No one seems to know what happens to those who are taken away, but none of them come back. The guards who escort these groups are a couple of humans with a couple of scorpions as backup. The human guards are stoic and talk as little as possible, which makes them even scarier.

Over these fear cycles, I lose track of time as I doze in and out. I don’t know if we’ve been here for hours or days.

When a door clanks, we know another group is leaving.

As they march past us, I recognize a few of the faces. One is the father who was separated from his son. His eyes search frantically for his boy among those of us left behind bars. When he finds him, tears stream down his face.

The boy is in the cell across from mine. The other prisoners gather around him as he shakes with tears, watching his father march away from him.

One of the men starts to sing “Amazing Grace” in a beautiful, deep baritone. It’s a song whose words many of us don’t know, including me, but we all recognize it in our hearts. I hum along with everyone else as the doomed group walks past us.

CIGARETTES. Who knew they’d be such a problem at the end of the world?

There are a few smokers in our cell, and one of them passed them around. We’re jammed together so no matter how hard the smokers try, they can’t help but blow into someone’s face. In California, you might as well spit on someone as blow smoke on them.

“Seriously, can you please put that out?” a guy asks. “Don’t you think it’s bad enough in here without you polluting the air?”

“Sorry. If there was ever a time when I needed a cigarette, this is it.” The woman squashes out her cigarette against the wall. “A double latte sounds great too.”

Two other prisoners continue smoking. One of them has tattoos on his shoulders and along his arms. The designs are intricate and colorful and were clearly done in the World Before.

There were gangs here in the Bay Area before the angels came. Not many and they stayed in their small territories, but they were here. They’re probably the reason the street gangs grew so fast. They were already organized and established. They were the first to take over the stores and then they started recruiting.

My bet is that this guy was one of the original gang members. He gives off an air of the ‘hood that Silicon Valley engineers just can’t copy, regardless of what they’ve done on the streets in the past couple of months.

“What you worried about, vegan boy?” asks Mr. Tattoo. “Lung cancer?” He leans over to the other guy and fake-coughs in his face, exploding smoke all over him.