Summary

9. Mitchell spends as much as ten hours a day researching disasters, their causes and effects, and their potential costs to businesses and humanity. He uses the information he gathers (on earthquakes, storms, epidemics, solar flares, and even the End of Days predicted in the Bible’s Book of Revelation) to create scenarios of destruction that he, in turn, uses to convince potential clients to make use of Future World’s services. He becomes so enthused about what he is learning that one of his recurring thoughts relates to how thoroughly he is showing Elsa how wrong she is to be so optimistic as to try and live a self-sufficient life.

Meanwhile, Future World signs more and more clients, and Mitchell’s mother becomes increasingly concerned about him, telling him to find ways to stop obsessing over so many triggers for...