S1, E1 | The Common People

​Series Premiere

Jolting beneath his covers, a dark skinned gentleman with his hair tied back into blonde-highlighted braids pushes himself off the comfort of his cushion mattress and glances around the room at the sound of tapping. “Ahh shit” he groans, pressing the palm of his hand against his face as he lays beneath the covers, his mostly-nude figure allowed to keep its dignity as the woman responsible for the knocking at his door steps in.

“Are you at least slightly decent?” a woman inquires, her pale face marked with a scar beneath her left eye whilst her dark hair falls over each shoulder. “I’m wearing underwear if that’s what you’re asking” the newly-awakened man responds in an unnaturally deep voice, his palms running down the length of his face as he tries to wipe the exhaustion from it.

Without warning, the man is startled once more by the plastic bag that flies through the air and drops into his lap, giving him little chance to react accordingly. “It was dropped off for you an hour ago. I’m sure it’s been sitting outside your door ever since, so I’m not sure if anyone caught a peek of what’s in it other than me” the woman remarks, continuing to stand at the door with her arms hanging by each side, waiting for the man to do anything other than linger around in bed.

“The man owed me a favour” the near-nude man responds, groaning as he turns in bed and removes the comforter from atop him, pressing his feet onto the cold, tiled floor, “it gets cold during the winter, Velma.” Rolling her eyes, the woman looks to her right and stares at the massive green wall just beyond the quarters that they share, watching the man remove a cosy sweater from within the wrinkled, plastic grocery bag.

“Everyone in the park knows that it gets cold during the winter, Leon. I don’t want to hear that excuse” Velma responds beneath the coverage of a clearly-worn winter coat, “having a sweater made for you while everyone else freezes is at least a bad look if nothing else.” Taking his gift and setting it down at the bottom of his pillows, Leon climbs out of the bed with a sigh before traipsing over toward the kitchen, which clearly still appears like the minibar and simple food preparation platforms that it’d initially served the purpose as.

“We’ve got most people crammed together- at least two per a unit- in everything from the apartments on Boylston, to the old senior centre a few blocks down the road, and even in makeshift sheds in the Guitar Center building across the street” Leon rebuttals, running the water in his sink before letting it pour into a kettle that he lifts onto a burner already plugged into the wall.

“Meanwhile, I live here. I live in a suite in the old ballpark with no roommates, running water, working electricity, and a beautiful view of the Green Monster right outside my door” he continues, noticing the unamused expression of the woman across from him, her head taking a second glance toward the coloured wall over her shoulder, “of all the things that don’t make me look good, a sweater is the farthest thing from the worst of them.”

“Can you put on some fuckin’ pants?” Velma inquires, changing the course of the conversation knowing the prior one would never have amounted to anything worthwhile. “I will after I’m done setting up my coffee” Leon responds, flicking on the kettle before reaching for a tin can in the corner of the countertop, earning a disgusted look from the woman across the room.

“I’ll never understand how you can fuckin’ drink that shit” Velma responds, her nose scrunching as she looks away, amusing the man that gently lowers a spoon into the can’s contents as whilst she shakes her head, “it’s not true fuckin’ coffee.” Smirking, Leon scoops a lighter texture than typical coffee grounds from within and drops them into a french press, placing a lid on top of the container that he returns to its rightful home.

“I’m not from here and Dunkin’s not coming back. If you like coffee, you’ll have to get with the times, Velly” Leon responds, watching the girl’s head continue to shake as he rounds the countertop, approaching the dresser set up in the corner of the room with a smirk. “We didn’t invest in planting so much chicory for nothing, you know?” he furthers, freeing a pair of black sweatpants from within the hardwood furniture piece before dipping his feet into the legs one at a time.

“It’s fuckin’ sacrilege that I won’t take part in” Velma rejoinders, hearing the man’s laugh without allowing it to affect her unchanged, revolted visage. Shrugging his shoulders without seemingly caring about the woman’s conclusion, Leon pulls the waistband up over his hips and looks toward his visitor, leaning forward with his arms pressing into the tops of his legs as he remains shirtless and cold.

“Did you come here to complain about how I take my coffee?” he wonders aloud, watching the woman’s eyes fall back upon him from the place within the room that she’s occupied throughout the conversation’s duration, “I really doubt you came here just to give me my delivery. We have people for that.”

