Dr. Tsui, an elderly astrophysicist and the leader of their project, started herding their team back into the building. “Stay calm, don’t rush, we have plenty of time,” he said, his tiny arms flailing about. With his lab coat, pocket protector, and large, black-rimmed glasses, he looked more like a pediatrician who refused to retire than the head of one of NASA’s most well-funded programs.

But Sophie didn’t want to leave. The view was captivating. A million trails of smoke rose into the sky, and a red haze danced across the horizon—it was the most beautiful and frightening thing she had ever seen. It took Emanuel’s strong grip to pull her away from the sight.

“My wife, my kids—they’re out there! I have to leave!” shouted one of the research assistants. Sophie knew him only as Henry; she hadn’t bothered to learn his last name. He was young, not more than thirty years old. Just a kid in a field dominated by fossils like Dr. Tsui.

“It’s not safe. Chances are they’re hunkered down and waiting out the storms like everyone else,” Emanuel said, trying to reassure the man.

“No. I told them to go to my in-laws if things hit the fan. They’re probably trying to evacuate the city. I have to find them!” he yelled, his voice getting more frantic.

Dr. Tsui stopped in the middle of the stairway leading to the basement. “No one goes anywhere. You stay here and work until the storm passes.”

“That’s my family out there, Dr. Tsui! What if I can’t find them after the storm passes?”

“We all have families. But we also have work. What if all the police officers and firefighters abandon their posts?” said a heavyset woman who worked in programming. She was one of the newer scientists whom Sophie hadn’t yet met. “Society will collapse if the most important people fail to do their duty,” she continued, her double chin bobbing up and down as she spoke.

Sophie brushed a strand of sweaty hair out of her eyes. “She’s right. We need to ride out the storm and do our jobs. Leaving isn’t going to do any good, anyways; it’s too dangerous.”

The young scientist started to reply but hesitated, opting to refrain from further argument. He continued down the narrow stairway, his head lowered in defeat.

The stairway led to a command center in the bowels of the basement. It was unbearably hot. A state-of-the-art air-conditioning unit was built to cool the room, but the engineer who had designed it failed to take into account the juice the computers would need when working at full capacity. Dr. Tsui was forced to reroute power from the cooling unit to the computers, which were sucking the backup generators dry. By midnight the temperature in the bunker was nearly ninety degrees.

The heat didn’t seem to bother Tsui. He nursed a cup of coffee in the corner, staring intently at the dozens of monitors attached to the concrete wall. He was sucking the information in like a leech, analyzing it every second.