Summary

1. Third person narration describes a gathering held at an unidentified time after the Seattle Earthquake. Sandy Sherman, the head of New York-based insurance firm Fitzsimmons-Sherman, asks a gathering of executives what they would be responsible for, in terms of payouts, if the building they were in (the Empire State Building) were to collapse. Narration describe show corporations were sued by the families of those killed in the Seattle Earthquake, and eventually held responsible: reasons why, narration comments, included the lack of catastrophe coverage available to corporations in the aftermath of terrorist attacks soon after the beginning of the Millennium. When narration returns its focus to the meeting, Sherman asks everyone there what his company’s plan should be. Nobody speaks up, except for a nervous junior executive who suggests that if the Empire State Building collapsed, everybody who worked for...