The silence of the necropolis, a vast crypt for millions of the Disappeared, seemed to press the air out of him. Kip turned back to gaze down the shadowed canyon of the old financial district. The intersection of Water and Wall was a wrecking yard of yellow cabs, private cars, and one armored van that had been broadsided by a dump truck and knocked completely over. The impact had smashed open both rear doors, and a few buff-colored sacks of old money still lay unwanted on the ground. None of the salvagers bothered with the dead currency, which long since had been replaced by the less valuable New American Dollar. They had returned to attacking the tangle of metal with earthmoving equipment, sledgehammers, chains, and pure grunt.

It was the loudest noise in the city.

Kip shook his head and turned back.

"Come on," he said. "Let's keep going."

At the corner of the JP Morgan Building they encountered the weather-worn facade of the New York Stock Exchange. A large soiled and tattered American flag hung loosely from the Roman columns of the neoclassical structure, held in place by creeping vines as much as by nylon ropes. Kipper had never been to Wall Street, or New York City for that matter, and photographs of the Street always made it appear larger than life. Now, here, in the presence of what had been the most powerful engine of capitalism on the planet, it felt small and almost claustrophobic.

Down at the end of the street he could see a church of some sort, dwarfed by the skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan. Kipper wasn't a religious man, but the sight of the steeple deepened his melancholy, driving it toward the deeper blue depths. More than a few nut jobs had proclaimed their own end of days interpretations of the Wave. For his part, he still believed that there had to be a rational explanation.

But what that explanation was, nobody knew.