.
    “Calvin,” I said into my earpiece.
    “Searching now, Lena,” my Shiloh replied. “Underground,” he said after a few minutes. “Not very original, and quite frankly more of a direction than a name, but the Lunnoners did call their rapid transit system The Underground.”
    “You know, Beck,” I said, preparing to