11
SCORPIONS WERE STINGING the butterflies in my stomach. I stood behind a lectern on the stage as journalists filtered into our statement room. We were supposed to start an hour ago but everyone was running late. By dawn, tens of thousands of people had spilled out onto the Strip and other streets, blocking traffic, buying supplies and emptying out the stores of real food instead of nutrient tubes. There’d been an inexplicable run on toilet paper too. Toilet paper! Mendez didn’t need to reaffirm the importance of generating calm from our statement. She did anyway. This is your career. This is all of our careers.
I tried to visualize being at the circus to calm my nerves. The circus part wasn’t hard—these reporters already looked like carnival clowns below me. They stared up at the stage