Replacing her repulsed expression with a subdued smile, Velma turns to face the man to her side with the faintest nod preceding her reply. “They’re pulling up now” she responds, watching the man’s humoured expression fall to one of a more normal neutrality, his upper body pulling back in the seat that he takes before starting the journey of looking for a shirt.

“They’re back a day earlier than I was expecting” Leon responds, pulling out the drawer of the storage compartment beneath the one he’d chosen his pants out of, focusing solely on one side of the sliding shelf that he retrieves a light grey, long sleeved shirt from. “Being early isn’t the only thing they decided to surprise us with” Velma adds in, watching the man throw one hand through the first sleeve before pausing as he takes the comment into thought.

Squinting curiously, the man remains stoic for a moment before deciding to finally free his flesh from the cool breeze of cold air that makes it beneath the suite’s door and any other part of the room having gone without proper insulation treatment since the fall of society. “They brought a new person with them” Velma remarks, taking the man’s continued silence as an invitation to offer context for her rather worrying claim.

Having been given enough time to prepare his chicory coffee as properly as he could, Leon holds the door open for his female acquaintance and follows her lead down the wrapping assortment of concrete levels, the three rows spectator seats that had once occupied them having been torn out and discarded long ago. Feeling their breath hit their faces, the pair advance beyond the variety of other suites that house some lucky few whilst others host a variety of purposes from storing boxes of future goods or computers and radios for future contact.

Advancing beyond a wide, yet oddly narrow room directly behind what used to serve as home plate, the pair step onto a platform painted a bright shade of yellow before Leon begins repeatedly spinning a crank on the machine’s side. Gradually descending lower, the raised floor becomes anything but as they draw closer toward ground level, the chain attached to the gears gradually shifting a wooden contraption housing cinder blocks that are manoeuvred out of the way at the same pace as the lift falls.

Eventually finding themselves as close to the ground as they’re going to get, the pair begin descending the steps toward what had once been the baseball diamond, but now hosts a variety of sheds, huts, tents, and wooden structures acting as stands to small businesses. “You said they were in the eatery?” the man inquires, looking toward the woman as she nods in response, carrying one with each step matching the man’s own.

Drawing closer to the centre of town, the buildings that they begin to pass become less quaint and more sophisticated, towering over the others in comparison. Ranging anything from three to five stories high, towers stretch out from the middle of the field built out of nothing more than some rebar and poured concrete, looking over the much smaller buildings throughout the stadium base that host barren gardens atop them, picked clean of their harvest as the cold sets in for the season.

Rounding the corner with a look of intense displeasure, Leon leads the charge that he soon brings to an end, the woman that had accompanied him stopping at the exact same point. “And you’re sure you don’t know who the person with them is?” he asks aloud, watching as their friends’ backs remain turned toward them, unaware of their arrival, but likely more informed about the blonde lady that they’ve brought with them than the camp’s leader is.

“All I know is that she’s a woman, she’s blonde, she’s white, and that’s it” Velma responds, entirely clueless over anything that a soul with functioning eyes wouldn’t be privy to. Letting a sigh leave through his nose, Leon begins marching forward, not appearing keen on wasting time in addressing the elephant in the room that shares in a warm meal alongside the people he’d awaited the return of for all too long.

“You’re a day early” he comments aloud, drawing closer to the pair that immediately glance back with a grins, equally pleased to see the man as they step out of their seat. “We figured it wouldn’t be that big of a deal” the woman with lighter hair than Velma responds, climbing out of the picnic table she’d inhabited alongside the much more tanned soul she’d travelled with whilst he wipes sauce from around his mouth.

“It’s not, Sidney” Leon responds, trying to put on as welcoming of a tone as he can muster through his obvious reservation, hugging the woman that steps into his arms whilst her friend does the same with the woman beside him. “Welcome home, you fuckin’ nutcase” Velma greets, pressing her chin against the man’s shoulder before switching over to the group’s leader.

Exchanging pleasantries amongst each other, the reunited halves are brought away from the joyous occasions of the safe conclusion to their travels by the intrigue that brings the diamond’s shot-caller to them instead of vice versa. Letting go of his hug with Jay whilst Velma and Sidney put their embrace to a much similar end, Leon advances two steps beyond the trio that now stands behind him whilst locking eyes with the table, seeing one figure without a name occupying the side opposite the ones his friends had taken up.

