“Maybe we are,” he said, “but Chuck Krantz is retiring, so I guess there’s a gleam of light in the darkness.”

“Thirty-nine great years,” she responded, and it was her turn to laugh.

He put the milk down. “You saw the billboard?”

“No, it was an ad on the radio. That NPR show I was telling you about.”

“If they’re running ads on NPR, it really is the end of the world,” Marty said. She laughed again, and the sound made him glad. “Tell me, how does Chuck Krantz rate this kind of coverage? He looks like an accountant, and I never heard of him.”

“No idea. The world is full of mysteries. No hard stuff, Marty. I know you’re thinking of it. Have a beer, instead.”

He didn’t laugh as he ended the call, but he smiled. Ex-wife radar. High-def. He put the Early Times back in the cupboard and grabbed a beer instead. He plopped a couple of hotdogs into water and went into his little study to see if the Internet was up while he waited for the water to boil.

It was, and seemed to be running at slightly better than its usual slow crawl. He went to Netflix, thinking he might re-watch an episode of Breaking Bad or The Wire while he ate his dogs. The welcome screen came up, showing selections that hadn’t changed since last evening (and the stuff on Netflix used to change just about every day, not so long ago), but before he could decide on which bad guy he wanted to watch, Walter White or Stringer Bell, the welcome screen disappeared. SEARCHING appeared, and the little worry circle.

“Fuck,” Marty said. “Gone for the ni—”

Then the worry circle disappeared and the screen came back. Only it wasn’t the Netflix welcome screen; it was Charles Krantz, sitting at his paper-strewn desk, smiling with his pen in his scarred hand. CHARLES KRANTZ above him; 39 GREAT YEARS! THANKS, CHUCK! below.

“Who the fuck are you, Chuckie?” Marty asked. “How do you rate?” And then, as if his breath had blown out the Internet like a birthday candle, the picture disappeared and the words on the screen were CONNECTION LOST.

It did not come back that night. Like half of California (soon to be three quarters), the Internet had vanished.

* * *

The first thing Marty noticed the next day as he backed his car out of the garage was the sky. How long had it been since he had seen that clear unblemished blue? A month? Six weeks? The clouds and the rain (sometimes a drizzle, sometimes a torrent) were almost constant now, and on days when the clouds cleared, the sky usually remained bleary from the smoke of fires in the Midwest. They had blackened most of Iowa and Nebraska, and were moving on to Kansas, driven by gale-force winds.

The second thing he noticed was Gus Wilfong trudging up the street with his oversized lunchbox banging against his thigh. Gus was wearing khakis, but with a tie. He was a supervisor at the city’s public works department. Although it was only quarter past seven, he looked tired and out of sorts, as if at the end of a long day instead of just starting one. And if he was just starting one, why was he walking toward his house next door to Marty’s? Also . . .

Marty powered down his window. “Where’s your car?”

Gus’s short laugh was humorless. “Parked on the sidewalk halfway down Main Street Hill, along with about a hundred others.” He blew out his breath. “Whoo, I can’t remember the last time I walked three miles. Which probably says more about me than you want to know. If you’re going to school, buddy, you’re going to have to go all the way out Route 11 and then hook back on Route 19. Twenty miles, at least, and there’ll be plenty of traffic there, too. You might arrive in time for lunch, but I wouldn’t count on it.”

“What happened?”

“Sinkhole opened up at the intersection of Main and Market. Man, it’s huge. All the rain we’ve been having might have something to do with it, lack of maintenance probably even more. Not my department, thank God. Got to be twenty cars at the bottom of it, maybe thirty, and some of the people in those cars . . .” He shook his head. “They ain’t coming back.”

“Jesus,” Marty said. “I was just there last evening. Backed up in traffic.”

“Be glad you weren’t there this morning. Mind if I get in with you? Sit down for a minute? I’m pooped, and Jenny will have gone back to bed. I don’t want to wake her up, especially with bad news.”

“Sure.”

Gus got in the car. “This is bad, my friend.”

“It sucks,” Marty agreed. It was what he’d said to Felicia last night. “Just got to grin and bear it, I guess.”

“I’m not grinning,” Gus said.

“Planning to take the day off?”

Gus raised his hands and brought them down on the lunchbox in his lap. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll make some calls, see if someone can pick me up, but I’m not hopeful.”

“If you do take the day, don’t plan to spend it watching Netflix or YouTube videos. Internet’s down again, and I’ve got a feeling it might be for good this time.”

“I’m assuming you know about California,” Gus said.

“I didn’t turn on the TV this morning. Slept in a bit.” He paused. “Didn’t want to watch it anyway, to tell you the truth. Is there something new?”

“Yeah. The rest of it went.” He reconsidered. “Well . . . they’re saying twenty per cent of northern California is still hanging in there, which means probably ten, but the food-producing regions are gone.”

“That’s terrible.” It was, of course, but instead of horror and terror and grief, all Marty felt was a kind of benumbed dismay.

“You could say that,” Gus agreed. “Especially with the Midwest turning to charcoal and the southern half of Florida now basically swampland fit only for alligators. I hope you’ve got a lot of food in your pantry and freezer, because now all the major food-producing regions of this country are gone. The same with Europe. It’s already famine-time in Asia. Millions dead there. Bubonic plague, I’m hearing.”

They sat in Marty’s driveway, watching more people walking back from downtown, many dressed in suits and ties. A woman in a pretty pink suit was trudging along in sneakers, carrying her heels in one hand. Marty thought her name was Andrea something, lived a street or two over. Hadn’t Felicia told him she worked at Midwest Trust?

“And the bees,” Gus continued. “They were in trouble even ten years ago, but now they’re completely gone, except for a few hives down in South America. No more honey, honey. And without them to pollinate whatever crops might be left . . .”

“Excuse me,” Marty said. He got out of the car and trotted to catch up with the woman in the pink suit. “Andrea? Are you Andrea?”

She turned warily, lifting her shoes as if she might have to use one of the heels to ward him off. Marty understood; there were plenty of loosely wrapped people around these days. He stopped five feet away. “I’m Felicia Anderson’s husband.” Ex, actually, but husband sounded less potentially dangerous. “I think you and Fel know each other.”

“We do. I was on the Neighborhood Watch Committee with her. What can I do for you, Mr. Anderson? I’ve had a long walk and my car’s stuck in what appears to be a terminal traffic jam downtown. As for the bank, it’s . . . leaning.”