"Go to Chicago." "Head for Chicago." "If you're still looking for America, go to Chicago."
Ten thousand mouths found a hundred thousand ears, the idea bouncing from person to person throughout the ruined Midwest. It wound its way through the caravans on the interstates to the traders who'd visit the ramshackle bunker towns to the children of crying, desperate parents. It shot outwards along I-90 to Toledo, I-94 to Detroit and from Milwaukee, I-65 to Indianopolis, I-55 to Springfield, and I-88 to Des Moines.
Many came from the caravans of people, roaming for a place to stay. Some came in what vehicles somehow still worked, roaring in from Reno to the west, while others fainted on the doorstep, walking all the way from Chatanooga to the south. The tramp of feet heading to Chicago never died out.
The Russians disappeared entire caravans. The Victorians whispered about the disease ridden city, and sent technicals every so often to capture individuals, never to be seen again. Yet still, they came.
They came young, infants swaddled by mothers who weren't theirs. They came old, and fell in ramshackle graves by the road side, buried next to the victims of the plague. Every day in the morning, you could hear the tramping of feet, and every day in the evening you could hear the chatter and see the fires. Where Kevin the coyote, driving Alysa from Reno, would chat with Leah from Louisville about how much a good tomato was worth. Where Jackson the ex-governor sat down with Hope the orphan to talk about the future of America. Where Captain Taylor finally found out where his old Master Sargeant lay, from Lieutenant Nicholas, the only survivor of his unit.
They came to Chicago, where America would find itself again.
-Opening narration to Reforging of America, the second movie in the trilogy America.
Larry Zenoulke, Reforging of America, produced by Iowa City Productions. 2103.