“I’m sorry, guys. I really wish I could celebrate with you in good faith, but I’ve got a question on my mind that I’d really like an answer to” Leon proclaims, tucking one hand into the pocket of his casual pants whilst the other points toward the table, “were either of you two planning on telling me who the fuck this person is?”

Wrapped in a pair of heavy coats with a face flushed for warmth, the blonde woman rests one elbow against the picnic table’s surface whilst the hand of her other arm gently caresses the outside of a steaming mug. “She’s not dangerous” Jay quickly interjects, stepping up to his concerned friend’s side with his hand gently resting upon the man’s shoulder.

“I take that as an insult” the unnamed woman remarks, looking away from the dark skinned figurehead opposite her in favour of commenting on that declaration, her demeanour unchanged from the composed and seemingly-peaceful demonstration it presents. “You’re seriously gonna want to hear what she has to say” Jay assures, whispering toward the leader that immediately locks eyes with him.

“Who the fuck is she?” Leon asks again in a hush, swaying his head from side to side with lifted eyebrows, asking as if not truly worried about her lack of identity, but genuinely wanting to be given insight into them. “You’ll have to ask her that yourself” Jay responds, pulling his comforting palm away from the man’s shoulder before lifting both hands in surrender, “there’s no justice I can do to what she’s got to say better than she can.”

Slightly lowering his eyelids closer together, Leon frowns sarcastically before turning his face back toward the woman across the dirt lot from him, tucking his second hand into his pocket, “who are you?” Stepping forward, the man closes in on the table whilst he asks the question, letting his hands press against its surface as he stares down at the stranger, watching her chapped lips part to speak as he does.

“My name’s Jaime” she answers, lifting the mug that steam rises out of toward her lips before pausing, carrying a squint toward the ceramic container that she soon points to, looking back at the man standing before her with a strange scowl, “this coffee is awful, by the way.”

= Athens of America is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and his entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 1 onwards =

Returning a glass of water to the surface of the circular bar table she sits at one end of, Jaime looks toward the man directly opposite her with a shrug, her lips pressing together as her back leans against the plastic support of her seat. “That’s my story” she comments, not skipping a beat in presenting her case to those who’d asked to hear it, waiting for a response from any of them without knowing how long one will take.

With his arms crossed, Leon stares at the woman without any noticeable judgement appearing through his visage, neither reservation or devotion toward believing the recitement provided to him. “For what it’s worth, she said the exact same thing in the car yesterday” Jay chimes in, standing against one side of the suite’s door whilst Velma occupies the other, “the city was empty like she said it was, all of those military vehicles leaving fits the profile, and she is who she says she is.”

Watching his reunited friend as he speaks before turning toward the girl who’d endured the journey alongside him, Leon stares at the light brown haired girl in the corner of the room, her arms crossed as she leans against the point in which two walls meet. “And the part she said about the bomb?” he wonders aloud, finding the conclusion to her tale to be the most difficult part to recall.

“There was a bomb. It hit the city, but we didn’t take any damage from it other than the windows on the truck being shattered” Sidney assures, nodding in agreement with what was said in a way that satisfies her compound’s leader, his eyes trailing back to the subject of his inquiry. “They put me in the backseat after they picked me up. I saw what the city looked like a few seconds after it was hit...” Jaime continues, standing by her statement as she shakes her head, “...the tower was still standing.”

“So you don’t think the blast was as bad as they made it out to be?” Leon inquires, more so double-checking with his assumption already being just that. “I think they figured I’d just run for the hills and they’d come looking for me once they got back to the mainland” Jaime answers, unwavering in her stance in a way that intrigues the stadium-based leader, her shrug insinuating that their motivations never mattered, “I figure they may find this place eventually, but they wouldn’t expect me to be here.”

For a moment, Leon continues to look at the woman without uttering a word, his considerate expression holding firmly upon her without any thought to be read into, his curiosities not made specific through just the glimpse of his expression alone. Still without a reply, he reaches for the white mug a short distance from him and lifts it to his lips, pausing before he can take a sip as he watches a scowl come over the west coast native.

“How can you stomach that shit?” Jaime questions, her bitter look of disgust held toward the cup in the man’s hand, watching as he waits a beat before following through on his effort, sipping from the mug as loudly as he can whilst those that line the room laugh with amusement, though Velma mixes her humour with a revulsive frown. “Ahh!” Leon sighs with relief as he lowers the mug, clicking his tongue as he licks his lips before delivering the new arrival to his community a smile.

