Far below, .the dull blue snake of a canal. Two detectives in a boat. Slowly making their way northeast. Finch was about three hundred feet above them. Wyte was a large shadow with a white face, the boat a floating coffin. Dapple had been reduced to a kind of question mark. Not a good place to be. Anyone could've been on the ridge, looking down. Lucky for them it was just him.A steep hillside below Finch. Made of garbage. Stone. Metal. Bricks. The petrified snout of a tank or two. Ripped apart treads. Collapsed train cars pitted with scars and holes. Ragged, dry scraps of clothing that might've been people once.A dry smell hung over it all. Cut through at times by the stench of something dead but lingering. He'd been here before, when it had just been a grassy slope. A nice place. A place couples might go to have a picnic. Couldn't imagine it ever returning to that state.The weather had gotten surly. Grayish. A strange hot wind dashed itself against the street rubble. Blew up into his face.
