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Mitchell. “Right. Well, for instance, China blockades Taiwan.” Mitchell hesitated, glancing at Charnoble. Charnoble was nodding eagerly, grateful.
    “China has threatened it before,” Mitchell continued. “It’s just a matter of time before it happens. The Taiwan Relations Act mandates that any act of aggression against Taiwan be considered a threat to the security of the United States and will trigger the use of military force.”
    Nybuster nodded, taking this in.
    “The U.S. sends missile carriers to the Taiwan Strait. China bombs Taipei. The U.S. bombs Beijing. China starts firing intercontinental ballistic missiles at San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle. Jin-class submarines surface off the Atlantic coast, launching warheads at Boston, Miami, Washington, D.C., and New York.”
    “Mm.”
    “Nybuster, Nybuster, and Greene’s employees will all have fled the city for the heartland, or Canada, or Mexico. Or they’ll have died. Either way, it’s irrelevant. The country as we know it will be gone. Where the major cities once stood, there will now be only radioactive wasteland. The economy as we know it will cease to exist, and every equity—except some of those listed on the Hong Kong and Shanghai exchanges—will plunge close to zero. The dollar will be inflated beyond all possible utility, and those unlucky enough to survive the initial blast will be forced to employ a highly volatile bartering system, with water and food the most expensive commodities.”
    “Good God,” said Nybuster. “But you’re not exactly telling me anything new, are you? Or particularly useful. Listen, I’m out of time.”
    “But there’s a more likely scenario,” said Mitchell. He felt something powerful moving through him now, a dark energy. “China blockades Taiwan; the U.S. sends missile carriers to the Taiwan Strait. China threatens to bomb Taipei—but they don’t act. They’re not stupid. Sure, they’ve threatened a first-strike nuclear attack at the first sign of U.S. aggression, but they don’t want to bring on the apocalypse. Taiwan isn’t worth the loss of every major Chinese city, the massive destabilization of the yuan, the collapse of the economy.”
    “Right, but—”
    “Imagine, instead, a low-grade attack. Chinese sleeper agents are activated in every major U.S. city. Cyberattacks strain the electrical grid, checkerboarding it. Kidnappings, corruption, political murders begin to occur. Slowly at first, then more frequently. Why? No one knows. Policemen are assassinated by the dozen. Prominent journalists begin to vanish. The managing partner of your own firm is going out for his early-morning swim at his home on Long Island when a band of Chinese agents stun him with a taser and throw him into the back of an armored truck. Your managing partner wakes up in a dungeon, four levels below Canal Street, his wrists cinched to his ankles, an apple in his mouth.”
    “Are you aware,” said Nybuster, in an uncharacteristically quiet voice, “are you aware that the managing partner of Nybuster is my father?”
    “Certainly he didn’t mean to suggest,” said Charnoble, “in a manner of speaking—”
    “That will be fine,” said Nybuster. “Zukor, you have my attention. Please, continue. By all means—continue. What happens to my father in the dungeon? Begin with the part about the apple.”
    8.
    The pitiful little cardboard box containing Mitchell’s possessions from Fitzsimmons Sherman awaited him at the FutureWorld office, accompanied by a brown envelope imprinted with the familiar sketch of the canoe and the girl with X ’s for eyes—the latest missive from the Maine hinterland. Elsa had enclosed an article from a scholarly journal, Current Biology , titled “The Fearless Wonder.” The subject of this study was a forty-four-year-old Iowa woman, Sarah Axon, who possessed a deformed amygdala—the almond-size mass of nuclei in the brain that controls the processing and recognition of fear. If