“Because I’ve invested way too much time in planting chicory to let anything go to waste... The roots included” the leader answers, watching the woman’s head shake with a curl in her upper lip. “I can’t imagine you have very much room for investment” Jaime retorts, looking past Jay in favour of pointing an eye toward the dirt-covered rooftops of the buildings that litter the former baseball diamond, “I don’t know what the Red Sox did, but their stadium isn’t big enough for a functioning community.”

“That’s why we branched out not long after we moved in” Leon replies, addressing the woman’s comments with composure and a cool head, treating her as if she were company he didn’t mind sharing space with, but was still the owner of the land they were meeting atop. “Our community is everything inside of Park Drive, Boylston Street and Beacon Street. That includes the stadium” he adds on, reclaiming the mug for another sip as he does, “we make what we need and protect what we have.”

“Protect what you have from who?” Jaime quickly asks back, her tone just as relaxed and unbothered as the man across from her, only for the attention that she gives him to be called for elsewhere by the answer provided at her side. “People that didn’t like the way that we chose to live when we started building up this place” Velma answers, her arms crossed at the cool chill that runs through the very top of the suite’s entrance, “they wanted to barter while we wanted to live communally.”

“What does that mean?” the Angelino-originating visitor questions back, unsure of what’s meant by the pair of seemingly-opposing ways of operating, only for the man that she’d answered to throughout the last hour to take his turn in answering someone else’s question. “Why don’t we show you instead of continuing to sit around here going back and forth?” Leon proposes, looking at the woman with a patient face as he allows her to decide for him, willing to wait however long it takes.

Not needing long, Jaime puckers her bottom lip and climbs off of her barstool, tossing her hands toward the suite’s entrance with a shrug, “lead the way, captain.” With a subdued chuckle, Leon juts his eyebrows up and climbs off the table, watching as Jay steps ahead of the pack to open the door, freeing the space for those within the suite to venture beyond it before watching the group’s leader turn back suddenly.

“Before we go, I feel like I’m not being a good enough host” Leon comments, looking toward Jaime before glancing at his own coffee in hand, “if you don’t like the coffee, is there some other drink you’d like before we give you a tour?” Taking in a deep breath, the visitor at the very back of the group looks toward the floor before spinning around, letting her eyes lead their way to the makeshift kitchen in the back of the room before squinting.

“Have you got any bourbon?” Jaime inquires, continuing to stare at the counter before turning back, going a few seconds without receiving an answer and taking such a delay to be worthy of glancing back. “You want a glass of bourbon at ten o’clock in the morning?” Leon quips back, lowering his chin toward the ground as he looks toward the woman with a hint of curiosity, almost doubting that she’s serious.

“Do you see that field behind you? It was hosting Red Sox games a few years ago, and now it has a sad little concrete skyscraper in midfield...” Jaime retorts, a sarcastic and unserious tone carried through her rebuttal, “...is anyone really in a position to judge me for how early I start drinking in the day?”

With both eyebrows raised high, Sidney looks toward the rest of her group as they wear various expressions of amusement and pleasure, the leader of the group bowing before swaying his head in refusal to further question her tastes. With a grin, Jaime retreats to the kitchen and pours herself a glass of straight bourbon, politely returning the tall, bulky glass bottle where she’d taken it and advancing toward the door, passing the suite’s tenant as she does.

“Shall we?” she wonders aloud as their paths cross before she carries forward, following the lead of Velma whilst Leon stays behind for a few seconds, his grin widening as Sidney passes him a funny face as the last one to leave, the tip of her tongue pressing against her top two teeth with a grin. Letting out a sigh, the leader sips at his drink before following the trail that his group blazes, manning them from the very back of the line with a hand in his pocket.

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“You do the work that’s needed of you and, as long as you’re producing, you get what you need” Velma comments, leading the group of five down a road leading to a scenic street with orange cones standing at the entrance to it. “So the big guy back there decides that a job needs to be done, he finds people to do it, and then gives them food when they do it?” Jaime questions aloud, pointing her thumb toward the leader that continues to trail at the end of the line.

