The Place Where Chicago Was

Abe Danniels travels across a future America reshaped by global encephalographic broadcasts that impose a pacifist inhibition, making direct killing impossible and forcing nations to wage symbolic International War Games while sealing devastated cities for decades. The social order fractures around enforced nonviolence and widespread vegetarianism, and displaced survivors labeled Jonahs are ostracized and left to wander. Danniels, who still consumes meat and resists ordinary constraints, navigates heat-blistered highways and uneasy generational divides as he nears the ruined urban zone once called Chicago. He ultimately employs false radio signals to simulate explosions, provoking official responses and revealing the moral and practical costs of eliminating war without resolving its aftermath.