Ten minutes ago, the people of the world had been about to greet the new century as if they were gathered at the railroad station to watch the circus roll into town—but instead something that looked much more like the Apocalypse had come thundering down the track. And strangely, in those first numbing instants after the blast, Gordian had tried to resist the truth of what had happened, pushing back against its intrusion, trying to make himself believe it was all a mistake, that some technician at the television station had hit the wrong switch, run some god-awful disaster film instead of the Times Square broadcast.

But he’d never been one to duck reality for very long, especially when it was coming on broadside.

Now, a pulverized expression on his features, he stood motionless, holding onto the couch for support, holding on as though the floor had tilted sharply underneath him. Yet as he stared at the television, largely overcome with shock, a small part of his mind continued to function on an analytical level, automatically interpreting the images in front of him, adjusting for scale, calculating the extent of the destruction. It was an ability—some might have called it a curse—he had brought home from Vietnam and, like a black-box flight recorder aboard an aircraft, that embedded observational mechanism would keep working even if the rest of him were emotionally totaled.

The fire at the bottom left looks like it could be a building. A large one. And above it, the bright teardrop-shaped spot there, that’s an extremely hot flame, reflecting a lot of light. Probably ignited gasoline and metal... a burning vehicle of some kind, then. Not a car, but more likely a truck or a van. Maybe even a bus.

Gordian drew in a long, shaky breath, but still didn’t think he could move without tripping over his own feet. Standing there with the television flashing its nightmarish overhead view of Times Square, and the news anchor stammering off disconnected snippets of information about what had happened, he remembered Vietnam, remembered the bombing runs, remembered the flames dotting the jungle like angry red boils. Whether playing tag with a Russian surface-to-air missile or looking down at a VC bunker that had just become the recipient of a five-hundred-pound bomb, he had known how to read the fiery dots and dashes of aerial warfare as signs of success, failure, or danger. He supposed he’d never expected that skill would be of use to him in civilian life, and right now would have given anything not to have found out he was wrong.

The strew of tiny dots, they’re bits and pieces of mixed debris. And that mottled black-and-red area where smoke is roiling up the thickest, that’s got to be ground zero.