“Food, medicine, whatever. You take only what you need, bring it home and repeat the process the next day” Velma responds, doing so in lieu of Leon, who continues purposefully trying to keep to himself as their adventure progresses. “If you’re not pulling your weight, the people in charge of looking after whatever you need will be told to look out for you” the woman carries forward, watching a sceptical expression take shape upon the guest’s face.

“But we keep tabs on everything we have. If we’re running low on something, we’ll put a temporary limit on how much of it someone can take until we get more in stock” Jay adds in, travelling just beside Sidney a few feet behind the Angelino native. “I’m assuming you send people out scavenging for stuff when you start running low?” Jaime responds, genuinely investing in figuring out how the community operates with experience of her own running one differently.

“Ideally, we’ll be able to produce whatever we need in house” Velma assures, making it to the end of one street and entering one that wraps around the southern portion of the community, “it’s the logical next step now that we’ve established everything.”

“We’ve already started for what it’s worth, though. It’s not like we haven’t” Jay corrects, not wanting their way of life to be misunderstood, “that whiskey you’re drinking is made here. So is Leon’s awful coffee.” Rolling his eyes whilst shaking his head and staring at the river toward his right, Leon sips from his mug whilst the rest of the group continues to run through the tour just as they would any other.

“Hygiene products, carpentry work, concrete mixing, farming, clothing, and a lot more than that I’m pretty sure. We’re self-sufficient in all of that” the woman at the front of the group continues to explain, looking back to find her comments being received by their visitor, but not being what she focuses on the most.

Coming to a stop, Velma turns around and looks toward Jaime, who takes notice of this sudden pause before following the woman’s eyes toward the river, which is what had caught the Angelino’s eye the most. “There are five roads that connect us to Free Boston and every other passageway is blocked off or guarded” the dark haired, facially-scarred line leader explains, aware that there may be no better moment within the tour to address the elephant in the room than this one.

“Their northern border ends at the edge of Fenway Road, and our southern border ends here... At the end of Park Drive” Velma continues, pointing toward the sidewalk separating their asphalt walkway with the luscious park between the two societies, “everything between those two streets is neutral territory. Neither of us owns it, neither of us are allowed to keep our people from it. Those are the rules.”

“Says who?” Jaime quickly questions back, a squint carried in her eyes as she challenges the conclusion drawn, finding a lack of sense made in the declaration and wishing to see through it. “Says the deal that I signed with the people in charge over there” Leon answers from the back, re-earning the attention of those ahead of him as they guide their faces in his direction.

“One of the most important things for you to understand while you’re here is that there are two very different worlds separated by that little river” the man continues, stepping past the couple ahead of him in search of the visitor that watches him approach. “Across the river is Free Boston. You want to vote for your leaders? Go there. You want to buy and sell goods? Go there. You want to trick people into buying your phoney religion? Go there” Leon simplifies.

“I know you say all of those things like they’re bad, but that was what the United States was built upon” Jaime responds, watching the man’s face take a smile upon itself as he chuckles. “That’s how you ran your republic out west too, wasn’t it?” Leon inquires, watching the woman’s unphased expression carry with the rest of her head into a nod, only to experience the lack of a censor the leader across from her cares to wield, “...how did those communities end up working out?”

Straightening out, Jaime's face takes on a barely-noticeable scowl as she watches the man’s nod provide her all the rebuttal needed as his face takes across the river once more. “Luckily for you, Free Boston isn’t the same deal... It’s worse” Leon corrects, an eyebrow raised toward the distant skyline that had once represented Boston and been synonymous with the city from the perspective of an outsider, “Free Boston is as anarcho-capitalist as it gets.”

Following the man’s line of sight toward the skyline in the distance, Jaime takes her eyes toward the concrete filing cabinet-like building with an antenna at the very top, piercing the sky as the first thing that catches her eye. “If there’s police? Someone owns them. If there’s a fire station? Someone owns them. If there’s-” Leon explains, only to watch the visitor’s hand wave at him as she interjects.

“I get it, I get it. If you’re over there, you’re on your own until you own people or people own you. I’ve read about it in books” Jaime responds, wanting to do away with the doomsday speech in favour of getting to the point. “The bottom line is that if you’re over here and you ask someone for help, they ask ‘how and where?’...” Leon explains, cutting to the chase as desired as he points to the ground, the aim of his finger then drawing across the river, “...if you’re over there and you ask someone for help, they ask ‘what’s in it for me?’.”

