Corvallis took all of this in while putting on his caligae, the sandal-like marching boots of the Roman legionary, and pulling his kit together as efficiently as was possible while focusing most of his attention on his phone. He had been sleeping in his linen tunic, overwrapped with his wool cloak. It was cold up here in the mountains and so he pulled the latter garment around him before stepping outside the tent. This weekend’s event was an informal, light-duty sort of affair, family friendly. They’d set up their camp in a meadow, but a phalanx of modern RVs was visible a quarter of a mile down the hill, in a parking lot at the road head. Generators were purring and electric lights shining down there. Corvallis stuffed his gear into his bag, slung it over his shoulder, and trudged down the slope. He smelled bacon cooking in one of the RVs. Through its window he saw a television monitor showing live network coverage—the RV had a satellite dish mounted to its roof. He slowed down and looked in through the window. The video feed was from LAX, where the first of those red-eyes had apparently just landed and disgorged its passengers. News crews were waiting to gang-tackle witnesses as they emerged from security. Most of the people on that flight had slept through the event, and many didn’t want to talk, but one alert fellow—a fashionably scruffy actor who had been flying from New York to L.A. for a job—had seen the flash in the corner of his eye while playing a game on his phone, and switched it over to video camera mode in time to capture the roiling orange mushroom cloud. So the first broadcast video of the destruction of Moab was simply a close-up of this man’s phone, held in his shaking hands. And, as far as it went, it sure enough looked like a mushroom cloud.

Corvallis walked across the parking lot to his Tesla, threw his duffel bag into the trunk, and climbed into the driver’s seat. His phone connected to the car’s onboard systems and the big video screen in the middle of the dashboard came alive. He dialed the twenty-four-hour hotline for his jet company and told them he needed emergency transportation from Missoula—the nearest town of consequence—to San Jose. They put him on hold. He did a quick scroll through emails and saw a lot of stuff, but nothing that couldn’t wait; the important thing was for him to get on the plane. So he shifted the Tesla into forward driving mode and began gliding silently across the parking lot, headed for the road that would take him down the mountain.