Around the globe, atmospheric anomalies have stabilized. Rain is falling in parts of Africa, Australia, and Central Asia where drought conditions had prevailed for decades. Two Category 5 Atlantic hurricanes have been downgraded to tropical storms, and even these seem to be abating further.

Is this the hour of salvation at last?

Ben-David has, moments before, delivered his keynote address to the representatives and heads of state of the assembled nations. I’m descending the steps to Amity Square. The hall behind me echoes with the ovation for Ben-David’s speech.

What had seemed unachievable until this instant has at once become not just practicable but inevitable. The species can grasp its own destiny. Humankind’s expedient and self-destroying impulses will not win out yet again.

What about Manning? I set his loss alongside the salvation of the planet. It’s crazy, I know. But in my mind the two stand equal. What keeps me (so far) from feeling devastated is the thought that Manning in some way wanted his fiery end. He felt in that moment, I’m certain, that his life meant something. As for Rachel, all my feelings of protectiveness have come flooding back. She was a vessel broken in a hundred places, who put herself back together for the one moment that meant everything.

I have a message from Dana in Israel, sent forty-eight hours ago. Earthmoving equipment and demolition engineers have arrived at the site of the Gehenna dig. Dana is there. She is witnessing the transformation firsthand. With the blessing of global leaders, the “portal to hell” will be sealed permanently beneath thousands of tons of basalt and sand.

I hear a scream behind me.

For a moment I think, Ah, a cry of joy.

Then conference-goers in panic begin streaming past me down the convention hall steps. I turn and look back. Hundreds are fleeing the hall.

“Ben-David!” someone cries. “Ben-David has been murdered!”

My blood goes to ice.

My hands and wrists are still wrapped from burns. My eyebrows, singed to the skin line, are just starting to grow back. My bare skull, salved in oil and antiseptic, is sheathed in a scarf.

I have no weapon.

I swim back up the steps, into the stampede.

“Who?” I’m shouting to anyone who might answer. “Who killed him?”

No one knows.

I find a policeman. The killer got away, he says. “He escaped into the crowd.”

I clutch the officer’s arm.

ME

How was Ben-David killed? With a gun?

POLICE OFFICER

Strangled. By hand. Choked to death.

I plunge back down the steps amid the throng. I don’t know where I’m going. I have no idea what I hope to do.

Am I running?

From what?

To where?

I try to summon Manning. What would he do?

As I’m thinking this, I spot Dana.

What the fuck?

She’s below me, on the steps, climbing toward me, toward the hall.

ME

Dana!

(rushing down to her)