“So south of Fenway Park, but north of Fenway Road is the post-apocalyptic communist option. And south of Fenway Road and to wherever the hell it ends is the post-apocalyptic free for all option?” Jaime questions aloud, looking toward the leader of the community she currently occupies the grounds of.

“That’s pretty much the gist of it” Leon responds, nodding in approval as he looks toward the public spaces between the two borders, “and if you know people across the river, the neutral zone is where you can come together and catch up before going your separate ways again.”

“So why aren’t more people leaving your community and taking their chances across the way?” Jaime challenges, crossing her arms as she proposes the thought to the man, who grins as he drops his head, “is everything already too bought and sold to get a foothold in over there? Because I can’t be the only one thinking I’m smart enough to work my way up to whatever the hell I want over there.”

“I’ve never had one of these tours in all the years that this place has been running without being asked that question at least once” Leon rebuttals, always humoured to see it happen again and again whilst waiting for the miraculous day where someone finally wouldn’t ponder the question aloud.

“You’d be shocked at how many people think that exact same thing only to come running to our borders begging to be let in” the communist-side runner confesses, doing so with a smile that proceeds to fade regretfully as his eyes wander back toward the natural border, “sometimes, it keeps me up at night how often we turn them away and have to let them know that there’s no place for them here.”

“We try not to expand beyond our means. As far as the fuckin’ treaty goes, Free Boston isn’t allowed to expand north of the old I-90. That cuts off the old downtown and anything above us, so there’s no boxing us in” Velma carries onward, addressing the concern about the community’s size, “until we have a reason to expand north ourselves, we live within our means. We can’t afford to house more than a couple dozen immigrants from across the river a year. Maybe a hundred at most?”

“Immigrants? God, you talk like you live in separate countries” Jaime responds, looking at the woman ahead of her with bewildered eyes, only for them to disappear when the man her back is momentarily turned toward doubles down on her assertion. “We do now. And if anyone should be able to see why we can make the decision to look at it that way, I’d expect it to be the person who came up with the idea of ‘the Angelino Republic’” Leon responds, offering an olive branch of respect to the woman, who appreciates the expectation he has that she can see things from his point of view.

Looking back across the river once more whilst keeping to herself, Jaime lets the air fall silent as her breath continues to cloud it, reminding the girl that the unfamiliar environment she now journeys lacks the warmth and sunshine that her homeland had. “If you feel like taking your chances over there, just say the magic word and we’ll let them know” Leon warns, housing his hands in the pockets of his warm sweatpants as he looks at the side of the woman’s rosy-cheeked face, “but the odds are not in your favour.”

“And to piggyback off of Leon’s point, we’ve taken in about three hundred defectors from Free Boston since we signed that treaty” Velma adds, reclaiming the new arrival’s line of sight, “we’ve had some go over and take their chances without ever coming back for one reason or another, but out of anyone that’s come here actually seeing what Free Boston is like... Not one of them has ever gone back.”

Drifting to the corner of her face before falling toward the pale asphalt they stand upon, Jaime’s eyes harbour the weight of what she’s being told for only a few seconds, inevitably taking toward the community’s leader in search for an answer that she’s intrigued with finding. “If they call their little country Free Boston, what do you guys call yours?” she wonders aloud, watching the man’s smirk meet her inquiry, “are you guys Communist Boston? Russian Boston? Soviet Boston?”

Chuckling with each new additional option, Leon shakes his head as her proposals reach their conclusion, replaced by silence that’s meant to afford him an opportunity to speak through. “Athens” he answers, straight-faced and serious as he looks into the somewhat satisfied look he receives from the inquisitive chancellor-turned-civilian.

“One of the city’s lesser-known nicknames was ‘the Athens of America’ and I liked that a lot more than calling our camp ‘Beantown’” he explains, sharing a brief giggle with the woman as their amusement comes to ahead with their eyes taking toward each other’s, looking for a glimpse of life in the other’s face.

“I like it” Jaime confesses, pulling her head back whilst staring into the well-meaning and seemingly genuine stare of the community’s leader, her eyes eventually drifting back to the woman at the front of the group. “Where to next?” the exiled chancellor asks aloud, watching Velma’s face grin whilst she lifts her bourbon glass to her lips, sipping from the very cold drink as their journey carries onward, leading them around the border street with the neighbouring nation and to the rest of the tour.

== Athens of America ==