Sophie watched from the cot she was sharing with Emanuel, trying to drown out the sound of the crying, the hushed voices, and the prayers from the dozen other scientists throughout the room. She laid her head down on the tiny pillow, turning to face him. His lips parted and revealed his perfectly aligned teeth. A chill crept down Sophie’s spine, making its way to her toes. She returned his smile and gripped his hands underneath the covers. As the lights faded and darkness carpeted the room, she slowly slipped out of her pants. He bent in to kiss her, pulling her chin toward his with his index finger.

Sophie hesitated, looking over his shoulder to see if anyone was watching. But the darkness shrouded them. With a silent sigh she pulled him closer until she could feel his warm breath on her neck.

Another chill raced down her legs. This time is didn’t make its way to her toes, but stopped just below her abdominals, lingering. She kissed him deeper, her hands running through his mop of dark, unkempt hair.

There was something about the world going to shit that made her want him even more, as if it were the last time she would ever feel intimacy. When she was in high school, she had had a conversation with a friend about things they would do if the world was ending. “I’d have sex with the cutest boy I could find,” her friend had said.

Sophie, on the other hand, had said she would spend the night staring at the stars—and yet, with the real possibility of the world ending, the thought of stargazing no longer appealed to her. Tonight she didn’t want to be a scientist; she wanted nothing more than to feel Emanuel, to wrap her legs around him. If the world was going to end, she wanted to share it with him.

The next morning Tsui woke them. “The storms have passed!” he yelled, flailing his arms in the air.

Emanuel reached for his glasses, while Sophie struggled to find her pants. Seconds later they were crowded around the monitors, watching the data stream in from stations around the world. He was right; the storm was over, but the damage to the Midwestern states was severe. Radiation levels were extraordinary. Those who had perished in the fires were the lucky ones; any survivors would die horribly painful and prolonged deaths from radiation poisoning.

“My parents,” Emanuel whispered.

A sudden chill ran down Sophie’s back. Emanuel’s family lived in Chicago, and by the looks of it the Windy City was dead center of the damage.

“Millions will die,” Tsui whispered, taking a long sip of his coffee.

Emanuel scowled, suddenly ripe with anger. “Bolton’s administration never took this storm seriously!”

“The damage is done. We need to continue to analyze the storm’s data and send it to the Department of Defense,” Tsui replied.

Sophie took a seat at her terminal, logging in with a swipe of her index finger. The stream of data was constant; new statistics were feeding into their system by the second from locations around the world. The dead zone appeared to run from the edge of the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi. Houston was on the border of the destruction, and while the city was busy being burned to the ground, the radiation levels appeared to be minimal.